DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0096
62 THE AGE OF TRANSITION
suggests the end of the seventh century.1 These nine doll-
like figures must be the nine Muses of Helicon. They suggest
comparison with figures of the Auxerre type or with countless
terra-cotta and ivory figures of Artemis Orthia from Sparta,
figures in which the arms fall straight to the sides and which
are clothed in close-fitting chitons. But as a general com-
parison for the Protocorinthian vase just described this
volute-crater is interesting, since it shows a similar votary
in a similar-attitude in front of cult statues (Fig. 21).
Palladia are more common on vase-paintings. They often
have their features clearly delineated and the features usually
indicate the solemn countenances of seventh-century statues,
not the smiling faces of the full archaic period.
It might have been hoped that the sanctuary of Athena
Lindia in Rhodes would have provided some evidence of
importance of an archaeological nature as to the character of
an early cult image. The goddess Lindia, later called Athena
by immigrant Dorians arriving about 900 b.c., was in origin
almost certainly a pre-Hellenic and possibly a Mycenaean
deity. Here if anywhere, one might have expected that a
pre-Hellenic cult image would have passed on in succession
to the Hellenic worshippers and have been taken over into
their cult and worship. An island with so clear-cut a history
as Rhodes serves indeed as a key-site where the transition
between pre-Hellenic and Hellenic may be observed uncon-
taminated.
But our evidence as to the nature of the pre-Hellenic
Lindia cult is tenuous in the extreme. Blinkenberg2 thinks
that the original image was a mere bole of wood placed in a
sacred grove, the aAcros ev aKpoiroAei of Pindar,3 and so in
no way as advanced a statue as the xoanon of the Knossian
palace. This image, whatever it was, was taken over by the
1 A. Colasanti, La Necropoli di Spina, Rivista Illustrata del Popolo d’Italia,
Nov. 1928.
2 Lindos, Fouilles de VAcropole, 1931, vol. i, p. 10, and L’Lnage d’Athana
Lindia (Copenhagen, 1917), p. 7.
3 Ol. 7. 90.
suggests the end of the seventh century.1 These nine doll-
like figures must be the nine Muses of Helicon. They suggest
comparison with figures of the Auxerre type or with countless
terra-cotta and ivory figures of Artemis Orthia from Sparta,
figures in which the arms fall straight to the sides and which
are clothed in close-fitting chitons. But as a general com-
parison for the Protocorinthian vase just described this
volute-crater is interesting, since it shows a similar votary
in a similar-attitude in front of cult statues (Fig. 21).
Palladia are more common on vase-paintings. They often
have their features clearly delineated and the features usually
indicate the solemn countenances of seventh-century statues,
not the smiling faces of the full archaic period.
It might have been hoped that the sanctuary of Athena
Lindia in Rhodes would have provided some evidence of
importance of an archaeological nature as to the character of
an early cult image. The goddess Lindia, later called Athena
by immigrant Dorians arriving about 900 b.c., was in origin
almost certainly a pre-Hellenic and possibly a Mycenaean
deity. Here if anywhere, one might have expected that a
pre-Hellenic cult image would have passed on in succession
to the Hellenic worshippers and have been taken over into
their cult and worship. An island with so clear-cut a history
as Rhodes serves indeed as a key-site where the transition
between pre-Hellenic and Hellenic may be observed uncon-
taminated.
But our evidence as to the nature of the pre-Hellenic
Lindia cult is tenuous in the extreme. Blinkenberg2 thinks
that the original image was a mere bole of wood placed in a
sacred grove, the aAcros ev aKpoiroAei of Pindar,3 and so in
no way as advanced a statue as the xoanon of the Knossian
palace. This image, whatever it was, was taken over by the
1 A. Colasanti, La Necropoli di Spina, Rivista Illustrata del Popolo d’Italia,
Nov. 1928.
2 Lindos, Fouilles de VAcropole, 1931, vol. i, p. 10, and L’Lnage d’Athana
Lindia (Copenhagen, 1917), p. 7.
3 Ol. 7. 90.