Casson, Stanley: The technique of early Greek sculpture (Oxford, 1933)

THE AGE OF TRANSITION 65
Lindian figure recorded by the verse of Kallimachos, faintly
reflected in the terra-cottas of a much later date and referred
to in the temple-chronicles as being garlanded with a gold
crown and decked with necklaces,1 may have been the cult
figure taken over by the immigrant Dorians. Certainly there
is no evidence at all to show that the earliest cult was a mere
tree-cult.
But there may be a gap in our evidence, and the decision
as to whether this Lindian figure is pre-Hellenic or very
early Hellenic must still remain open. But a little weight is
added to the scales in favour of a pre-Hellenic origin by
evidence from Samos. Athenaeus records2 that a local
Samian antiquary, Menodotus, believed that the Samian
shrine was originally built by pre-Hellenic peoples. The
passage of Kallimachos above quoted speaks of the Samian
statue as being an a£oos aavis, a description which recalls the
simple log-shaped body of our hypothetical Minoan large-
scale statues.
Unfortunately the excavations at Lindos have produced
no small version either in ivory or in stone of any primitive
statue. Indeed most of the small stone dedications seem to
be Cypriote.
1 Chronique du temple, C. 1 ff. (after an expedition under Kleoboulos to
Lycia), C. 80 (after a similar expedition to Crete). 2 15. 672 a.

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