statue
- Museum number
- 1909,0310.2
- Description
-
Numerous joining fragments (with some modern restoration) of the left side of the head of an over life-sized terracotta statue of a male; mould-made, hollow; he wears a cap or helmet with up-turned cheek-guards, decorated with impressed circles; large almond-shaped eyes defined by raised bands of clay, with sharp, triangular edges on the left (and presumably missing right) sides; thick eyebrows and long beard marked with incised hatching or feathering; row of stylised curls at the junction of the beard and helmet and on forehead; buff-orange clay with a cream slip painted in black on the beard, eyebrows and curls.
- Production date
- 650BC-575BC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 42 centimetres (max)
- Curator's comments
- See Wilson 1980, 62 and fig. 6 and passim for the original excavations and associated finds. She follows Gjerstad in attributing this to the Proto-Cypriot group, but Karageorghis classes it as Neo-Cypriot (Coroplastic III, 32, cat. no. 75 and passim for further discussion). Fourrier 2007, 23-37 provides a survey of terracottas from Salaminian workshops.
Bibliography:
Fourrier S. 2007, La coroplastie chypriote archaïque. Identités culturelles et politiques à l'époque des royaumes. Travaux de la Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée No. 46 (Lyon).
Wilson V. [Tatton-Brown], 'The Tubbs-Munro excavations at Salamis 1890', in: ed. M. Yon, Salamine de Chypre. Histoire et archéologie. État des recherches. Colloques Internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique No. 578 (Paris), 69-70, 59-70.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2018-2019 8 Nov - 24 Feb, London, BM, I am Ashurbanipal, king of the world, king of Assyria
- Acquisition date
- 1909
- Acquisition notes
- Group of fragments of terracotta statues and other items excavated by the Cyprus Exploration Fund (q.v.) at Salamis in 1890, especially the sanctuary site of Toumba. The finds of the CEF were divided between a number of institutions (Cyprus Museum, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the British Museum, Charterhouse School, perhaps others). In 1908 the fragments of large-scale statues in the UK were brought together in London to study the material and to identify joins between the sherds. As a result, joining fragments were swapped between institutions to make up larger pieces, though it is possible that material was also donated to the BM at this time as well because many of the pieces in the 1909 group are single sherds rather than composites. There is however no known record of which institutions donated material to the BM at this time; the only evidence for transfers are other museums' marks on a few of the reconstructed pieces in London (and likewise on sherds given by the BM to Oxford or Cambridge).
The GR register for 1909 simply notes that they were donated by the ‘Cyprus Exploration Fund, 1891, the Ashmolean, Fitzwilliam & Charterhouse School Museums, 1909’. Clearly some of the pieces were in London in 1909 – and the GR 1891,8-6 registration group include numerous items of the same style from Toumba.
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1909,0310.2
