DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0041
18 PREHISTORIC PERIODS
are shown clearly. The figure is conceived exactly in the
manner of the female idols, but bent into a sitting posture.
Clear traces of abrasive rubbing are seen on every surface.
It is a small masterpiece of a laborious mode of art.
The flute-player, which was found at Keros (Fig. 7), is
simpler and must have been less difficult to make. It shows
a male figure standing with the usual tilted head and protrud-
ing nose. Both hands are raised to the flute, which is a double
one. The body is rounder and more bossy, the legs divided
not by the usual cleft but by a wide cutting so that each leg
can be made rounded and circular in section. The feet, of
necessity, are supported on a pedestal or footplate1 which
is structurally part of the whole. Clear traces of the rubbing
that fashioned the footplate are seen on its upper surface.
Little examination is needed to show that the method of
manufacture is essentially that of the more conventional
statuettes.
A third exceptional work is the pair of harpists from Thera .2
Each is seated on a stool. They correspond in all essential
details with the harpist from Spedos.
It remains to ask what possibility there was of metal tools
being used in the construction of these figures. It must be
remembered that at the time when the bulk of the Cycladic
idols were made the islanders were in a not very mature
bronze age. Bronze chisels are by no means uncommon on
Minoan and island sites, but it may well be asked whether
bronze chisels would have been at all adequate to cut the
hard crystalline Naxian marble of which the bulk of the
statuettes are carved. Nor would bronze files last long for
such work. A saw of copper was found at Naxos3 and is
considered by some to be the oldest in Greece. Certainly it
is contemporary with the idols. In the earlier stages of
preparing the marble blanks from which these idols are made
a saw would have been useful, but it is doubtful how long a
1 It is conceivable that this type of footplate suggested that used in Minoan
bronze figures. 2 Bossert, Altkreta, fig. 120 b. 3 Stais, Guide, p. 214.
are shown clearly. The figure is conceived exactly in the
manner of the female idols, but bent into a sitting posture.
Clear traces of abrasive rubbing are seen on every surface.
It is a small masterpiece of a laborious mode of art.
The flute-player, which was found at Keros (Fig. 7), is
simpler and must have been less difficult to make. It shows
a male figure standing with the usual tilted head and protrud-
ing nose. Both hands are raised to the flute, which is a double
one. The body is rounder and more bossy, the legs divided
not by the usual cleft but by a wide cutting so that each leg
can be made rounded and circular in section. The feet, of
necessity, are supported on a pedestal or footplate1 which
is structurally part of the whole. Clear traces of the rubbing
that fashioned the footplate are seen on its upper surface.
Little examination is needed to show that the method of
manufacture is essentially that of the more conventional
statuettes.
A third exceptional work is the pair of harpists from Thera .2
Each is seated on a stool. They correspond in all essential
details with the harpist from Spedos.
It remains to ask what possibility there was of metal tools
being used in the construction of these figures. It must be
remembered that at the time when the bulk of the Cycladic
idols were made the islanders were in a not very mature
bronze age. Bronze chisels are by no means uncommon on
Minoan and island sites, but it may well be asked whether
bronze chisels would have been at all adequate to cut the
hard crystalline Naxian marble of which the bulk of the
statuettes are carved. Nor would bronze files last long for
such work. A saw of copper was found at Naxos3 and is
considered by some to be the oldest in Greece. Certainly it
is contemporary with the idols. In the earlier stages of
preparing the marble blanks from which these idols are made
a saw would have been useful, but it is doubtful how long a
1 It is conceivable that this type of footplate suggested that used in Minoan
bronze figures. 2 Bossert, Altkreta, fig. 120 b. 3 Stais, Guide, p. 214.