1973.19

‘Sacred Tree’

Preserved ht 8.3cm.

Cyril Henry Leach Bequest by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum; from Achna, Cyprus.

The lower part is missing. Grey-buff clay with black inclusions, fairly coarse. The ‘tree’ comprises a columnar trunk with added blobs of clay to represent the branches (two of them have broken away). The surface was slipped and there are traces of red paint on some areas including the top.

Achna lies in south-east Cyprus, about halfway between Larnaka and Famagusta. The sanctuary there was excavated in 1882 by Ohnefalsch-Richter on behalf of Charles Newton, and a proportion of the finds went to the British Museum: M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, the Bible and Homer (London 1893) 1-2 and Index. See also A. Caubet, “Achna, 1882: réflexion sur les découvertes du sanctuaire chypro-archaïque et classique”, in: G.C. Ioannides (ed.), Studies in Honour of Vassos Karageorghis (Kypriakai Spoudai 44-45, Nicosia 1992) 261-267.

These figurines represent fairly popular types of the sixth-fifth centuries BC. The females and doubtless the male (?) represent worshippers and would be suitable both for the grave and as votives at a sanctuary. The females of the type seen here are generally described as playing musical instruments, although the detail is rarely clear. Compare Ohnefalsch-Richter, op.cit., pl. 11, 3 and pl. 12, 1 and 3; A. Brown and H. Catling, “Additions to the Cypriot Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford”, Opuscula Atheniensia 13, 1980, 128-130 nos 100 and 102-103, also from Achna.

The sacred tree was a common motif in Cyprus on seals and vases from the Bronze Age on. In terracotta they are often found at the centre of a circle of dancers. For such terracottas, see Ohnefalsch-Richter 127-131 and pl. 76, Swedish Cyprus Expedition I, passim, and J.L. Myres, Handbook of the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus (New York 1914) 355. Webb gives further parallels: see J.M. Webb, Cypriote Antiquities in Australian Collections, i (Corpus of Cypriote Antiquities 18, SIMA XX: 18, Jonsered 1997).

For Cypriot terracottas more generally, see the excellent study by A. Caubet et al., L’art des modeleurs d’argile. Antiquités de Chypre. Coroplastique (Paris 1998).

J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 83; J.M. Webb, Cypriote Antiquities in Australian Collections, i (Corpus of Cypriote Antiquities 18, SIMA XX: 18, Jonsered 1997) 51-52 nos 213-216, pl. 16.