Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context from beyond the Cyclades

From mainland Greece, the north and east Aegean

Marisa Marthari, Colin Renfrew, Michael J. Boyd

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781789250619
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This second volume on Early Cycladic (and Cycladicising) sculptures found in the Aegean, examines finds from mainland Greece, along with the rarer items from the north and east Aegean, with the exception of those discovered in the Cyclades (covered in the preceding volume), and of those found in Crete. The significance of these finds is that these are the principal testimonies of the influence of the Early Bronze Age Cycladic cultures in the wider Aegean. This influence is shown both by the export of sculptures produced in the Cyclades (and made of Cycladic marble), and of their imitations, produced elsewhere in the Aegean, usually of local marble. They hold the key, therefore, to the cultural interactions developing at this time, the so-called 'international spirit' manifest particularly during the Aegean Early Bronze II period.This was the time when the foundations of early Aegean civilisation were being laid, and the material documented is thus of considerable significance. The volume is divided into sections wherein contributions examine finds and their archaeological, social, and economic contexts from specific regions. It concludes with an overview of the significance and role of these objects in Early Bronze Age societies of the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean region. This will be the first time that this material has been systematically gathered together. Highly illustrated, it follows and builds on the successful preceding volume, Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context (Oxbow 2016).

1

INTRODUCTION

Colin Renfrew

This volume is the third part of a trilogy of volumes in which the marble sculptures of the Aegean area produced during the 3rd millennium BC that are in what may be termed the ‘Cycladic’ style are systematically reviewed. Each brings together the papers presented at a major conference held in Athens. The first of those conferences, dealing with sculptures actually found in the Cycladic Islands, was held at the Archaeological Society in Athens from 27th to 29th May 2014: the papers there presented have subsequently been published in the volume entitled Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context (Marthari, Renfrew & Boyd 2017). The second volume to appear, Cycladica in Crete: Cycladic and Cycladicizing Figurines within their Archaeological Context (Stampolidis & Sotirakopoulou 2017), arises from the conference held at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens on the 1st and 2nd October 2015. This third volume, Beyond the Cyclades, arising from the conference, again held at the Archaeological Society in Athens, on the 25th and 26th May 2015 (see Marthari, Renfrew & Boyd 2015) now seeks to present comparable material from the remaining areas of the Aegean: mainland Greece, and the north and east Aegean (Fig. 1.1).

When referring to the ‘Cycladic’ style one is thinking primarily of the series of figurines of marble made in the Cycladic Islands of Greece during the third millennium BC, and specifically of the so-called folded-arm figure, which was aptly termed by Thimme (1976) the ‘canonical form’. A standard definition (Renfrew 1969, 9–11; see also Renfrew 2017, 35) of the folded-arm figure is as follows:

The head is tilted upward and backward on a short neck, with only the nose indicated among the facial features. Ears and eyes are not normally shown. The figurines are generally female, always naked. The arms are folded at the waist, nearly always right below left. Above them the two breasts are lightly indicated. There is sometimes a horizontal line at the waist, and the pubic triangle is often indicated by incision. The legs, always held together, are often slightly bent at the knees, and the feet (except in the Kapsala and Chalandriani varieties) are inclined, so that the figure, if it was indeed imagined as upright, was standing on tiptoe. There is a marked lack of detail: often only fingers and toes are indicated by incisions, and details, such as ankles, knee caps, navel, ribs or hair, are not shown. The back is extremely simple, with only an incised line for the backbone, and sometimes incisions behind the arms. All the figurines, including the several pregnant ones, are notably slim. In general the figures are very graceful.

Renfrew 1969, 9–11

It is now understood that the sculptures were often decorated with paint, although such decoration rarely survives today. It has proved possible to divide the folded-arm figurines into a number of varieties. Those generally accepted (Renfrew 1969, 15–20; Getz-Preziosi 1987; Getz-Gentle 2001) are the Kapsala, Spedos, Dokathismata, Chalandriani and Koumasa varieties. Largely through the work of Pat Getz-Gentle (2001; see Getz-Preziosi 1987) it has been possible to sub-divide these into a further series of sub-varieties. Some of these were originally put forward using sculptures first documented in museums and private collections which do not come from a secure context: there are grounds for caution here, as there are many fakes in museums and private collections. The following sub-varieties are recognised here:

• Spedos variety: Kavos sub-variety (= ‘Goulandris Master’ of Getz-Gentle). See Sotirakopoulou, Renfrew & Boyd 2017, 363–7.

• Spedos and Dokathismata variety: Akrotiri sub-variety (= ‘Schuster Master’ of Getz-Gentle). See Sotirakopoulou, Renfrew & Boyd 2017, 358–63.

• Chalandriani variety: Kea sub-variety: see Renfrew & Boyd 2017, 390–92; formerly (Renfrew 1969, 18) termed the ‘Kea variety’.

• Chalandriani variety: Special Deposit North sub-variety (= ‘Stafford Master’ or ‘Louvre Master’ of Getz-Gentle): see Renfrew 2018a, 15–16.

Figure 1.1 Map showing sites with figurines in the Greek mainland and the Eastern Aegean presented in this volume. Numbers indicate chapter numbers. 2a: Pangali, Mt Varassova; 2b Leontari Cave; 2c: Agia Triada Cave; 3: Acropolis, Athens; 4: Aghios Kosmas; 5: Koropi; 6: Tsepi; 7: Brauron; 8: Loutsa; 9: Aegaleo; 10: Mandra; 11: Nea Kephisia; 12: Asteria; 13: Delpriza; 14: Apollo Maleatas, Epidaurus; 15: Ano Epidaurus; 16: Argos; 17: Thermi, Lesvos; 18: Thebes; 19, 20: Manika; 21: Nea Styra; 22: Palamari, Skyros; 23: Proskynas; 24: Vathy, Astypalaia; 25: Mesaria, Kos; 26: Kremasti, Rhodes; 27: Miletus; 28a: Liman Tepe; 28b: Bakla Tepe; 29: Loutra, Ano Kouphonisi.

In addition, it seems useful now to recognise the Keros variety (sometimes termed the ‘post-canonical’ variety): see Renfrew 2018b, 34. The term ‘post-canonical’ is not preferred here, implying a chronological distinction which, while plausible, cannot usually be documented stratigraphically or contextually.

Recent work has emphasised how influential the folded-arm figurine type was in much of the Aegean, as the present volume illustrates. The position is particularly clear in Crete, as now well-exemplified by Stampolidis & Sotirakopoulou (2017) in their useful and well-documented volume. There it is well-established that the Koumasa variety (see Renfrew 1969; Renfrew 2017b) was a form produced exclusively in Crete, apparently in imitation of the canonical Cycladic folded-arm figurine. All the known findspots of this variety are in Crete, where several imports of folded-arm figurines of other varieties (and probably brought directly from the Cyclades) are recognised.

In mainland Greece, as in western Anatolia, figurines of marble are quite widely found which may be described as ‘schematic’ in form. Lacking in detail, they are often flat and rather thin – sometimes referred to as ‘Brettidolen’. Yet, while several of the folded-arm sculptures found in Attica and Euboea are so similar to pieces found in the Cyclades, often of the Spedos variety, as to be plausible as imports, that is not the case with many of the schematic sculptures. Examples with long necks, sometimes also with facial features, for example from Aghios Kosmas in Attica (Kostanti & Christopoulou this volume) or from Euboea (Sapouna-Sakelleraki this volume; Sampson & Hadji this volume) do not always have precise Cycladic analogues. They may well be of local manufacture. Indeed, there is a case with some of these schematic figurines of marble for questioning whether they indicate any Cycladic influence at all, instead deriving in some cases from local prototypes of earlier date. Some of these matters are further discussed in Chapter 2 and in the final chapter.

References

Getz-Gentle, P., 2001. Personal Styles in Early Cycladic Sculpture. Madison (WI): University of Wisconsin Press.

Getz-Preziosi, P., 1987. Sculptors of the Cyclades. Individual and Tradition in the Third Millennium BC. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press.

Marthari, M., C. Renfrew & M.J. Boyd (eds), 2015. Early Cycladic sculpture in context from beyond the Cyclades: mainland Greece, the north and the east Aegean. Cambridge: privately circulated.

Marthari, M., C. Renfrew & M.J. Boyd (eds), 2017. Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context. Oxford: Oxbow.

Renfrew, C., 1969. The development and chronology of the Early Cycladic figurines. American Journal of Archaeology 73, 1–32.

Renfrew, C., 2017a. Early Cycladic sculpture: issues of terminology, provenance and classification, in Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context, eds M. Marthari, C. Renfrew & M.J. Boyd. Oxford: Oxbow, 1–12.

Renfrew, C., 2017b. The Koumasa variety of the folded-arm figurine: problems and implications, in Cycladica in Crete: Cycladic and Cycladicizing Figurines within their Archaeological Context, eds N.C. Stampolidis & P. Sotirakopoulou. Athens: N.P. Goulandris Foundation, 33–53.

Renfrew, C., 2018a. The sculptures from the Special Deposit South: Introduction, in The sanctuary on Keros and the origins of Aegean ritual practice, vol. III: The Marble Finds from Kavos and the Archaeology of Ritual, eds C. Renfrew, O. Philaniotou, N. Brodie, G. Gavalas & M.J. Boyd. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 3–17.

Renfrew, C., 2018b. The sculptures from the Special Deposit South: the finds, in The sanctuary on Keros and the origins of Aegean ritual practice, vol. III: The Marble Finds from Kavos and the Archaeology of Ritual, eds C. Renfrew, O. Philaniotou, N. Brodie, G. Gavalas & M.J. Boyd. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 19–45.

Renfrew, C. & M.J. Boyd, 2017. Selected sculptural fragments from the Special Deposit South on Keros, in Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context, eds M. Marthari, C. Renfrew & M.J. Boyd. Oxford: Oxbow, 391–3.

Renfrew, C., O. Philaniotou, N. Brodie, G. Gavalas & M.J. Boyd (eds), 2018. The sanctuary on Keros and the origins of Aegean ritual practice, vol. III: The Marble Finds from Kavos and the Archaeology of Ritual. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Sotirakopoulou, P., C. Renfrew & M.J. Boyd, 2017. Selected sculptural fragments from the Special Deposit North at Kavos on Keros, in Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context, eds M. Marthari, C. Renfrew & M.J. Boyd. Oxford: Oxbow, 345–68.

Stampolidis, N.C. & P. Sotirakopoulou (eds), 2017. Cycladica in Crete, Cycladic and Cycladicizing Figurines within their Archaeological Context. Athens: N.P. Goulandris Foundation.

Thimme, J. (ed.), 1976. Kunst und Kultur der Kykladeninseln im 3. Jahrtausend v. Chr. Karlsruhe: Badisches Landesmuseum.

Before the Bronze Age

2

PAST IN THE PAST: EXAMPLES OF NEOLITHIC FIGURINES FROM MAINLAND GREECE AND EARLY CYCLADIC ANTHROPOMORPHIC IMAGERY

Fanis Mavridis

A widely acknowledged temporal entanglement

A significant number of anthropomorphic figurines dating to the Late Neolithic I and II (hereafter LN; see Table 2.1), coming from different regions (Fig. 2.1), characteristic examples of which are presented below, indicates that: 1) an abstract representation of the human body (both in clay and stone) becomes dominant; and 2) many of these figurines share significant similarities with the Early Cycladic (hereafter EC) examples.

Τhe connection between the Neolithic cultures of mainland Greece (e.g. Thessaly) and the Cyclades, based on different categories of material remains, was identified long ago by scholars such as Benton (1947, 167) or Weinberg (1951, 130–32). For the canonical type of EC figurines in particular, prototypes were considered to have been provided by the Dimini culture (Renfrew 1969, 31). In the exhibition catalogue of the so-called ‘Neolithic treasure of gold objects’ exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum, several other objects were presented, including anthropomorphic marble figurines from Thessaly (Demakopoulou 1998). They were characterised as very closely connected to EC figurines, raising questions regarding the origins not only of the EC anthropomorphic imagery but of the EC culture in general (Tsivilika 2008, 78). The present paper aims to explore the character of these widely accepted similarities between the Later Neolithic and the EC figurines (Fig. 2.2): the former are not identical to the latter but constitute a part of a wider scheme. We assume as no coincidence the fact that after the end of the Neolithic, anthropomorphic figurines are of much importance only in the Cyclades. Hourmouziadis’ (1973, 206) comment that figurines are no longer present in the Bronze Age, which means that something else replaced them, is of relevance here. Is it possible that this replacement never happened in the Cyclades? Also, there is gro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Abbreviations
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: Colin Renfrew
• Before the Bronze Age
• Attica
• Peloponnese
• North Aegean, Boeotia, Euboea, Phthiotis and Skyros
• Dodecanese and Asia Minor littoral
• New Discoveries in the Cyclades
• Early Cycladic Sculpture in Perspective