HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
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 105

There is another standing statuette of a lady, very similar in many respects to that which is above described. The figure holds on the left arm a kid. This is her offering. The right arm is lost, but enough remains of the indications of that member to enable us to decide that the position of the limb was not unlike-that of the arm in the previous example. Considerable traces of strong red pigment remainon the tunic of this figure. The jewellery which it bears is less magnificent than that of the other work. These ornaments comprise a lofty coronet, consisting of a lunette, surmounted by a row of large balls, or roses. Over this is a fillet, which, in its turn, is topped by a row of flowers and leaves, alternating with disk-like enrichments. The last-named elements are supported behind by a flat lunette, which seems to belong to the body of the coronet. The ear-rings comprise annulets with fir-cone pendants. There is no carcanet. The collection comprises also the half of a statuette which represents another lady, apparently the personification of a city, with an offering, which in this case is a dove. Two carcanets are on the neck, one of which is comprised of oblate beads, while the other exhibits a row of pendants like fircones, such as occur with others in the same class. The headdress of this figure is not inferior in richness to that of either of the above examples. Lowest of all its elements is a narrow fillet. Over this is a row of balls, next a row of rosettes, which are identical with those which are so frequent in Assyrian modes of decoration, that they are habitually associated in our minds with the art-works of that nation. Next is a line of eagles with their wings displayed, the decorative effect of which is analogous to that of the well-known anthe-mion ornament. The summit of this extraordinary structure represents distinctly a mural crown, or line of lofty and battlemented towers, connected by curtain walls; in fact, here is the figure of a fortress of the same kind as that so frequently represented by Assyrian sculptures, and including the well-known crenellations of the battlements. The loftiness of such crowns as these is shewn by the proportion of this example to the face of the statuette it enriches. This proportion indicates the altitude of the ornamentto have been about fourteen inches. Such crowns must have been extremely light; and that they were formed of gold leaf, laid on a stiffening or body, may be surmised. The right hand of this figure seems to have held a small animal, such as a hare, of which the legs alone remain, attached to the drapery of the statuette. Unlike other examples, the lady's girdle is shewn in this instance. The unbroken earring—its fellow has been defaced—has a very long pendant to a large disk. It is an ornament such as is frequently represented on Egyptian paintings. A further example likewise exhibits the Greek costume and a coronet of roses, and other ornaments too much defaced for recognition, and is, like the above, a canephoric figure of a lady. She carries in pne hand a dove, by way of offering to the goddess. A kid is in the other hand of the figure. The edges of a veil which descends over the shoulders are cut in Vandykes, as if a fringe of some sort was worn there. This statuette is distinguished by three carcanets, all comprising pendants. The lowest of these ornaments is made of fir-cone-shaped jewels, or bottles, of unusual dimensions, and in their form not unlike amphorǽ. Very distinct traces of a jewel representing two human figures, which seem to be struggling, or embracing, occur at the centre of and below this carcanet. They seem to belong to it, and may be parts of its largest pendant. The second carcanet exhibits a row of amphora-like pendants. The third consists of pendent beads, or roses, attached to a fillet, or chain, in the centre of which is an unusually long pendant, the much-injured contours of which suggest that it was a bottle in the form of a date fruit, which .is represented here, similar to those which have been described above as formed of moulded glass. What looks like a chain, or garland of roses, crosses the front of the body of this statuette. Another figure wears the Greek costume, including the knotted girdle, two carcanets, a towering coronet, earrings with long pendants, and shoes. In her right hand is a dove, held against her breast. With her left hand, she seems to grasp a kid by its fore paws, the creature's body hanging down before the bearer's figure. Two others, although differing in size from the last, are almost identical with it in other respects. It is noteworthy that all the above-named effigies exhibit not only the Greek costume pure and simple, and carry offerings like the canephorge on their way to the temple of the goddess, while their lofty coronets are to be closely associated with those still worn by brides in more than one province of the Turkish dominions in Europe and Asia Minor, but their faces, as regards the expressions, characters, and forms, even to those which are due to the skulls themselves, are Greek, and of the noblest type. The next company of statuettes display facial and cranial characteristics of an entirely different order, and intellectually, if not morally, speaking, are of an inferior type to that of the above. This type represents that which appears in numerous statues and statuettes in stone, and other materials, found in Cyprus by Mr. R. H. Lang and others, and is so peculiar as to be distinguished as the Cypriote type. It must be remembered that in the so-called Cypriote type of sculptures certain conventions of execution appear to have been in force, and that these principles were evidently analogous, to those which ruled the artists of the Nile. Some part of the peculiar appearance of the sculptures in question may be due to these peculiarities of treatment, but I think this does not account for the whole of that degrading contrast which

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