This small terracotta
statuette is a cultural relic, a reminder of the lost life - sized bronze statues
of the wounded asylum-seeking Amazons in the sanctum of Artemis in Ephesus from
5th century BC.
The terracotta statuette is showing a bare- foot
female figure standing upright on her right leg with a slightly angled left leg. The head is slightly inclined to the right. The right arm is raised high over the head
and lowered to the left side of the body. The left arm is hanging down. She is grasping the ends of a bow over a quiver, hanging over the left hip.
At the feet is lying a Pergamon helmet.
The female is dressed in a rich - folded girded chiton,
which is tied at the right shoulder. On her left sid e the tie has slipped down
the girdle and one breast is bared.
The hemline of the knee - length chiton has been
pulled up over the right thigh to the hip under the girdle. The full hair is
parted in the middle and has been bundled up twice with two pigtails at the
back of the head. The chiton retains traces of the origi- nal colour. The weapons mark this figurine as an Amazon.
This small, except for the colour, comple- tely
preserved statuette, copies a lost original life-sized bronze statue which was
created in the Roman written tradition by a famous Greek artist, in competition
with four other sculptors for the asylum sanctum of Artemis in Ephesus.
On the incompletely preserved Roman marble
copies the bow over the quiver is missing, except for some rests in the hands and fixing points on the left thigh. On
some marble copies can be found a wound on the bared left thigh, which explains
the pulled - up garment hemline and charac- terises the statues of the Amazons as
pic- tures of asylum-seekers in the sanctum.
According to the Roman written tradition, the
small clay figure created in a sculpture competition is, after Polyclitus and
Phidias, the third - placed Amazon, made by Kresilas. The famous Roman marble copies have been
made with the head of the famous statue of Perikles.
The result of the thermo - luminescence analysis
limits the time of origin of the sta- tuette. The artist’s competition of 430 BC is historically and politically
likely, while a temporal minimal limit for the production of the clay statuette
is stylistic on account of the typical hairstyle with the bundled pigtails,
which differ from the hairstyles of the 5th century BC. Also, the Pergamon helmet fits with this time period.
The terracotta statuette is showing a bare-
On the incompletely preserved Roman