This fellow was found in a pit, during 1958 archaeological investigations in the Sanctuary of Hera at Samos. He is fairly small (just over 14 cm tall) but the ivory is beautifully preserved in the island’s boggy soil, preserving beguiling traces that are not terribly easy to pinpoint on any one culture.
The style seems to be that peculiar precursor to the full-blown archaic style we know so well from the famous imposing kouroi of mainland Greece, with impossibly slim belted waist, almost wig-like tresses, and overlarge eyes often referred to as the “Daedelic” style associated with 8th-7th century Crete. Samos is a big island, practically kissing the Turkish coast, and its archaic sanctuary to Hera was a veritable jumble of very fancy imports from the Near East and Egypt (Syrian steatite censors, pharaonic Hathors, Phoenician combs, oh my!).
Ivory is a material more commonly associated with these more exotic neighbours, even as the style seems to be homegrown here during a period fundamentally marked by cross-cultural trade and healthy interference. Scant traces of amber have allegedly been found in the hair and brows. But nothing remains of the larger inlays that must have made such a statement in the eyes and below the belt.
Other nude kneelers have been found in the sanctuary (including a little Egyptian bronze woman with articulated arms and another of Greek extraction in wood). Like them, our youth is generally thought to be a respectful young visitor to the goddess. But his function is wildly unclear at least to me….And usually his body’s elegant slight bow forward is thought to have formed one arm of a lyre (a stringed instrument) – facing a mirrored twin (now lost). But this seems like a bit of a stretch…have you any thoughts?
