How Greek is Limestone Sculpture on Cyprus?
July 2020 | Vol. 8.7
By Pamela Gaber
When I first undertook to study the more than 150 limestone sculptures from the Iron Age uncovered at Idalion in Cyprus during the 19th century, I was struck by the universal tendency to treat Cypriot sculpture as somehow “debased Greek.” But what does that even mean?
Map of Cyprus. Image by Badseed via Wikimedia, CC By-SA 3.0
I was inspired by a handsome fellow, the “Idalion Colossus,” dating to the mid-fifth century BCE, who resides in the Leventis Gallery of Cypriot Art in the British Museum. When he was complete the Colossus would have stood over 7 feet tall. He is definitely not debased-anything! In fact, it struck me that he was a masterwork.
The ‘Idalion Colossus’. © The Trustees of the British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
When he was made the coastal cities of Cyprus had only recently joined the Greeks and Phoenicians in their conflict. The inland cities, including Idalion, stayed out of the conflict and continued to product and process their copper. From the late 3rd millennium BCE people from all over the eastern Mediterranean world came to Cyprus for copper. The inland cities produced it and the coastal cities traded abroad…everywhere. By the 19th century BCE Cypriot copper was appearing in Crete, in southern Jordan, in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. After about 1750 BCE it was the single greatest source of copper in all of those places. It was in contact with all of those cultures but maintained its individuality throughout. So what is Cypriot sculpture and what do its styles mean?
Although the practice of offering votive sculpture—prayers in stone, if you will—originated in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BCE, in Cyprus it became something unique. There are hundreds of terracotta and limestone votaries in every sanctuary, especially from the 8th century through the Hellenistic period—the period of Cyprus’ greatest copper wealth. That made me question the way sculpture was produced, and what we could learn from it.
Soon I began to notice that some of the Colossus’ facial features were similar to those of other figures. The cheekbones were all clearly defined, (with the exception of the female head), the foreheads were all vertical and the eyes of figures from Idalion were universally twice as long as they were high. These similarities were clear whether the figure was male or female, clean shaven or bearded, bore a Greek-style fillet or a Mesopotamian turban.
Most telling of all were the straight, “beveled,” upper lip on every figure, whether they were smiling or not. These and other features led me to suggest that it was possible to recognize the style of a region that produced limestone sculpture by meticulously examining, measuring, and comparing individual features.
Figures from Idalion: 1) London, British Museum; 2) Nicosia, Cyprus Museum; 3) London, British Museum. Image courtesy of Pamela Gaber.
Smaller figures from the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia: 1) half life-size; 2) ca. 29″tall; 3) ca. 24″ tall. Image courtesy of Pamela Gaber.
There is more. The quality of the sculptures varied with their size. The quality was extremely high – as long as they were life-size or larger. It became less reliably expert as the size diminished. About half life size seems to be the transition point and as figures got even smaller the variation in quality was wildly more variable. There are also tiny figures that are beautifully carved, like the tiny head from Vouni. It is barely 10 centimeters high.
Athena from Vouni, Nicosia, Cyprus Museum. Image courtesy of Pamela Gaber.
Another thing was how different the facial features from different regions were. Take the picture of the little Athena head from Vouni Looking at the other figures from that site, and its satellite town of Mersinaki 7 km. away, it becomes obvious that they share facial features quite different from the sculptures from Idalion. The life-size head from Mersinaki might even have been made by the same sculptor as the little Athena. The bowed mouth and long, slender eyes are very different from Idalion heads, though very like each other. Similarly, the low brow and peak in the center of the hairline are different from Idalion figures, but like one another.
Even more striking is the existence of a female “colossus” from Vouni who also stood 7 feet tall. The damage to her nose and chin makes it a little difficult to see that her mouth has the same bowed shape as the little Athena and the Mersinaki head. She clearly (in spite of the damage) has the identical hairline as the others, while the Idalion vertical brow sits beneath a relatively straight hairline.
Once I began to notice these characteristics, I began to look at more and more localities. Figures from Paphos were strikingly similar to one another, and unlike those from elsewhere. The famous life-size head is beautifully carved, showing a vertical brow and extremely thin-lipped mouth. Her eyes are 3 times as long as they are high, and her cheeks are smoothly rounded, without any indication of cheekbones. Imagine my surprise when I compared less well-carved figures and figures from differing periods in Paphos and discovered that they all share these characteristics.
Figures from Paphos: 1) Paphos Archaeological Museum; 2) Kouklia Museum; 3) Paphos Archaeological Museum. Image courtesy of Pamela Gaber.
On the other side of the island at Kition, I thought I might find more similarities to Idalion, since it’s not only closer, but had commercial and political ties to Idalion in the Archaic and Classical periods. I was surprised to find how different the regional styles actually were. Whether in Hellenic or Levantine attire, limestone figures from Kition share certain facial characteristics. They include a broad, rounded jaw, depressions beside the mouth, a low brow with a curving hairline.
From Kition: 1) Heads: Stockholm, Medelhavsmuseet; 2) Figures: Nicosia, Cyprus Museum. Image courtesy of Pamela Gaber.
Head from Al Mina, Damascus, Museum. Image courtesy of Pamela Gaber.
But in a publication about art in Syria published in the 1960s I found a head the authors called “Graeco-Arab.” Comparing the jaw shape, brow shape, and the depressions beside the mouth, it was clear that this head was made in Kition, and that Cypriotes were carrying votive sculptures abroad. A later study of the limestone provenance of sculptures said to be Cypriot from all over the Mediterranean demonstrated that the stone was from indeed Cyprus.
When I studied the 300+ limestone sculptures from the site of Lefkoniko, northeast of Nicosia, in the Cyprus Museum, it didn’t take long to discern two different sculptural workshops at work. Every single limestone figure, with very few exceptions, could be assigned to one or the other.
The figures from Workshop 2 were uniformly well-carved with rounded cheeks and chins, and vertical brows. Their hairlines ran smoothly across these broad foreheads. Interestingly, when more than the face was preserved, even the bodily forms were rounded.
1) Lefkoniko Colossus, Nicosia, Cyprus Museum, Gallery 5; 2) Half life-size figure, Nicosia, Cyprus Museum, Gallery 5; 3) Head of life-size figure, Nicosia, Cyprus Museum, Gallery 5. Image courtesy of Pamela Gaber.
Workshop 1 was a complete contrast. Less meticulously carved, each figure had more or less sharp features and pointed chins and noses. When the body was preserved it was almost always flat in the back.
Heads from Lefkoniko: 2 by “Fred” (left); 2 by “David” (right). Image courtesy of Pamela Gaber.
The next exciting discovery was the fact that I could actually discern different hands at work. Utilizing the same careful measurements of features and comparison of forms and measurements, I was able to determine several different sculptors at work, dubbed them Abel, Baker, Charlie, David, Ed, Fred, and so on. Fred’s long, pointy noses and sharp, pointy chins contrasted neatly with David’s rounder, more sloping chins and shorter, broader noses. In addition, David’s faces had clear depressions on either side of the mouths, whether they seemed to be smiling or not. These sorts of characteristics were clear for each carver, and presumably the viewer.
There are fascinating implications from these studies. We can tell when and from where Cypriots were carrying votives not only abroad, but from place to place on Cyprus during the Archaic and Classical periods. Cypriot sculpture in the Iron Age also shows many influences, Greek, Persian, and Egyptian, all of which are to be expected of an island at the crossroads of empires. But far from being ‘debased,’ it is this ability to take various styles to express very local identities that what makes Cyprus a culture unto itself.
How to cite this article:
Gaber, P. 2020. “How Greek is Limestone Sculpture on Cyprus?”, The Ancient Near East Today 8.7. Accessed at: https://anetoday.org/limestone-sculpture-cyprus/.
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