The cycladic gallery room 11 at the british museum now has a new addition an extremely rare marble figurine of the hunter warrior type.
Marble figurines cyclades.
Most prominent are the figurines depicting women and men.
They were also accomplished sculptors in stone as attested by significant finds of marble figurines on saliagos near paros and antiparos.
3300 to 1100 bce.
The cyclades are a chain of greek islands in the middle of the aegean sea.
The ancient cycladic culture flourished in the islands of the aegean sea from c.
Along with the minoan civilization and mycenaean greece the cycladic people are counted among the three major aegean cultures.
Figurines of this type from the cyclades islands in the aegean sea have been found almost exclusively in tombs.
They encircle the island of delos.
Cycladic art therefore comprises one of the three main branches of aegean art.
Marble 1 6 high.
National archaeological museum athens.
The marble seated harp player above was included in the met museum s masterpieces volumes in both 1993 and 2006 next to the likes of modigliani.
This figurine was found in a grave on the island.
He is the first male figurine to be added to the collection and so is vastly outnumbered by the female figurines surrounding him but he looks lovely and very much at visiting.
The cycladic islands of the aegean were first inhabited by voyagers from asia minor around 3000 bce and a certain prosperity was achieved thanks to the wealth of natural resources on the islands such as gold silver copper obsidian and marble this prosperity allowed for a flourishing of the arts and the uniqueness of cycladic art is perhaps best illustrated by their clean lined and.
3200 2300 b c emerged with important settlement sites on keros and at halandriani on syros.
In the third millennium b c a distinctive civilization commonly called the early cycladic culture ca.
Figurine of a woman from syros cyclades greece ca.
Now considering this is an object from an archaeological site of unknown origin that is quite a remarkable achievement.
Other objects such as vessels tools weapons and jewellery made of marble clay metals and obsidian complete the group of the artefacts created in the 3rd millennium bc on the aegean islands.
Marble was abundant on the cyclades islands and excavators have found many statuettes like this one that range in size from a few inches to almost life size.
Art with a capital a has consequences for cycladic figurines.
From a formal perspective the link between cycladic art and modern sculpture seems obvious.
Although it was first believed that these so called idols represent deities they probably should be interpreted more broadly as representations of femaleness the geometric shapes the position of the arms across the abdomen and the close set legs with dangling feet are.
Cycladic marble figurines of abstract male and female forms have been found at burial sites.
The abstract simplicity highly stylized forms and balanced proportions of the many white marble figurines and vessels unearthed from the aegean islands clearly translate to well known examples of today s most famous sculptures.
