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A Mycenaean terracotta figure from the Menelaion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

H. W. Catling
H. W. Catling
Affiliation:
Langford
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Abstract

An LH III wheelmade terracotta female figurine, found in the 1910 excavations at the Menelaion, Sparta, is illustrated and described. The context can be dated no later than LH III. An earlier suggestion that the piece is ‘provincial’ is discounted in the light of new material, particularly the so-called Lady of Phylakopi. Recent views on the nature of such figures are discounted. A summary list of comparable wheelmade figures of women, and of animals, is appended.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 90 , November 1995 , pp. 183 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1995

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References

1 I am grateful to the Managing Committee of the British School at Athens for allowing me to republish this object, and to Dr E. B. French and Mrs H. Clark for obtaining permission for me to work in the storerooms of the Sparta Museum. Dr Th. Spiropoulos, Ephor, and Ms Stella Raftopoulou, Epimeletria, of the Arkadia Lakonia Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities facilitated my work. I was helped by Elizabeth Catling (drawing) and Richard Catling (photography). The black-and-white prints used for Plate 26 were made by Mr Robert Wilkins (Institute of Archaeology, Oxford).

It is planned that other significant material from the 1910 Menelaion excavation should be republished in the final report on the excavation of 1973–85.

Abbreviations, other than in normal use:

Catalogue = Demakopoulou, K. (ed.), The Mycenaean World: Five Centuries of Early Greek Culture, 1600–1100 BC (catalogue of exhibition held in National Museum, Athens, 15 Dec. 1988–31 Mar. 1989; Athens, Ministry of Culture, 1988)Google Scholar

Demakopoulou = ead., Το μυϰηναïϰὸ ἱερὸ ᾿Αμυϰλαῖο ϰαὶ ἡ YE III Γ περίοδος στὴ Λαϰωνία (Athens, 1982)

Nicholls = Nicholls, R. V., ‘Greek votive statuettes and religious continuity c.1200–700 BC’, in Harris, B. F. (ed.), Auckland Classical Essays Presented to E. M. Blaiklock (Auckland and Oxford, 1970), 1–37Google Scholar

Renfrew et al. = Renfrew, C. E., The Archaeology of Cult: The Sanctuary at Phylakopi (London, 1985)Google Scholar

SCABA = Hägg, R. and Marinatos, N. (eds), Sanctuaries and Cults in the Aegean Bronze Age: Proceedings of the 1st International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens (Stockholm, 1980)Google Scholar

2 Dawkins, R. M., ‘Excavations at Sparta, 1910: the Mycenaean city near the Menelaion’, BSA 16 (1909–1910), 4–11.Google Scholar

3 Ibid. pl. 2 c, e–i.

4 Preserved in the archive of the BSA.

5 Such a location would have given an uninterrupted prospect to the S. See Fig. 1.

6 Dawkins (n. 2), 11.

7 Renfrew et al. 214, fig. 6. 4, the ‘Lady of Phylakopi’.

8 Taylour, , Antiquity, 43 (1969), 91–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 44 (1970), 270–80.

9 e.g. Kilian in SCABA 49–58.

10 French in Renfrew et al. 209–80.

11 Demakopoulou, 43–68.

12 Nicholls, passim.

13 SCABA 173–8.

14 Minoan Religion (Columbia, 1993), 225 ff.

15 Demakopoulou, 54–5, pl. 25.

16 AAA 6 (1974), 168, fig. 8.

17 Aegina, pl. 108. 22.

18 Renfrew et al., frontispiece, pl. 31.

19 AA 1978, 464, figs. 20–1; SCABA 49–58, fig. 6; Catalogue, nos. 25, 168.

20 Caskey, M., Keos, ii (1985)Google Scholar.

21 Taylour (n. 8).

22 Renfrew et al. 223–30, figs. 6. 13–14, pls 35–7.

23 Nicholls, 7.

24 e.g. Catalogue, no. 167.

25 Catalogue, no. 168.

26 Catalogue, no. 167.

27 Caskey (n. 20), 45–6, pls 4–7.

28 e.g. French, in Renfrew et al. 216.

29 Aegina, 374, no. 7, pls 108. 6; 109. 6.

30 Lak. spoud. 8 (1986), 208.

31 Lak. spoud. 3 (1977), 411–12; AR 1977–8, 31; 1978–9, 19.

32 Lak. spoud. 7 (1983), 23–5.

33 Renfrew et al. 215.

34 See e.g. Lak. spoud. 3 (1977), 412–13.

35 Demakopoulou, 57–63, pls 27–38.

36 Ibid., referring to no. 79, pl. 34.

37 Particularly clear with the female bust and arms modelled on a pot-body from Mycenae (Mylonas, G., AJA 41 (1937), 237–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pl. 8 b), but also the Mycenae figure in Catalogue, no. 167 ( = Antiquity, 43 (1969), pl. 13 c)

38 BSA 66 (1971), 174 (though she is in fact here speaking of figurines).

39 In Popham, M. R. et al. , The Unexplored Mansion at Knossos (London, 1984), 198.Google Scholar

40 ‘Η μινωïϰὴ θεὰ θεὰ μεθ’ ὑψωμένων χείρων (Herakleion, 1958).

41 Two figurines from the LH III A1 construction level mansion II are significant in the connection: see Catling, H. W. in Neue Forschungen in griechischen Heiligtümern (Tübingen, 1976), 87, figs. 8–9.Google Scholar

42 Renfrew et al.

43 Ibid. 415.

44 SCABA.

45 Nicholls (n. 1).

46 Renfrew et al. 427–9.

47 In his ‘Mykenische Kultstätten im archäologischen Material’, Op. Ath. 8 (1968), 39–60.

48 Renfrew et al. 427 ad fin.

49 Renfrew el al. 414, fig. 10. 1; 416, fig. 10. 2.

50 Since my concern has been with Mycenaean material, my list ignores Crete. I also omit Asia Minor.

51 A. Delt. 1970, Mel. 177 and 180.

52 Mylonas (n. 37).

53 Nicholls, 7 and pl. 2 b; discussed by Benzi, M., Rodi e la civiltà micenea (Rome, 1992), 167.Google Scholar

54 Bracketed because the material is considerably earlier than the other items listed here.

55 See n. 54.