Day 63 - Seated Cypriot man
June 28, 2018
I wasn't looking forward to returning to Cyprus today. A quick walk through gallery 174, today's destination, en route to another gallery a few weeks ago left me with the impression that the gallery contained lots of Archaic statues, with their enigmatic smiles, and little else. While the gallery has plenty of these, it also has many other things of interest. And the history of Cyprus is itself fascinating: The island was settled and sometimes ruled by Mycenaeans, Phoenicians, Assyrians, and Persians, and finally conquered by Alexander the Great - and I'm probably leaving some group out. The artifacts reflect this cultural admixture, perhaps most strikingly (to me) in a large limestone sarcophagus - arguably the most important work in the Cesnola collection, according to the caption - on one end of which are sculpted nude images of Astarte and on the other images of Bes. There are lots of small terracotta statuettes, too, which give a vivid sense of daily life (grinding grain, baking bread, riding horseback or in chariots, and so on).
Today's object is reasonably well-hidden in a display case. (It faces the wall, so someone strolling through the gallery would never notice it.) It's a terracotta sculpture, perhaps 12 inches high, described in the caption as "terracotta chair and seated figure" from about 1200-1050 B.C.E. The caption goes on to state that the sculpture was originally part of the Cesnola collection but was then lost and resurfaced only in 2009 in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. It also talks about the palm motif on the chair.
This is interesting, but hardly the most salient thing about the statuette, which perhaps the curator was embarrassed or otherwise loath to discuss. The seated figure aappears to be a hermaphrodite. S/he has small breasts but holds in his hands an absolutely enormous penis whose length extends well beyond the chair on which he's seated. The penis has a hole in it. I can't see the top of the figure- it's on the top shelf of the display cabinet- but it is wearing a headdress of some sort. Is the figure hollow, and does the headdress have a hole in it? If so, did the figure serve as a drinking vessel? It appears that you might be able to hold it by its back and then pour liquid through the penis into your mouth- or maybe even suck the liquid! The caption says that "despite art-historical investigation and scientific testing, the figure remains unidentified." How prim- and frustrating! How was the figure used? Where was it found? Did it have some symbolic significance, for example, as a fertility symbol? (It's hard to believe it didn't.) We're left with so many questions. But in any case, the first impulse is to gasp in recognition and then gawk and giggle at the frank depiction of exaggerated sexuality.
Today's object is reasonably well-hidden in a display case. (It faces the wall, so someone strolling through the gallery would never notice it.) It's a terracotta sculpture, perhaps 12 inches high, described in the caption as "terracotta chair and seated figure" from about 1200-1050 B.C.E. The caption goes on to state that the sculpture was originally part of the Cesnola collection but was then lost and resurfaced only in 2009 in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. It also talks about the palm motif on the chair.
This is interesting, but hardly the most salient thing about the statuette, which perhaps the curator was embarrassed or otherwise loath to discuss. The seated figure aappears to be a hermaphrodite. S/he has small breasts but holds in his hands an absolutely enormous penis whose length extends well beyond the chair on which he's seated. The penis has a hole in it. I can't see the top of the figure- it's on the top shelf of the display cabinet- but it is wearing a headdress of some sort. Is the figure hollow, and does the headdress have a hole in it? If so, did the figure serve as a drinking vessel? It appears that you might be able to hold it by its back and then pour liquid through the penis into your mouth- or maybe even suck the liquid! The caption says that "despite art-historical investigation and scientific testing, the figure remains unidentified." How prim- and frustrating! How was the figure used? Where was it found? Did it have some symbolic significance, for example, as a fertility symbol? (It's hard to believe it didn't.) We're left with so many questions. But in any case, the first impulse is to gasp in recognition and then gawk and giggle at the frank depiction of exaggerated sexuality.
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