Divine Images
Cult Statues in the
Ancient Greek World
Samian coins with cult image of Hera: Roman Imperial period
Plan of the citadel at Tiryns
First Hekatompedon at Samos
First Heraion on
Samos:
reconstruction; 7th c.
Reconstruction of
Apollo temple at
Dreros, Crete,
interior, ca. 700 BCE
Apollo, Leto and
Artemis from the
temple at Dreros,
ca. 700 BCE
Samian Heraion: successive
stages
Goddess from Karphi, Crete
ca. 1000 BCE
Votive plaque from the Athenian
Acropolis, ca. 650-600
Goddess with upraised
arms on a krater from
Vienna.
The “smiting god”: Bronze Age example from Cyprus and Greek Zeus from
Ugento.
Two images from
Gazi in Crete, LBA
Horned god from
Enkomi, end of 13th c.
BCE
BM 118931, relief from the palace of Tiglath-Pileser III
Relief panels 1-3 from Room 64, Palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh
Neo-Assyrian relief from Maltaya Iraq, ca. 700. King supplicates deities mounted
on animals
Lady of
Phylakopi, Melos
LHIIIB 2
Athena Parthenos
reconstruction
Herm from Siphnos
Image of Nemesis
at Rhamnous by
Agorakritos, Attica,
5th century
Diomedes and the
Palladion, Athenian
red-figure cup, 5th c.
Acrolithic statues from Magna
Graecia, 5th century BCE.
Cult images in terracotta from
Grammichele and Paestum, height
about 90 cm each
Apollo in his temple: fragment of a red-figured krater from Taranto.
Maria
Rubio with
the “Jesus
tortilla”
Greek “voodoo doll”
Athena
Parthenos by
Pheidias
Temple images: the two-category model
TRUE CULT IMAGE
Small size
Elaborate VOTIVE OFFERING
Large size or colossal
Age: ca. 8th-7th cent.
Age: ca. 5th-4th cent.
Wood
Stone or chryselephantine
Miraculous or legendary origin
Created by noted sculptor
Little artistic merit
Great artistic merit
Manipulated during ritual
Immobile, not focus of ritual
Full of numinous power; access
restricted
Access encouraged for prestige
value
Artemis of Ephesos, Roman
copy and modern
reconstruction
Madonna delle Lacrime
from Syracuse: massproduced chalkware image
of the madonna ca. 1954
Michelangelo’s Pietà used as a cult image
Zeus at Olympia by
Pheidias, reconstructions