DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0094
60 THE AGE OF TRANSITION
Hellenic xoanon type with some fidelity. Its head and
shoulders are carefully moulded, but the body is turned on
the wheel and made quite cylindrical. The figure follows
closely the type of the Amyklaean Apollo.
It is clear, then, that there was a similarity between
Minoan cult statues, in so far as our knowledge of them can
be built up, and the early Hellenic cult statues, as illustrated
by the statue of Apollo at Amyklae, which was at once one
of the oldest in Greece and probably far and away the largest—
40 feet was an immense height for a cult statue at any period
—and the Amyclaeans were justified in calling in Bathycles
to repair their treasure.
Vase-paintings give practically no help in illustration of
the earliest type of Greek cult-statues or xoana. Figures such
as Palladia, on the other hand, but of seventh-century type,
or even sixth-century in character, are not uncommon. But
there is one notable exception. A Protocorinthian vase
(Fig. 20) from Boeotia, now in the Ashmolean Museum,
preserves what, if the identification is correct, is the earliest
Hellenic representation of a cult statue. This vase, a small
aryballos found at Thebes in 1896,1 shows a scene of the
greatest interest. The style of the drawing is Protocorinthian
hardly emancipated from Geometric features and style. It
must fall into the early decades of the seventh century. The
scene shows two horsemen and between them three human
figures. The first (from left to right) is a small figure with
the arms raised in the conventional attitude of adoration.
Next is a large figure dressed in a heavy chequered chiton
or peplos holding a shield in the left and a spear in the
the arms are in some cases in the same attitude as those of the Amyklaean
Apollo, while the body remains tubular. These figures belong to the seventh
century. Jahrbuch, 1930, p. 141, figs. 17 and 18.
1 J.H.S. xxiv. p. 295, No. 504. Johansen, Vases Sicyoniens, pi. xx. 1 a and b.
H. Payne, Necrocorinthia (1931), p. 8, n. 1. Mr. Payne hazards the guess that
the principal scene may be a copy of a geometric wall-painting in a temple.
There is, of course, nothing to support this conjecture and there is no evi-
dence to suggest that wall paintings existed in temples of the ‘geometric’
period.
Hellenic xoanon type with some fidelity. Its head and
shoulders are carefully moulded, but the body is turned on
the wheel and made quite cylindrical. The figure follows
closely the type of the Amyklaean Apollo.
It is clear, then, that there was a similarity between
Minoan cult statues, in so far as our knowledge of them can
be built up, and the early Hellenic cult statues, as illustrated
by the statue of Apollo at Amyklae, which was at once one
of the oldest in Greece and probably far and away the largest—
40 feet was an immense height for a cult statue at any period
—and the Amyclaeans were justified in calling in Bathycles
to repair their treasure.
Vase-paintings give practically no help in illustration of
the earliest type of Greek cult-statues or xoana. Figures such
as Palladia, on the other hand, but of seventh-century type,
or even sixth-century in character, are not uncommon. But
there is one notable exception. A Protocorinthian vase
(Fig. 20) from Boeotia, now in the Ashmolean Museum,
preserves what, if the identification is correct, is the earliest
Hellenic representation of a cult statue. This vase, a small
aryballos found at Thebes in 1896,1 shows a scene of the
greatest interest. The style of the drawing is Protocorinthian
hardly emancipated from Geometric features and style. It
must fall into the early decades of the seventh century. The
scene shows two horsemen and between them three human
figures. The first (from left to right) is a small figure with
the arms raised in the conventional attitude of adoration.
Next is a large figure dressed in a heavy chequered chiton
or peplos holding a shield in the left and a spear in the
the arms are in some cases in the same attitude as those of the Amyklaean
Apollo, while the body remains tubular. These figures belong to the seventh
century. Jahrbuch, 1930, p. 141, figs. 17 and 18.
1 J.H.S. xxiv. p. 295, No. 504. Johansen, Vases Sicyoniens, pi. xx. 1 a and b.
H. Payne, Necrocorinthia (1931), p. 8, n. 1. Mr. Payne hazards the guess that
the principal scene may be a copy of a geometric wall-painting in a temple.
There is, of course, nothing to support this conjecture and there is no evi-
dence to suggest that wall paintings existed in temples of the ‘geometric’
period.