Μαρμάρινο νεολιθικό ειδώλιο-περίαπτο γυναικείας μορφής: συμπεράσματα από ένα παλαιό εύρημα

Abstract

This marble idol in the form of a naked female (inv. no. 31350) was donated to the Benaki Museum in 1991 by Elisabeth French in memory of her father, Alan J. B. Wace, one of the most distinguished archaeologists of the last century. It came to her as part of her father's legacy, as it had been bought by Wace shortly before 1949, the year when it was published by him. On the basis of information available at the time, Wace declared it to be a product of mainland Greece and dated it to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (end of the 4th millennium BC). The small idol represents a seated female figure with her hands clasped just below her breast. The legs, separated by a deep groove, would have displayed their now lost calves bent at the knees, the right one vertically and the left behind it sideways. It belongs to the category of naturalistic neolithic idols, in spite of the near-schematic treatment of the head and the clearly summary rendering of secondary features. The Benaki Museum figure displays obvious similarities with marble and stone female idols and idol pendants from inland Laconia, Messenia and Argolis, mainly in the treatment of the lower body and the sharply pointed head, which suggests that it belongs to the same type and possibly originates in the same areas. The proposed dating of the Peloponnesian findings to the Middle or Late Neolithic period (5.800-4.500 BC) -since most of them are either accidental finds or located in various later contexts— implies a rather earlier date than the published one. Apart from that, however, its main interest lies in its use as an amulet. Of great significance is the fact that two of the typologically related examples, one from Messenia and the other from Argolis, where also used as amulets. Human-shaped Neolithic amulets form a distinct category of ornament, and those which render their models naturalistically and not schematically form a small group, the greater part of which originates in Thessaly and the Péloponnèse. The materials used in the manufacture of the human-shaped amulets are normally stones in a variety of colours, and less often clay, while oystershell and bone were chosen by craftsmen exceptionally rarely, in spite of the softness and consequent malleability of this material. Prehistoric ornaments representing the human body or limbs, with their obvious prophylactic / apotropaic character which has its origins in the world of magical symbolism, were perhaps vehicles for supernatural powers which might prevail against the laws of nature, while at the same time they contain information of a social and ideological character that makes them recognizable codewords among members of the community.