An Archaic Ivory Figurine from a Tumulus Near Elmalı: Cultural Hybridization and a New Anatolian Style

by Tuna Şare

Hesperia, Volume 79, Issue 1
Page(s): 53-78
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40835454
Year: 2010
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ABSTRACT:

The extent of cultural and artistic hybridization in Archaic Anatolia is explored through close examination of an ivory figurine of a mother with two children from Tumulus D at Bayındır, near Elmalı in southwestern Turkey. Along with other figurines from that tomb and from Archaic Ephesos, this family group testifies to the late-7th-century B.C. birth of a western Anatolian style in the minor arts that anticipates the Ionian style in Greek sculpture. The author suggests that the figurines served as handles of sacred implements and that they represent elite participants in the cult of an Anatolian goddess, perhaps Artemis Ephesia.