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Information about Xoanon

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A xoanon (Greek: ξόανον; plural: ξόανα xoana, from the verb ξέειν, xein, to carve or scrape [wood][1]) was an Archaic wooden cult image of Ancient Greece. Classical Greeks associated such cult objects, whether aniconic or effigy, with the legendary Daedalus. Many such cult images were preserved into historical times, though none have survived to the modern day. In the second century CE, Pausanias described numerous xoana in his Description of Greece, notably the image of Hera in her temple at Samos. "The statue of Samian Hera, as Aethilos says, was a wooden beam at first, but afterwards, when Prokles was ruler, it was humanized in form" (Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 40, 41, noted in Stewart).

For Strabo, the "carved" xoanon might also be of ivory;[2] Pausanias, however, always uses xoanon in its best, strict sense, to denote a wooden image; at Corinth Pausanias noted that "The sanctuary of Athena Chalinitis is by the theater, and near it is a naked xoanon of Herakles, said to be by Daidalos. All the works of this artist, though somewhat uncouth to look at, nevertheless have a touch of the divine in them." (Description, 2.4.5)
Of the works of Daidalos there are two in Boeotia, a Herakles in Thebes and the Trophonios at Lebadeia. There are also two other xoana in Crete, a Britomartis at Olous and an Athena at Knossos.... At Delos, too, there is a small xoanon of Aphrodite, its right hand damaged by time, and instead of feet its lower part is square.[3] I am persuaded that Ariadne got this image from Daidalos. (Pausanias, 9.40.3).
Enlarge picture
"Plank figure" of chalk, Early Cypriot III to Middle Cypriot I, 1900-1800 BCE (Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens)
Similar xoana were ascribed by the Greeks to the contemporary of Daedalus, the equally legendary Smilis. Such figures were often clothed in real textiles, such as the peplos that was woven and ceremonially delivered to Athena on the Acropolis of Athens into historic times.

Some types of archaic xoana may be reflected in archaic marble versions, such as the pillar-like "Hera of Samos" (Louvre Museum), the flat "Hera of Delos" or some archaic kouros-type figures that may represent Apollo.

In Athens was preserved in the Erechtheum an ancient olivewood[4] effigy of Athena (the Palladion) that the Athenians believed had fallen to earth from the heavens, as a gift to Athens; it was still to be seen in the second century CE.[5] On the island of Icaria a rustic piece of wood was venerated for the spirit of Artemis it contained or represented (Burkert). Ovid in Metamorphoses (10.693ff) describes how in the cave of Cybele numerous wooden images are to be seen.

The wood of which a xoanon was carved was often symbolic: olivewood,[6] pearwood, Vitex, oak,[7] are all specifically mentioned. a type of cult figure in which the face hands and feet were carved of wood and the rest of marble is called acrolith. It should be noted that in Pausanias' travels he never mentions seeing a xoanon of a mortal man.

Such an archaic image of wood of the Tauric goddess was stolen by Iphigeneia and Orestes in Iphigeneia in Tauris (lines 1359-59).

Notes

1. ^ from ξέω, according to Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon; Florence M. Bennett offers ξέείη, "A Study of the Word ΞΟΑΝΟΝ" American Journal of Archaeology 21.1 (January 1917), pp. 8-21. Bennettt appends a useful list of the sixty-six xoana mentioned by Pausanias, who sometimes uses the phrase xylon agalma, "sculptured image of wood"
2. ^ Thus he describes the chryselephantine sculptures of Phidian Zeus and Polyclitan Hera as xoana and even the marble Nemesis at Rhamnus, as Frazer noted (Frazer 1897)
3. ^ Compare the image of the "Lady of Ephesus" whom the Greeks called Artemis: Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
4. ^ Athenagoras, Laws 17.
5. ^ Pausanias, 1.26.6.
6. ^ The olive is sacred to Athena.
7. ^ The oak is especially sacred to Zeus.

References

  • Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works, passim.
  • Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, 1985. II.5.3 Temple and Cult image
  • James George Frazer, Pausanias: Description of Greece, translation and commentary, II, pp 69-70.

See also

''' The archaic period in Greece (750 BC–480BC) is one of the five periods of Ancient Greek history, defined on the basis of pottery styles.

Beginning in around 620 and ending in 480 the term is also used in a broader sense for a period spanning from 750 - 480.
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In the practice of religion, a cult image is a man-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents. Cultus, the outward religious formulas of "cult", often centers upon the treatment of cult images, which may be dressed, fed or
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The term ancient Greece refers to the periods of Greek history in Classical Antiquity, lasting ca. 750 BC[1] (the archaic period) to 146 BC (the Roman conquest). It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western Civilization.
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Aniconism is the absence of any representations, in a restricted sense those of living or divine beings, and more generally, any type of human substitution. The word itself derives from Greek εικων 'image' with the negative prefix an-
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effigy is a representation of a person, especially in the form of sculpture.

The term is usually associated with full-length figures of a deceased person depicted in stone or wood on church monuments.
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Daedalus (Latin, also Hellenized Latin Daedalos, Greek Daidalos (Δαίδαλος) meaning "raper", and Etruscan Taitle) was a most skillful artificer, so skillful that he was said to have invented images.
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Pausanias (Greek: Παυσανίας) was a Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A.D., who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.
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In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hera, (Greek Ήρα, IPA pronunciation [ˈhiːrə]; or Here (
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Samos is the name of various places:

Greece:
  • Samos Island is a Greek island of the Aegean. The adjective "Samian" is used to describe the island's products, people, and history, in particular:

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Clement of Alexandria (Titus Flavius Clemens) (c.150-211/216), was the first member of the Church of Alexandria to be more than a name, and one of its most distinguished teachers. He was born about the middle of the 2nd century, and died between 211 and 216.
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Strabo[1] (Greek: Στράβων; 63/64 BC – ca. AD 24) was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher. He is mostly famous for his 17-volume work Geographica
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Location

Coordinates Coordinates:
Time zone: EET/EEST (UTC+2/3)
Elevation (min-max): 0 - 10 m (0 - 0 ft)
Government
Country:
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Smilis was a Greek sculptor of legend, the contemporary of Daedalus, whose name was associated with the archaic cult figure of Hera at Samos (Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.4.4).
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peplos (Greek: πέπλος) is a body-length Greek garment worn by women in the years before 500 BC.

The peplos is essentially a tubular cloth, folded inside-out from the top about halfway down, so that what was the top of the tube is now at the
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Musée du Louvre

Established 1793
Location Palais Royal, Musée du Louvre,
75001 Paris, France
Visitor figures 8,300,000 (2006)<ref name="visitors" />
Director Henri Loyrette
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kouros meant a male youth, and is used by Homer to refer to young soldiers. From the fifth century the word connoted specifically an adolescent, beardless male, but not a child. Compare ephebos.
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In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo (in Greek, Ἀπόλλων — Apóllōn or Ἀπέλλων — Apellōn), the ideal of the kouros
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Erechtheum (Greek: Έρέχθειον Erechtheion) is an ancient Greek temple on the north side of the Acropolis of Athens in Greece, notable for a design that is both elegant and unusual.
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ATHENA is an antimatter research project that is taking place at the AD Ring at CERN. In 2002, it was the first experiment to produce 50,000 low-energy antihydrogen atoms, as reported in the journal Nature[1].
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palladium was an image of immemorial antiquity on which the safety of a city was said to depend, especially the one that Odysseus and Diomedes stole from the citadel of Troy. It features in Graeco-Roman works such as the Aeneid.
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Location

Coordinates Coordinates:
Time zone: EET/EEST (UTC+2/3)
Elevation (min-max): 70 - 338 m (0 - 0 ft)
Government
Country:
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Icaria
Ικαρίa

The village of Armenistis in the north between Nas and Evdilos
Geography

Island Chain: North Aegean
Area:[1] 255.303 km (0 sq.mi.
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Artemis (Greek: (nominative) Ἄρτεμις, (genitive) Ἀρτέμιδος
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Ovid

Ovid as imagined in the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.
Born: March 20, 43 BC
Sulmo
Died: 17 AD
Tomis
Occupation: Poet
Influences: Dante Alighieri, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, William Shakespeare

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Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid is a narrative poem in fifteen books that describes the creation and history of the world, drawing from Greek and Roman mythological traditions.
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Cybele (Greek: Κυβέλη) was a deification of the Earth Mother who was worshipped in Anatolia from Neolithic times. Like Gaia (the "Earth") or her Minoan equivalent Rhea, Cybele embodies the fertile earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and
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V. agnus-castus

Vitex agnus-castus — commonly called just Vitex, but also called Chaste Tree, Chasteberry, or Monk's Pepper — is a native of the Mediterranean region.
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acrolith (from Greek: acros, height, extremity; and lithos, stone) was a statue in which the trunk of the figure was made of wood, and the extremities (head, hands and feet) of marble.
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Iphigeneia in Tauris

Orestes and Pylades brought before Iphigenia by Joseph Strutt
Written by Euripides
Chorus Greek Slave Women
Characters Iphigeneia
Orestes
Pylades
King Thoas
Athena
herdsman
servant
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Chryselephantine (from Greek χρυσός, chrysos, gold, and ελεφάντινος, elephantinos
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