A Terracotta Statuette of Cybele

Year 1972, Volume: 36 Issue: 142, 141 - 144, 20.04.1972

Mehmet İnsan Tunay

Abstract

The object is a group consisting a figurine of a man playing a flute at the right side, and the head of Cybele, which was sold to Archaeological Museums of Istanbul in 1966 by an Antiquarian and said to be found somewhere in the neighbourhoud of Eskişehir. The birth and growth of the Phyrgian music is attributed to one the Cybele's divine powers. Corybantes and Curetes who accompany Cybele by playing the seven stringed kithara and the double flute are known as the creators of this music and its instruments. Dimentions: The height of the head: 8.2 cm. The height of the male figurine: 9.5 cm The lenght of the base: 11.9 cm. The width of the base: 6 cm. The height of the base: 3.1 cm. The statuette is made of dark creamy coloured clay poured to a hollow model. Cybele's polos is almost compeletely ruined. It is restored below the neck. The head and the neck is remaining The head and the figurine at the right is worked in plastic. Of the figurine which must be at the left side, only the footprints can be seen. The group is placed on a rectangular base. The goddess is represented frontally. The glamour and the greatness of Cybele can be realized from the few traces of her polos. There are some traces of the polos on the upper part and below them, there is a garland of leaves in the shape of a crown.

Keywords

Statuette of Cybele, Terracotta, Figurine, 2nd century AD, Anatolian Archaeology