No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Primitive Sculpture of Cyprus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
The chronology of early Cypriote sculpture has only once been treated in detail, when Professor J. L. Myres, in his Handbook of the Cesnola Collection, attempted to distinguish styles and arrange them in an intelligible sequence. His conclusions cannot be neglected by the student of ancient art, for if they are correct some of the most ambitious statues date from the first half of the seventh century B.C., which means that sculpture is at least a century older in Cyprus than in other Greek lands. (It must be remembered that the island was as Greek then as it ever was; an Assyrian inscription records the names of ten Greek kings reigning in it at this time. The object of this paper is to examine how far his distinctions are accurate and to put forward an alternative arrangement.
Foreign influence is evident in a large number of statues in native limestone, and Myres' view is that one influence is Assyrian and contemporary with Assyrian domination, which began in 709 B.C., and the next Egyptian. It was Amasis, 570–526 B.C., who actually effected the annexation, but Myres ascribes the earliest imitations of Egyptian art to the end of the seventh century, thereby making the duration of the two periods more alike. The Persian conquest, which is not later than the time of Darius, results in a decline of pure Egyptian style and the rise of an eclectic art based on Egyptian and older traditions that passes insensibly into a variety of late archaic Greek. In the next few pages I shall endeavour to show that he has been too definite in describing the Oriental influence as mainly Assyrian, and so there is no proof that it is as old as the seventh century, and that he has grouped as Oriental certain sculptures which are early archaic Greek.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1926
References
1 My sincerest thanks are due to Dr. H. R. Hall and Mr. Sidney Smith, without whose help and advice this paper would not have been written and who contributed most of the information on Asiatic matters.
2 Called Ionians by Esarhaddon. For latest discussion see Olmstead, , History of Assyria, p. 369.Google Scholar Cf. Hogarth, , Ionia and the East, p. 86Google Scholar, on the predominantly Greek character of Cyprus.
3 Handbook, pp. xxxv–ix, 132–7.
4 Ibid., pp. 133–4, 141, 194–6.
5 B.M. Sculptures of A.-n.-pal, Pl. I.
6 Mission, pasaim; Perrot, et Chipiez, , Histoire, iii.Google Scholar Fig. 305, from Tyre; cf. a stele in Copenhagen (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Ant. Kunstvaerker, No. 837, ill. on Billedtavler, lxxii), which Clermont-Ganneau states to be of the second century B.C. (Rev. Arch. 3, xl. 1902, i. p. 200, Pls. IX.–XI.)
7 E.g. at Constantinople, Mendel, Cat., I., Nos. 78–87, 93–96.
8 No. 96.
9 Kypros, the Bible and Homer, text to Pl. CXCVI.; No. 4 on this plate is now in the Barracco Museum, Jahrb., xxii. 1907, p. 187Google Scholar, Fig. 32.
10 Perrot et Chipiez, iii. Fig. 145; Heuzey, , Cat. des Figurines de t.c. (Louvre), Pl. V. I.Google Scholar
11 Fifth Egyptian Room, wall case 227, No. 2365; ht. 
in. I am enabled to publish it through the courtesy of Dr. H. R. Hall.
12 Both shown on B.M. Bronze Reliefs of Shalmaneser, Pl. XLII.
13 Copied by kind permission of Dr. Otto Weber and the Berlin Museum from Auegrabungen in Sendschirli, iv, Pl. LXGoogle Scholar; Fig. 3 copied from Pl. LIV.
14 Absence of hair on an Assyrian face generally denotes a eunuch, or male attendant.
15 A head precisely like No. 1257 is reported to have come from Jebeil (Byblos); it is in the Phoenician room of the British Museum.
16 British Museum, Assyrian Transept, Slabs 824 and 825.
17 Wonders of the Past, ii. p. 645. Sir F. G. Kenyon has kindly allowed the use of a British Museum negative.
18 Dickins, Cat., i. p. 78, 86; Ant. Denkm., XXX; Brunn-Br. 456a, 472b; Collignon, , Sculp. gr., i. Pl. II.Google Scholar
19 Handbook, p. 194.
20 Handbook, p. 141.
21 Mon. Piot, vii. 1900, Pl. XIV.
22 Brunn-Br., 26–28, 121.
23 Bulle, , Schöne Mensch,2 Pl. 38Google Scholar; photo by kind permission of Dr. L. D. Caskey.
24 Assyrian goddesses, such as the Ishtar of Ashurnasirpal in the (British Museum (Sculptures of A.-n.-pal, Pl. XLI), wear the same dress as the women of the Barraceo slab (Barracco et Helbig, La Coll. Barr., Pl. XVI), although the latter are presumably captives. The illustration is by courtesy of Messrs. F. Bruckmann, Munich.
25 Dickins, p. 44.
26 Ghislanzoni, , Notizie arch. sulla Cirenaica (printed separately and in Notiziario arch., i.), p. 121Google Scholar, Figs. 59a, b.
27 Dickins, p. 43.
28 For which see Speleers, Costume Oriental Ancien.
29 A similar figure in terracotta has a head with feathered eyebrows, B.M. Cat. Terracottas, A. 106; J.H.S., ix, 1891, Pl. 9.
30 Cesnola, , Atlas, i, Pl. III.Google Scholar A terracotta head with feathered eyebrows and a long beard has features like the bearded head 1257 (Ohnefalsch-Richter, , Kypros, Pl. XIV. 3, 4Google Scholar; same plate in Ancient Places of Worship, Ant. Cultusstätten).
31 J.H.S., xxxix, 1919, pp. 62, 232, Pl. I.
32 Hist., iii, Fig. 363.
33 Late sixth century, Brunn-Br., 227a; heads, Ath. Mitth., ii, 1877, Pl. XXI.
34 Note also an unusual work of this class recently added to the Leyden Mus. (Brants, , Oudheidkundige Mededeelingen, Nieuwe Reeks, vi, 1925, p. lxxviiGoogle Scholar, Fig. 1).
35 Brunn-Br., 206.