DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4923#0004
vases, oxydized vessels of glass, idols and votive images and
toys and ornaments and lamps in painted terracotta, spear and
javelin heads, funereal bandeaux in thin gold, cups ami bowls in
clay and bronze, and other objects such as the people of the
ancient world were accustomed either to dedicate in their temples,
or to bury with them in their tombs.
It is that collection of which the present series of photographs
represents specimens. Let it be understood that the minor ob-
jects of the collection, vases, glass, terracotta, lamps, spear-
heads, and implements, came principally from the burying-place
of Idalium; the statues and statuettes, in calcareous stone,
exclusively from the temple at Golgoi. We have arranged the
photographs according to a rough classification of the objects
which they represent. We follow that order of arrangement in
pointing out some of the more obvious questions of archaeological
interest, which suggest themselves in connection with the
objects.* But the subject is too obscure and too new at present
for anything which is said to have much more than a hypo-
thetical and suggestive value.
First, our selection does not include any of the very numerous
implements in bronze and copper, lamps in terracotta, or vessels
in glass, which are the common furniture of the Cyprian tombs.
What is curious is that these three classes of objects, vases, glass
vessels, and terracotta dolls, are not found together iu the same
tombs. Each tomb contains only one of these classes, and
according to its contents is respectively said by the population
of to-day to contain irSapia (large vases), yaXKiKa (glass), or to
be the tomb of poor folks (iro>x4i).
We begin (PI. I. to IV.) with the vases. The vases most
commonly found in Cyprus belong to a class which have been
known to archaeologists as the Phoenician, or sometimes the
Corinthian vases, and which are found at several of the most
ancient Greek, Phoenician, and Greco-Phcenician stations both
on the mainland and in the Archipelago. Their peculiarity is
to carry patterns in brown on a ground of drab; and their forms
are not only coarser, but of different types, from those of
the ordinary Greek and Etruscan ceramic ware. Many vases
of this material have simple linear and geometrical patterns
only; others linear and geometrical patterns interspersed with
flower ornaments and rough figures of animals in an Asiatic
spirit; others again are moulded bodily into rough figures of ani-
mals or birds ; others are of anomalous and fanciful form. Plates
I. to IV. represent specimens of all these kinds, some very archaic,
and some probably much later. It has been contended by a dis-
tinguished German scholar, Dr. Conze, that the kind represented
on Plate I. ought not to be called Phoenician. He argues
that those vases of which the decoration is purely linear and
geometrical (and of which General Cesuola's collection contains
many magnificent specimens) are the work of the Pelasgic, or
at any rate of a primitive Aryan race; and that the advent of
the first Asiatic colonists is shown by the introduction of the
fictile ware bearing flower forms and rude animals. Since, how-
ever, the two varieties of the ware are reported to have been
found in the same tombs, this argument seems to fall to the
ground. And as more than one of the vases in question carry
Phoenician inscriptions, it is certain that the Phoenicians dealt
in if they did not manufacture them.
Indeed, one of the chief problems which these discoveries will
help to solve, in relation not only to pottery, but to statuary
and other arts, is the old and difficult problem to what extent
the Phoenicians have to be considered as original artists them-
selves, and not merely the carriers of the arts of others.
Scarcely any pottery of the ordinary Greek or Etruscan types,
it may be added, have been found in Cyprus.
We come to the next use of burnt clay—its use for making
rude images. Plates V. and VI. represent a miscellaneous choice
of small terracotta images. The little figures in chariots or on
* The scale of the objects is given by the photograph of a foot rule,
which appears in each plate.
horseback are modelled with the finger and thumb in the solid
clay, and rudely painted. They may represent a Homeric or
pne-Homerie art, the most ancient of all that has come down
to ns from the Greek world; or they may be only a grotesque
old fashion perpetuated for playthings. They are found chiefly
in the poorest tombs, and in the oldest part of the temple at
Dali. The rudimentary grotesques iu female shape, on the same
plates, are probably votive images of a primitive Aphrodite—the
Babylonian .Mylitta, or Phoenician Astarte, in her popular form.
They are generally not modelled by pinching, like the last, but
cast in moulds in the ordinary way. Such may have been the
figure of Aphrodite (a span long) which a writer quoted by
Athemeus describes as having been bought at Paphos by a mer-
chant of Naucratis, and as having proved a safeguard against
shipwreck. It is singular that, though the temples opened at
Golgoi and Idalium must almost positively have been temples
of Aphrodite, no certain representations of the goddess seem to
have been found among the carvings, except these primitive and
grotesque miniature ones. The second figure from the right, at
the bottom of Plate V, has been thought to look like the Herma-
phroditus, or bearded Venus, of the Amathusian worship.
The two dog-headed fragments in calcareous stone on Plate
VII. suggest some connection with the Egyptian Auttbis, or similar
forms. The following architectural fragment, representing two
lions recumbent back to back, and placed on a base the greater
part of which is occupied by the Egyptian winged globe, suggests
a double comparison, on the one baud with primitive work in
Greece like the lions of Mycenas, and on the other, with a well-
known Egyptian type which is found actually represented on
Cyprian coins of about the fifth and sixth centuries B.C.
We now come to the most important class of remains—the
statues and statuettes of human figures carved in calcareous
stone. These come, one anil all, from the temple discovered by
General di Cesnola at Golgoi. Besides the foundations, there
were hardly any architectural portions of that temple to be found;
whence it has been conjectured that it may have been built of
wood. General di Cesnola found, however, the remains of pedestals
arranged both along the inside walls, and back to back in two
rows down the middle. On these pedestals will have stood the
statues of which the temple was full. As to subject, the statues
divided themselves broadly into (1) figures of priests or kings,
and (2) figures of the god Herakles. As to size, they vary from
the colossal to the miniature; and many of the miniature
figures or statuettes are repetitions of the same motive that we
find close beside them on the larger scale. As to style, they
exhibit a progress which it is impossible to trace with any
exactness or certainty, though some of its main phases are
obvious enough. We have put first the figures which seem those
of kings or priests, and which would probably be portraits
dedicated, in Oriental fashion, by the personages represented
themselves. With reference to the question of priest or king,
it is perhaps not unfair, in the absence of evidence, to surmise
that, as at Paphos so at Golgos—the third, if not the second,
greatest seat, of the Aphrodite worship in Cyprus—the two
functions may have been united, and the city have been ruled
by a family of hereditary priest-kings.
Plates IX. to XIII. evidently show the influence of Egyptian
models in their style. Plate IX. is the most purely Egyptian and
presumably- the most ancient of them all; the rest show varia-
tions both in type and costume—something peculiar, experi-
mental, and tending to emancipation and the display of a
local spirit, beneath the rigid canons of Egyptian prescription.
Every point of their costume, every detail of their conception
and representation, has far-reaching points of interest in its
likeness to or difference from the points and details of similar
matters iu genuine Egyptian work. For instance, the girdles in
Plates X. and XI. are those commonly worn by Egyptian Kings.
The figure in Plate XI. wears the pshent or head-dress known as
the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. In the repre-
toys and ornaments and lamps in painted terracotta, spear and
javelin heads, funereal bandeaux in thin gold, cups ami bowls in
clay and bronze, and other objects such as the people of the
ancient world were accustomed either to dedicate in their temples,
or to bury with them in their tombs.
It is that collection of which the present series of photographs
represents specimens. Let it be understood that the minor ob-
jects of the collection, vases, glass, terracotta, lamps, spear-
heads, and implements, came principally from the burying-place
of Idalium; the statues and statuettes, in calcareous stone,
exclusively from the temple at Golgoi. We have arranged the
photographs according to a rough classification of the objects
which they represent. We follow that order of arrangement in
pointing out some of the more obvious questions of archaeological
interest, which suggest themselves in connection with the
objects.* But the subject is too obscure and too new at present
for anything which is said to have much more than a hypo-
thetical and suggestive value.
First, our selection does not include any of the very numerous
implements in bronze and copper, lamps in terracotta, or vessels
in glass, which are the common furniture of the Cyprian tombs.
What is curious is that these three classes of objects, vases, glass
vessels, and terracotta dolls, are not found together iu the same
tombs. Each tomb contains only one of these classes, and
according to its contents is respectively said by the population
of to-day to contain irSapia (large vases), yaXKiKa (glass), or to
be the tomb of poor folks (iro>x4i).
We begin (PI. I. to IV.) with the vases. The vases most
commonly found in Cyprus belong to a class which have been
known to archaeologists as the Phoenician, or sometimes the
Corinthian vases, and which are found at several of the most
ancient Greek, Phoenician, and Greco-Phcenician stations both
on the mainland and in the Archipelago. Their peculiarity is
to carry patterns in brown on a ground of drab; and their forms
are not only coarser, but of different types, from those of
the ordinary Greek and Etruscan ceramic ware. Many vases
of this material have simple linear and geometrical patterns
only; others linear and geometrical patterns interspersed with
flower ornaments and rough figures of animals in an Asiatic
spirit; others again are moulded bodily into rough figures of ani-
mals or birds ; others are of anomalous and fanciful form. Plates
I. to IV. represent specimens of all these kinds, some very archaic,
and some probably much later. It has been contended by a dis-
tinguished German scholar, Dr. Conze, that the kind represented
on Plate I. ought not to be called Phoenician. He argues
that those vases of which the decoration is purely linear and
geometrical (and of which General Cesuola's collection contains
many magnificent specimens) are the work of the Pelasgic, or
at any rate of a primitive Aryan race; and that the advent of
the first Asiatic colonists is shown by the introduction of the
fictile ware bearing flower forms and rude animals. Since, how-
ever, the two varieties of the ware are reported to have been
found in the same tombs, this argument seems to fall to the
ground. And as more than one of the vases in question carry
Phoenician inscriptions, it is certain that the Phoenicians dealt
in if they did not manufacture them.
Indeed, one of the chief problems which these discoveries will
help to solve, in relation not only to pottery, but to statuary
and other arts, is the old and difficult problem to what extent
the Phoenicians have to be considered as original artists them-
selves, and not merely the carriers of the arts of others.
Scarcely any pottery of the ordinary Greek or Etruscan types,
it may be added, have been found in Cyprus.
We come to the next use of burnt clay—its use for making
rude images. Plates V. and VI. represent a miscellaneous choice
of small terracotta images. The little figures in chariots or on
* The scale of the objects is given by the photograph of a foot rule,
which appears in each plate.
horseback are modelled with the finger and thumb in the solid
clay, and rudely painted. They may represent a Homeric or
pne-Homerie art, the most ancient of all that has come down
to ns from the Greek world; or they may be only a grotesque
old fashion perpetuated for playthings. They are found chiefly
in the poorest tombs, and in the oldest part of the temple at
Dali. The rudimentary grotesques iu female shape, on the same
plates, are probably votive images of a primitive Aphrodite—the
Babylonian .Mylitta, or Phoenician Astarte, in her popular form.
They are generally not modelled by pinching, like the last, but
cast in moulds in the ordinary way. Such may have been the
figure of Aphrodite (a span long) which a writer quoted by
Athemeus describes as having been bought at Paphos by a mer-
chant of Naucratis, and as having proved a safeguard against
shipwreck. It is singular that, though the temples opened at
Golgoi and Idalium must almost positively have been temples
of Aphrodite, no certain representations of the goddess seem to
have been found among the carvings, except these primitive and
grotesque miniature ones. The second figure from the right, at
the bottom of Plate V, has been thought to look like the Herma-
phroditus, or bearded Venus, of the Amathusian worship.
The two dog-headed fragments in calcareous stone on Plate
VII. suggest some connection with the Egyptian Auttbis, or similar
forms. The following architectural fragment, representing two
lions recumbent back to back, and placed on a base the greater
part of which is occupied by the Egyptian winged globe, suggests
a double comparison, on the one baud with primitive work in
Greece like the lions of Mycenas, and on the other, with a well-
known Egyptian type which is found actually represented on
Cyprian coins of about the fifth and sixth centuries B.C.
We now come to the most important class of remains—the
statues and statuettes of human figures carved in calcareous
stone. These come, one anil all, from the temple discovered by
General di Cesnola at Golgoi. Besides the foundations, there
were hardly any architectural portions of that temple to be found;
whence it has been conjectured that it may have been built of
wood. General di Cesnola found, however, the remains of pedestals
arranged both along the inside walls, and back to back in two
rows down the middle. On these pedestals will have stood the
statues of which the temple was full. As to subject, the statues
divided themselves broadly into (1) figures of priests or kings,
and (2) figures of the god Herakles. As to size, they vary from
the colossal to the miniature; and many of the miniature
figures or statuettes are repetitions of the same motive that we
find close beside them on the larger scale. As to style, they
exhibit a progress which it is impossible to trace with any
exactness or certainty, though some of its main phases are
obvious enough. We have put first the figures which seem those
of kings or priests, and which would probably be portraits
dedicated, in Oriental fashion, by the personages represented
themselves. With reference to the question of priest or king,
it is perhaps not unfair, in the absence of evidence, to surmise
that, as at Paphos so at Golgos—the third, if not the second,
greatest seat, of the Aphrodite worship in Cyprus—the two
functions may have been united, and the city have been ruled
by a family of hereditary priest-kings.
Plates IX. to XIII. evidently show the influence of Egyptian
models in their style. Plate IX. is the most purely Egyptian and
presumably- the most ancient of them all; the rest show varia-
tions both in type and costume—something peculiar, experi-
mental, and tending to emancipation and the display of a
local spirit, beneath the rigid canons of Egyptian prescription.
Every point of their costume, every detail of their conception
and representation, has far-reaching points of interest in its
likeness to or difference from the points and details of similar
matters iu genuine Egyptian work. For instance, the girdles in
Plates X. and XI. are those commonly worn by Egyptian Kings.
The figure in Plate XI. wears the pshent or head-dress known as
the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. In the repre-