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Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
 
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SALAMIS

SALAMIS IN THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS.
BY ALEXANDER PALMA DI CESNOLÀ, F.S.A.,
page 97

 

This is probably the proper name of the female personage, as Zolinabia or Zenobia, who is represented by the object, or the name of the artist to whose conception the statuette owes its origin. The accompanying illustration (fig. 222) shews an interesting statuette of a female, at full length, which may be ascribed to Aphrodite, the goddess, who, as I have shewn before, was so universally and so preeminently a subject of the Cypriote cult. This figure is in the Phœnician or Assyrian style, base, also bears upon it an impressed inscription in Cypriote characters, which appears to have been scribbled over with resembling the goddess Ishtar. The hands appear to be holding the breasts, and the hair is plaited and bound with a fillet. On the neck, several necklaces are represented with pendants, one of which is apparently in the form of a man. A kind of fringed stole hangs below the upper garment in front of the knees. For similar types Mr. C. T. Newton refers me to the collection recently discovered by Mr.Richter in the Salaminiad, and now in the British Museum. The seated statuette of a lady, in the act of drawing the toga over her right shoulder, while her chiton is held there by a fibula. In her left hand, which lies in her lap, is a round object like an apple or egg. On her head is a coronet of leaves. Another female bears in her left hand a swan, which thrusts up its bill as if to caress her. Is this Leda ? Another statuette, which may well be referred to that mythical heroine, carries a swan under her left arm, and seems to be drawing over her naked figure a voluminous piece of drapery. Her action is that of rising from the earth. Alovely statuette is that of a lady, who sits in a chair, having her toga folded closely about her form, and nearly enshrouding it. She wears also an under-tunic. One of her legs is crossed over the other, in the manner ascribed to Juno Lucina. She rests the chin on one hand, while the elbow of that side is sustained by her raised knee. One foot is supported by a stool. This is the attitude of a woman lost in thought: in this respect, the expression of the face agrees. In the same technical style as the last is the erect lady, whose hair is arranged in crisped masses under a wreath. A third figure seems to be that of a robust woman, having voluminously crisped hair, the bulk of which is turned over her head to form a coronet of plaits. This mode of wearing the hair is frequently seen in Greek and Roman busts, as, for example, in those of the Empress Crispina. There is also a statuette of a woman seated in a chair, with a bird in her lap; and the figure of a young girl, given in the Plate facing this page. Contrasted with these is the grim, seated statuette of an aged woman, whose much-mutilated form irresistibly


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