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 112

horses were attached. A warrior stands within the chariot, wearing a tall conical helmet. This object is of a very archaic character. Almost similar to the above is a chariot (fig. 246), also for two horses. The wheels in this case are still perfect, but there is no ornamentation upon the body of the relic as in the former instance. Another extremely quaint toy of terra-cotta represents a centaur (fig. 247), which appears to be a hermaphrodite, if we compare the female bust of the figure, .with the other emblems which it bears. On the head is a high helmet, the crest of which is like a cock's comb; a small buckler with, a cross device, is on the left arm; the right arm is in the act of brandishing a now lost weapon. This figure is painted with red and black, including bands, and a harlequin pattern of these colours. These colours have been burnt in. We have next a toy-soldier, eight inches high, standing, wearing a conical helmet painted red, and a buckler with a rosette pattern painted black; the right arm is raised near the ear, like a modern soldier in the act of saluting his officer (fig. 248). This odd figure stands on a bell-like base, and its feet hang loosely within, so that the child to whom it belonged could, by shaking the toy, produce a sort of tintinnabulation. A similar and taller toy represents a soldier with a conical helmet and a long spade-like beard; the cheek-pieces of the helmet are peculiar. Traces of green pigment occur on this relic. Fig. 249 is a toy-horseman riding a steed whose legs are enriched with a painted zigzag or chevron pattern, and neck with parallel bars. It is ten inches high, and of very archaic art. Another specimen (fig. 250), seven inches high, is rude, and unadorned with any lines or patterns of colour. Another article of this class, measuring ten inches in height, represents a woman carrying a hydria, or water vase, on her head (fig. 251). There is a very similar figure, eight and a half inches high, in the collection, in which the art is still more archaic (fig. 252). A trumpet of terracotta, about three feet long, and shorter examples of the same kind, and a model of a boat, seemingly hollowed out of a tree, must not be omitted even in an enumeration of this extraordinary treasury of toys,—if toys they were, which has not I believe, been entirely decided. It is certain that considerable numbers of such things have been exhumed. This class embraces rudely-designed figures (figs. 253, eight inches; 254, ten inches; and 255, eight and a half high) of goddesses, chiefly Aphrodite, with broad hips, narrow ankles, a triangular hatched ornament on the pubes, large ears with terra-cotta rings in them, the arms brought round and laid upon the breast, one of which (fig. 256) is eleven inches

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