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A Series of Terracottas representing Artemis, found at Tarentum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

D. B. Harden
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Extract

Among the many thousands of terracottas recently recovered from the soil at Tarentum, there is one large group which has not yet received much mention in print. I refer to a series of some hundreds of female statuettes which have been identified by Duemmler and Winter as Artemis figures. The majority of these figures are at present in the Museo Nazionale at Taranto, though some few have found their way into museums elsewhere.

In the main type of the figures there is little variation. They usually range from eight to twelve inches in height, and are standing, female, draped figures each with one or more attributes. They all wear either a lion-skin head-dress, or a lion-skin apron; some, indeed, show both the head-dress and the apron. Most of the examples are single-moulded statuettes with unmodelled back, but there are a few which are almost reliefs. The figurines are for the most part rough and not retouched after moulding, though there are some finely modelled exceptions to this rule.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , 1927 , pp. 93 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1927

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References

1 Examples of the type are figured in Winter, , Die Typen der Figürlichen Terrakotten, vol. ii. p. 162Google Scholar, and also in Mon. Ined. d. Inst. vol. xi. Pls. LV, 1, and LVI, 11, and in Ann. d. Inst. 1883, Tav. d'Agg. P. 4 and 5. In January 1924 I visited Taranto (travelling under a grant from the University of Cambridge Craven Fund), and was able to take the notes upon which this article is based. Unfortunately Sig. Quagliati, the Director of the Museum there, refused to allow me either to have photographs taken or to take them myself. Consequently I regret that I have been unable to illustrate this article as well as I should have liked. My present illustrations I owe to the kindness of Dr. P. Herrmann, Director of the Albertinum, Dresden, who generously provided me with photographs of all the examples which his museum possessed. I should also like to express my gratitude to Mr. A. B. Cook of Queens' College, Cambridge, who has helped me in writing this paper with many valuable suggestions.

2 I shall throughout call these skins ‘lion-skins,’ but-it should be borne in mind that they do not usually show the shaggy mane which is characteristic of the lion as distinct from the lioness and all the other members of the feline tribe, and which usually appears on the Herculean lion-skin. Consequently in the majority of our examples we should be more correct in speaking of the skin as a lioness' skin. Perhaps this is to be expected when we consider the. sex of the goddess.

3 See Winter, l.c., Fig. 6.

4 See, e.g., Nos. 974 and 2908, Taranto Museum.

5 This example is in the Taranto Museum, but unnumbered. No. 2701 Taranto is similar but more fragmentary. I have not noticed any other examples. For the whole motive we may compare the Larnaka statuette of Artemis now in Vienna, for which see Farnell, , Cults of the Greek States, ii. p. 524Google Scholar, and Pl. XXX, a.

6 See Winter, l.c., Figs. 1, 3 and 6.

7 See Winter, l.c., Fig. 7.

8 See Winter, l.c., Fig. 6.

9 There is indeed a certain resemblance between the terracottas of this find and the figures of Hecate on the Apulian underworld vases which Furtwängler and others claim to be of Tarentine manufacture, and we know (Hesych., s.v. “Ἄφραττος) that there was a cult of Hecate, Ἄφραττος, at Tarentum. This might lead us to think that our terracottas also represent Hecate, but the resemblance to the vases need only signify that Hecate was affiliated to Artemis at Tarentum. For the vases see Furt-wängler-Eeichhold, Pl. X, and Mon. d. I., vol. ii, Pl. XLIX.

10 Anth. Pal., 6, 286.

11 s.v.,

12 8, 35, 6.

13 Yet it is worthy of mention that Artemis Soteira was a common cult in Dorian states, e.g. Megara, Acragas, Syracuse, and Boiae in Laconia, and it may well have spread to Tarentum also. There is a statue dedicated to Artemis Soteira now in the B.M., which shows the goddess clad in a short chiton and a fawn-skin, and so resembles the type of our terracottas (see Farnell, , Cults, vol. ii. p. 535Google Scholar, and Pl. XXXII, a).

14 One in Tar. Mus., and several others in the B.M. There are other examples in the Mus. Chigi, Siena. For these last see Milani, , Studi e Materiali, vol. i. p. 150Google Scholar, Nos. 63 and 64 (Pellegrini).

15 Not. Scav., 1881, p. 433.

16 Gaz. Arch., 1881, p. 166.

17 Riedesel, Baron, Travels through Sicily, etc., Eng. trans, by Forster, J. R., p. 175Google Scholar: see also Henry Swinburne, Travels in the Two Sicilies, who mentions this tradition in his account of Taranto.

18 This is at least certain, though when I was at Taranto I was unable to discover their exact provenance. Many of the terracottas of our type found their way to Naples, Oxford and German museums in company with ‘funeral banquet’ and ‘horseman’ types, and as these were found to the west of the Arsenal in the centre of the new town, probably our figures came from there also.

19 He gives two illustrations, Mon. d. I., 66, 1, and Ann. d. Inst., P. 5.

20 l.c.

21 In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford there are two of these figures, head and shoulders only, with the lion-scalp headdress, and they are there labelled Hera Lakinia. There does not seem to be any clear reason for such an identification when we consider the more complete examples of the type. The type usually recognised as Hera Lakinia on the coins of Croton and other cities of South Italy shows that goddess in a veil and Stephane. The usual attributes of Hera in Greek art are the Stephane, pomegranate, peacock and sceptre, none of which appear on any of our terracottas. Nor does Hera ever appear clad in the short chiton and hunting boots. It is true that the cult of Hera Lakinia was apparently widespread in Magna Graecia: still, we must look elsewhere than to these terracottas if we wish to find traces of it at Tarentum.

22 See, e.g., Artemis on one of the handles of the François vase, and further, see Pauly - Wissowa, s.v. Artemis, col. 1438.

23 For a full account of these figures see Lechat, , B.C.H. 1891, p. 1 f.Google Scholar, and for the lion types see especially pp. 82 and 83, and Plates II, 2 and 4, and V, 2.

24 For further instances of the lion in connexion with Artemis see the accounts of the votive offerings found in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta: Thompson, M. S., J.H.S. 1909, p. 293 f.Google Scholar (representations in lead of the Persic Artemis type); and Farrell, , B.S.A. vol. xiv. p. 63Google Scholar, Fig. 6 (terracottas very similar to those from Corfu). See also Paus. 9. 17. 2 (lion sculptured in stone in front of the temple of Artemis Eukleia at Thebes).

25 Cf. Pind. Pyth. 2, 12, where he refers to Syracuse as The lion was regarded by the Greeks as an emblem of the chthonic powers, in which connexion lions were sculptured on tombs. Hence the lion came to be connected with springs and water which rise out of the ground, and we might thus explain his connexion with Artemis Alphei-aia. For a further discussion of the lion in Greek religion in a chthonic connexion see Cook, A. B., J.H.S. 1894, p. 103 ff.Google Scholar, and especially p. 109 f. It is to that article that I am indebted for the above references.

24 See Kekulé, , Die Terrakotten von Sicilien, Pl. XXIV, 2 and 3.Google Scholar Cf. also Pl. XXV, 1, with note ad loc.

25 See Orsi, , Not. Scav., 1900, p. 360 ff.Google Scholar and Fig. 18.

28 Figured by Arndt, Einzelaufnahmen, No. 1797; also Reinach, , Répertoire de la Statuaire, 4, p. 188, 2.Google Scholar

29 See Reinach, op. cit., 4, p. 187, 4, and Ny-Carlsberg Glypt., Album de Planches, Pl. VII (89).

30 Reproduced in Arch. Zeit. 1849, Pl. XII. See also for the figure of Artemis alone, Dar.-Sagl. s.v. Diana. The whole scene is a representation of the meeting of Orestes and Iphigenia in Taurica. As the reproductions are bad, it is impossible to be sure whether the head-dress is a lion-skin or a panther-skin. It may be remarked in passing that Artemis is often similarly represented clad in a fawn-skin. as, e.g., on the statuette in the B.M. quoted above (Farnell, , Cults, vol. ii. Pl. XXXIIGoogle Scholar, a). So too on the statue of Artemis made by Damophon for the temple of Despoina at Akakesion in Arcadia, and also on the relief in the Ny-Carlsberg Museum at Copenhagen quoted below.

31 Op. cit.; see his Plates XI, 6, and XIII, 1 and 4.

32 See Arndt, , Mon. Antiques de la Olypt. Ny-Carlsberg, Pl. LXXXVIII.Google Scholar

33 See Orsi, , Not. Scav., 1900, p. 365Google Scholar, Fig. 8.

34 Polybius, 8, 30.

35 See Wide, S., Lakonische Kulte, p. 133 ff.Google Scholar

36 A parallel to such an affiliation of cult may be drawn from Ambracia, where, we are told, Artemis was originally worshipped in the form of a lioness. See for this Antoninus Liberalis, 4. Cf. also the Callisto myth in Arcadia, which seems to point to the goddess Artemis being affiliated to an original bear cult.

37 See Cook, A. B., J.H.S. 1894, p. 103 ff.Google Scholar, where he discusses this point very fully.

38 There is both archaeological and traditional evidence for a Cretan settlement at Tarentum.

39 In this connexion it should be mentioned that two other groups of cult terracottas found at Tarentum likewise show no examples prior to the fifth century B.C. in date. These are the figures of Apollo and the Muses, and the Dioscuri and ‘horseman’ types. Perhaps the rise of the Tarentine power and dominion after the democratic revolution early in the fifth century B.C. may explain this fact. Political prosperity would lead to the building of new temples and the revival of old cults.