DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12762#0051
24
THE VAULTED TOMBS OF MESARA
tholos b the view that a Mother Goddess is represented, and compares a figure of a
figurines woman in labour from Chalandriane in Syra in the Skoulotides collection,1 and
the other well-known figures from Paros and 16s which support a child on their
head.2 The representation of a woman in an advanced state of pregnancy
was not unusual in the neolithic period,3 at any rate in north Greece.
Use of the Figures Of the above six Koumasa figures three had been broken before being-
placed in the tomb, as witness the holes for string to tie on the broken piece.
They had therefore been in use before, possibly for some time. And this
makes it probable that those figures were not made merely for the use of the
dead, but for the use of the living too, as sacred figures for worship, or perhaps
as apotropaic amulets. The smaller specimens we may suppose to have been
worn by the faithful in their daily life and to have accompanied them after
death to the tomb, while the larger were private cult statues placed after
death in the tomb of the owner. This must have been so in the case of the
largest, like the well-known one from Amorgos,4 five feet high, and the other
yet larger, of which only the head was found,5 which must have been broken
off on purpose, since the whole figure could not have been got into the grave.
Dr. Clon Stephanos says that' Les tombeaux de Naxos ontfourni de nouvelles
preuves du fait que le mobilier funeraire etait forme d'objets de la vie ordinaire
(objets en marbre casses et rSpares, pyxides sans couvercles, ou avec des couvercles
d'autres pyxides, couvercles sans pyxides etc).''6
2. Cretan Figurines.
Cretan I call the other figurines found in the tombs of Koumasa and
Platanos which do not resemble the Cycladic type. The following were found
in Tholos B :—
128, 129, 130, 131, 135, and 525 (Plates IV and XXI).
128. This, which is of grey-blue steatite, -065 m. high and -03 m. broad
at the bottom, represents a standing woman wearing a bell-shaped, or rather
a triangular, dress down to her feet. She has her hands on her breasts and
her elbows sticking out. The front is flat, the only projecting part being the
head with its pointed chin, but the back is modelled in the round.
129. This is like the foregoing in shape and material, but rather smaller.
Here also the dress makes an almost perfect triangle from the waist downwards.
The back projects almost in a right-angle. Height -053 m., breadth -026 m.
Both these figures are worked with fair accuracy of outline, but with the
omission of all details, except that there is an attempt to show the ears in
relief.
1 Clon Stephanos, Comptes rendus, loc. cit., pp.
222-223.
2 Perrot et Ghipiez, op. cit., VI, p. 740, fig. 332.
3 Taovi'Ta, TlpoiiTTOpiKai aKpoiroXus, op. cit., (reX.
289, Hiv. 34, 2.
4 Tsountas and Manatt, op. cit., p. 257, fig. 132.
5 P. Wolters, Marmorkopf aus Amorgos, in
Athenische Mitteilungen, XVI (1891), p. 46.
6 C. Stephanos, Comptes rendus, loc. cit., p. 218.
THE VAULTED TOMBS OF MESARA
tholos b the view that a Mother Goddess is represented, and compares a figure of a
figurines woman in labour from Chalandriane in Syra in the Skoulotides collection,1 and
the other well-known figures from Paros and 16s which support a child on their
head.2 The representation of a woman in an advanced state of pregnancy
was not unusual in the neolithic period,3 at any rate in north Greece.
Use of the Figures Of the above six Koumasa figures three had been broken before being-
placed in the tomb, as witness the holes for string to tie on the broken piece.
They had therefore been in use before, possibly for some time. And this
makes it probable that those figures were not made merely for the use of the
dead, but for the use of the living too, as sacred figures for worship, or perhaps
as apotropaic amulets. The smaller specimens we may suppose to have been
worn by the faithful in their daily life and to have accompanied them after
death to the tomb, while the larger were private cult statues placed after
death in the tomb of the owner. This must have been so in the case of the
largest, like the well-known one from Amorgos,4 five feet high, and the other
yet larger, of which only the head was found,5 which must have been broken
off on purpose, since the whole figure could not have been got into the grave.
Dr. Clon Stephanos says that' Les tombeaux de Naxos ontfourni de nouvelles
preuves du fait que le mobilier funeraire etait forme d'objets de la vie ordinaire
(objets en marbre casses et rSpares, pyxides sans couvercles, ou avec des couvercles
d'autres pyxides, couvercles sans pyxides etc).''6
2. Cretan Figurines.
Cretan I call the other figurines found in the tombs of Koumasa and
Platanos which do not resemble the Cycladic type. The following were found
in Tholos B :—
128, 129, 130, 131, 135, and 525 (Plates IV and XXI).
128. This, which is of grey-blue steatite, -065 m. high and -03 m. broad
at the bottom, represents a standing woman wearing a bell-shaped, or rather
a triangular, dress down to her feet. She has her hands on her breasts and
her elbows sticking out. The front is flat, the only projecting part being the
head with its pointed chin, but the back is modelled in the round.
129. This is like the foregoing in shape and material, but rather smaller.
Here also the dress makes an almost perfect triangle from the waist downwards.
The back projects almost in a right-angle. Height -053 m., breadth -026 m.
Both these figures are worked with fair accuracy of outline, but with the
omission of all details, except that there is an attempt to show the ears in
relief.
1 Clon Stephanos, Comptes rendus, loc. cit., pp.
222-223.
2 Perrot et Ghipiez, op. cit., VI, p. 740, fig. 332.
3 Taovi'Ta, TlpoiiTTOpiKai aKpoiroXus, op. cit., (reX.
289, Hiv. 34, 2.
4 Tsountas and Manatt, op. cit., p. 257, fig. 132.
5 P. Wolters, Marmorkopf aus Amorgos, in
Athenische Mitteilungen, XVI (1891), p. 46.
6 C. Stephanos, Comptes rendus, loc. cit., p. 218.