0317-07_Karthago_XXVII_16 06-12-2007 13:46 Pagina 265 THE MULTIPLE STAGES IN THE PLACEMENT AND USAGE OF VOTIVES IN CYRENE’S EXTRAMURAL DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE SANCTUARY1 par Donald WHITE University of Pennsylvania The sparseness of ancient written source material for how votive objects were intended to func- tion in sanctuaries is paralleled by the absence of much in the way of hard archaeological evidence – the latter probably because so few votives has been resuscitated from contexts that assist in explaining how they were offered as votives as distinct from how they were ultimately disposed of. As far as the ancient writers go, despite the fact that Pausanias remains our best source, what he can tell us about the Archaic and Classical period cult practices that took place in the sanctuaries he is otherwise at considerable pains to describe is perfunctory at best2. This notwith- standing, Pausanias is filled with references to patently ancient statues still on view in temples and sanctuaries in his own day3. Their retention on display for more than three-quarters of a mil- lennium, along with various other types of individually unique or one-of-a-kind votives, makes it evident that votive sculptures larger than, say, medium-sized statuette scale were handed differently than the masses of humbler votives which were routinely and presumably rather quickly rotated off display to make way for their stereotyped replacements. The latter entail stone statuettes, terracotta, bronze and faience figurines, metal, ceramic and glass dining and cooking vessels, scarabs, amulets and seals, monetary contributions, and bronze, silver and gold jewelry and other articles for personal use that on occasion included textiles and articles of 1 I am indebted throughout to B. ALROTH’s study «The Positioning of Greek Votive Figurines», in Early Greek Cult Practice, Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 26-29 June, 1986 (Stockholm 1988), 195-203, henceforth ALROTH, Votive Figurines. In addition to the general abbreviations of the pre- sent volume, the following will also be used: White, Decade of Excavation for D. WHITE, «Cyrene’s Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone: a Summary of a Decade of Excavation», AJA 85 (1981), 13-30; White, Reverberations for D. WHITE, «Fresh Reverberations from Cyrene’s Later Antique Earthquakes», Studi Stucchi, 317-325. 2 To repeat the point already made by ALROTH, Votive Figurines, 195. 3 See for example the wood statues in the Sanctuary of the Furies, Keryneia: VII.25.4; «ancient wood idol» of Aphrodite-Hera at Sparta: III.13.9; wood statue of Aphrodite at Thebes: IX.16.2; wood idol of Aphrodite at Kythera in Laconia in the «most ancient of all sanctuaries of Aphrodite in Greece»: III.23.1; wood idols of Karneian Apollo at Leuktra in Laconia: III.26.6; ancient bronze of Athena at Amphissa in Phokis: X.38.3. For an apparently old statue which received a new face in the Sanctuary of Hilaeira and Phoebe see III.16.1. The list is not complete but instead merely representative. 0317-07_Karthago_XXVII_16 06-12-2007 13:46 Pagina 266 266 DONALD WHITE clothing – just to name some, but in no sense all of the commonplace items dedicated in such seemingly limitless quantities in Greek sanctuaries all over the ancien world4. Through no great coincidence these items coincide with the bulk of the votives recovered from Cyrene’s Extramural Demeter and Persephone Sanctuary5, although it is fair to say that one can only guess at the offering of actual textiles and clothes from what took place in other sanc- tuaries including Demeter’s6 as well as on the basis of the indirect evidence of the Sicilian busti and their presumptive analogy with modern practices (fig. 1)7. I am omitting here any discussion of the handling of the site’s dedicatory inscriptions and placement of its large-scale statues8, both of which would require a separate examination. Various published attempts have been made to pinpoint the contexts in which the votives were recorded across the sanctuary’s upper and middle grounds9, and one may hope that Uhlen- brock’s and Kane’s forthcoming studies of the terracotta figurines and stone sculptures will add further information. 4 It does not, for example, include the prize tripods and cauldrons that constitute such signature dedications at Olympia nor the captured weaponry and armour that were offered in nearly every Greek sanctuary of any consequence (apart from those consecrated to Demeter and Persephone). 5 To whose basic bibliography as well as that of Demeter’s cult elsewhere at Cyrene now add J.-J. CALLOT, Recherches sur les cultes, 56, 82, 94, 190, 200, 256, 292-293. I thank G.R.H. Wright for directing me to this important contribution and join my colleagues in expressing my sorrow at Prof. Callot’s premature death. 6 Pausanias’ statement (VII.25.5) that the statue of Demeter «has clothes» in her shrine at Boura in Achaia is corroborated by an archaic inscription from Sparta mentioning the dedication of clothes to Demeter. See A.J. BEATTIE, CIQ 45 (1951) 46-58. An inscription of the first half of the third century B.C. inventories gifts of clothing to Demeter and the Kore in Tanagra; see TH. REINACH, «Un temple élevé par les femmes de Tanagra», REG 12 (1899) 72-115. W. GÜNTHER cites both in his «Un inventaire inédit de Milet», in Actes du colloque international d’épigraphie tenu à Neuchâtel du 23 au 26 septembre 1986: Comptes et inventaires dans la cité grecque (Geneva 1988) 232, ns. 94 and 96. See also ibid. ns. 95, 97-102, for a startlingly broad array of other deities for whom gifts of clothes and textiles are epigraphically attested. But the two most informative are inventories for the Apollo’s late 4th to 2nd c. B.C. cult at Didyma (GÜNTHER, 220-237, whose reference I owe to Catherine Dobias) and for Artemis Brauronia’s 4th c. B.C. cult (T. LINDERS, Studies in the Treasure Records of Artemis Brauronia Found in Athens: Acta Instituti Atheniensis Regni Sueciae 4, XIX, 1972, 3, 9-20; I owe the reference to Elfriede Knauer). Whether these inventories refer to garments for wear by statues or simply allude to textiles and personal clothes offered as objects of value to remind the deities of their owners is not always clear. In the case of Artemis, as many as six garments were used to wrap around the goddess’s statue. I do not see this as constituting ‘dressing a statue’. See LINDERS, 11. 7 I. ROMANO believes that only cult statues, as distinct from votives, wore real clothing. See «Early Greek Cult Statues and Cult Practices», in Early Greek Cult Practice (cited above, n. 1) 130. But while the familiar Sicilian terra- cotta busti often have fully modeled and draped torsos (similar in this respect to the Cyrenean series of stone ‘faceless goddesses’), many were provided with plain, unmodelled bodies. In some instances these were covered with painted panels that bear no obvious relationship to actual clothes, while others were painted to imitate drapery. The frequent piercing of ear-lobes for the insertions of ‘real’ earrings suggest that the unpainted plain versions may have been cov- ered with real clothes as is the case in cult images of the holy family still widely found in Hispano-American churches. For the Sicilian busts in general see G. ZUNTZ, Persephone (Oxford 1971), 150-157 and more recently M. BELL, Morgantina Studies I: The Terracottas (Princeton 1981), 27-33 for pertinent bibl. For busti with pierced ears see P. MARCONI, Agrigento, topografia ed arte (Florence 1929), 181, fig. 114. B. BERNABO-BREA, Musei e monumenti in Sicilia (Novara 1958), 47, pl. opp. p. 56. BELL, ibid. 28, pl. 25, nos. 102, XXX, pl. 29, no. 107 (in which survives the bronze wire), pl. 30, no. 110, pl. 31, no. 112, pl. 32, no. 113a, pl. 33, no. 117. For painted scenes on unmodelled busts see BELL, ibid. 29-33, figs. a and b. 8 For the latter see Extramural Sanctuary I, 106-109. J. Reynolds’ final analysis of the inscriptions is pending. 9 Extramural Sanctuary I, 76-116; Extramural Sanctuary II, editor’s preface, XXI-XXII; Extramural Sanctuary III, editor’s preface, X-XII and P. KENRICK, «Hellenistic and Roman Fine Wares», 11; Extramural Sanctuary V, 91-92, 104-106, 162-163; Extramural Sanctuary VII, 11-12. 0317-07_Karthago_XXVII_16 06-12-2007 13:46 Pagina 267 THE MULTIPLE STAGES IN THE PLACEMENT AND USAGE OF VOTIVES 267 Fig. 1: Author’s photo of a clothed statue in a church in Mexico’s northern Yucatan, 1992. 0317-07_Karthago_XXVII_16 06-12-2007 13:46 Pagina 268 268 DONALD WHITE In the meantime I would like to trace the multiple stages in usage that the Cyrene votives underwent prior to their final disposal in antiquity. The first has to do with their manufacture, sale and theoretical use before their introduction into the sanctuary. The second covers their time as dedicated objects set out on active display. The third deals with their initial disposal follow- ing their scheduled deactivation. The fourth their further dispersal as constructional back fills. The fifth the establishment of dump deposits to dispose of votives displaced by later building. The sixth their reburial as part of the post-A.D. 262 earthquake clean-up. And the seventh and last phase the stone statues’ exposure to iconoclastic injury and final dispersal. In other words, what all this adds up to is that, once the votives were taken from active display, a variety of possible trajectories still lay ahead for them.