Divine Images

Cult Statues in the Ancient Greek World

Samian coins with cult image of Hera: Roman Imperial period

Plan of the citadel at Tiryns

First Hekatompedon at Samos

First Heraion on Samos:

reconstruction; 7th c.

Reconstruction of Apollo temple at

Dreros, Crete, interior, ca. 700 BCE

Apollo, Leto and Artemis from the temple at Dreros,

ca. 700 BCE

Samian Heraion: successive

stages

Goddess from Karphi, Crete ca. 1000 BCE

Votive plaque from the Athenian Acropolis, ca. 650-600

Goddess with upraised arms on a krater from

Vienna.

The “smiting god”: Bronze Age example from Cyprus and Greek Zeus from Ugento.

Two images from Gazi in Crete, LBA

Horned god from Enkomi, end of 13th c.

BCE

BM 118931, relief from the palace of Tiglath-Pileser III

Relief panels 1-3 from Room 64, Palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh

Neo-Assyrian relief from Maltaya Iraq, ca. 700. King supplicates deities mounted on animals

Lady of Phylakopi, Melos

LHIIIB 2

Athena Parthenos reconstruction

Herm from Siphnos

Image of Nemesis at Rhamnous by

Agorakritos, Attica, 5th century

Diomedes and the Palladion, Athenian red-figure cup, 5th c.

Acrolithic statues from Magna Graecia, 5th century BCE.

Cult images in terracotta from Grammichele and Paestum, height

about 90 cm each

Apollo in his temple: fragment of a red-figured krater from Taranto.

Maria Rubio with the “Jesus

tortilla”

Greek “voodoo doll”

Athena Parthenos by

Pheidias

Temple images: the two-category model

TRUE CULT IMAGE Elaborate VOTIVE OFFERING

Small size Large size or colossal

Age: ca. 8th-7th cent. Age: ca. 5th-4th cent.

Wood Stone or chryselephantine

Miraculous or legendary origin Created by noted sculptor

Little artistic merit Great artistic merit

Manipulated during ritual Immobile, not focus of ritual

Full of numinous power; access restricted

Access encouraged for prestige value

Artemis of Ephesos, Roman copy and modern

reconstruction

Madonna delle Lacrime from Syracuse: mass-

produced chalkware image of the madonna ca. 1954

Michelangelo’s Pietà used as a cult image

Zeus at Olympia by Pheidias, reconstructions