Despite their number, figurative terracottas are very rarely used in the discussion of iconography issues. Unlike the scenes depicted on vases, where the interaction of the characters and the figurative context often guide their identification and the interpretation of the scene, Greek figurative terracottas are generic, isolated figures, without any iconographic context; therefore their identification is most often difficult or, to say the least, problematic. From the Classical period, characterized by an immense variety of types, the majority of figurative terracotta are sufficiently characterized by an attitude (dancing, or carrying a hydria), an activity (cooking, playing, nursing …), a physical peculiarity (such as the presence of wings for Nike, ‘grotesques’), an exclusive attribute (such as the helmet, the aegis, or the gorgoneion for Athena), to remove any ambiguity: in most cases, even if different readings sometimes persist, we recognize them immediately as deities or otherwise as mortals. The latter constitute the majority by far of terracotta representations of the Classical and Hellenistic periods.

By contrast, the coroplastic production of the Archaic period and a large part of the fifth century is widely dominated by only four common iconographic types of figurines, two female and two male, with no identifying characteristics (Fig. 15.1b):

• - the enthroned woman, or, more precisely, a female seated on a chair;

• - the standing girl or kore, sometimes holding a fruit, a fl ower, a crown, or a bird;

• - the banqueter or symposiast holding a drinking vessel (rhyton, cup, or skyphos) or a musical instrument;

• - the standing young man or kouros, nude or dressed, sometimes holding a musical instrument such as a lyre or aulos.

The two female types comprise the majority of the figurines of this period (certainly more than 80 percent), while the two male types are much rarer in all contexts: sanctuaries and graves. To these figurines, we can add numerous protomai or partial representations limited to the head or the bust; these are mostly female, very rarely male. Due to the overwhelming majority of the feminine representations, the following discussion will be devoted to them for the most part, and the male representations will be mentioned only marginally.