The "snake goddess plaque" discovered in the Athens Agora.

A painted terracotta votive plaque, dated to the mid 7th century BC,
with a depiction of a female figure standing between two snakes.
Height 24.8 cm, width (top) 13.3 cm, (bottom) 12.5 cm, thickness 1.1 cm.

The plaque was excavated in March 1932 in a deposit containing several other fragments of Proto-Attic ceramic objects, 1.9 metres west of the north-south wall of the Agora. The objects may have been brought from other locations outside the Agora, and used as fill material for the foundation of a path or road during the 7th century BC.

The painting is in deep red over a white slip, with some details in yellow and blue. There are holes in the upper corners, indicating that it was nailed to the wall of a building.

The figure, wearing a long, voluminous chiton, stands with both arms raised and with spread fingers; her thumbs are extended inwards, her palms facing forwards. Her head and neck are in relief, with the facial features modelled three dimensionally. Her painted hair has a curled fringe along the top of the forehead, with four wavy locks on each side of the head falling to her shoulders. The oval face has wide open, blue-green eyes, lined in red, with red-painted brows which meet above her nose and closed mouth.

Either side of the figure is a long snake with a wavy body taking up most of the height of the plaque, ending with a head just below the head of the goddess. The snake on the left, painted red, has a forked tongue, and is separated from the goddess by a painted frame from which plant-like forms extend horizontally into the spaces formed by the inner curves of the snake's body. The snake on the right is blue with a red outline; the spaces of the inner curves of the body have been filled with orientalizing dotted floral motifs.

Discovered in 1939 during the excavation of two deposition pits on the Sacred Way at Delphi, in which several votive objects, from the late 8th - 5th centuries BC, had been carefully buried after being damaged by a fire around 420 BC.

The back of the figure is flat, suggesting that it was an attachment for a box or piece of furniture. The figure may represent a hero or deity, perhaps Apollo, taming a wild animal as a symbol of nature itself. He holds a spear in his right hand, and his left hand rests on the head of the animal. He stands on a base decorated with a meander.

Delos was first "purified" around 543 BC by the Athenian tyrant Peisistratos, who ordered the removal of graves within sight of the sanctuary of Apollo. A second purification was commanded by the Athenian democracy in 426/425 BC. The contents of all graves on the island were removed to the neighbouring island of Rheneia (Ρήνεια), and it was forbidden for anybody to give birth or die on Delos (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 3, chapter 104).

The "Purification Pit" was discovered on Rheneia in 1898 during excavations by Dimitrios Stavropoulos, Ephor of Antiquities for the Cyclades. The 20 square metre pit in a 500 square metre paved enclosure is thought to be where the contents of the graves from Delos were deposited. It contained a large number of bones and thousands of funerary offerings, mostly vases, dating from the Geometric period (9th - 8th centuries BC) to the years just before the second purification. The oldest vase discovered was a small 12th century alabastron. The Mykonos Archaeological Museum was built by the Greek Ministry of Education and the Archaeological Society of Athens in 1902 especially to house finds from Rheneia.

The reliefs on the quiver cover are similar in design to those on "Luristan bronzes" of around the same period, from the Lorestan Province in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran.

Five vertically arranged panels with reliefs depicting mythical scenes are separated by horizontal bands. From the top:

1. a god standing in a winged solar disc, holding a ring in his right hand, flanked by two horned and bearded deities;

2 and 4. rectangular landscape areas (gardens or pools?) surrounded by plants and mountains;

3. a winged male holding in each hand a lion by a rear paw (photo above);

The trapezoidal bronze sheet, possibly made in a Samian workshop, is thought to have been a decorative cover for an object in the sanctuary. Like the Iranian/Mesopotamian bronze quiver plaque above, the vertically arranged panels with reliefs of mythical figures are separated by horizontal bands. From the top:

1. three eagles;

2. two confronted griffins;

3. Herakles shooting an arrow at a Centaur at the battle with the Centaurs on Mount Pholoe;

A standing female figure, probably the Mistress of Animals,
on a fragmentary bronze handle attachment with a lion foot.

"A typical work of early Laconian (Spartan) bronze sculpture", end of the
7th century BC. Excavated at the Sanctuary of Zeus, Olympia, Greece.

Boeotian alabastron (bottle for oil or perfume) with a Mistress of Animals holding
a water bird in each hand. The other side shows the upper part of a horse.

Around 550 BC. The name vase of the Horse-bird Group. Said to be from Corinth.

The top of the two-sided stele, now broken, was decorated on both sides with reliefs of palmettes, similar to the akroteria (roof decoration) of buildings. One side has the relief of the goddess, while on the other side are badly damaged reliefs in two registers: the upper register depicts a youth in profile riding a horse to the right, accompanied by a walking male figure and a dog; the lower register shows two-horse chariot driven to the right by a male figure (perhaps representing Death).

The figure of the goddess, walking to right, is almost complete apart from the missing feet. She has sickle-shaped wings which emanate from behind her waist. On her head is a polos decorated with triangular rays. A thick swathe of hair falls in neat rows from the back of her head to behind her shoulders. She wears a peplos over a chiton, fastened by three buttons at her right shoulder. Her right breast and lower right leg are bare. In her right hand she apears to be holding an object, possibly a flower or plant tendril, in her left hand she grasps the left forepaw of a lion which hangs vertically with its head facing downwards.

The best known Archaic grave markers in the form of tall steles (or stelai) with reliefs were made in Athens and Attica in the 6th and early 5th century BC (see, for example the grave stele of Aristion by Aristokles), after which they ceased to be made there. However, the production of Attic type grave steles continued beyond the Early Classical period (mid 5th century BC) in other places in Greece, for example in northern Greece, where double sided reliefs have been found. Steles from other places in the Greek world often feature very different types of iconography.

Following this stele's discovery in 1893, several scholars speculated over the identity of the goddess, with theories summarized in 1895 by the German classical philologist Alfred Körte [5]. The relief figures were compared to Attic works and reliefs from the column bases of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. The white, crystalline marble was considered to be from an Aegean island, and the sculptor from Ionia (East Greece).

It was suggested that the stele was made for a Phrygian or Persian client (Phrygia had become part of the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the 540s BC, following Cyrus the Great's conquest of Lydia). The client may have identified the deity as the Persian goddess Anahita ("the Persian Artemis", a theory which Körte refuted) or the Phrygian mother goddesss Kybele. However, according to Körte, in the artist's mind she was Potnia Theron as Artemis.

It has also been suggested that the deity was believed to be the protector of the dead, in this case presumably the deceased horseman shown on the other side of the stele.

One of the two matching, almost identical marble pedestals (bases for statues or pillars?) facing each other on either side of the of the bottom of the "Clivus Sacer" (Sacred Way) in Ephesus. This is the pedestal on the north side of the street (on the left as you go up the street, see Ephesus gallery page 12). On the side of the bowl of the tripod, above the central leg, is a plaque with a figure with sickle-shaped wings, holding an animal in each outstretched hand (see larger photo below).

The small image is badly worn on both pedestals, and it is not possible to tell whether the figure is male of female, or what animals he/she is holding. However, it is sufficiently similar to other depictions of the "Mistress of Animals" to safely assume that it is the same figure as, for example, on the Archaic gold plaques from Rhodes (see photos above). The figure in this case may be Artemis, the patron deity of Ephesus.

Between the lion-claw feet of the tripod is the omphalos, indicating that it belongs to the Delphic oracle of Apollo, the twin brother of Artemis. The pedestals may have been associated with a nearby sanctuary of the healing god Asklepios, Apollo's son. Alternatively, there may be a connection with the adjacent Prytaneion, or the Upper Agora. On the left (west) side of this pedestal is a relief of Hermes leading a male goat, and on the right side of the other pedestal Hermes walks with a ram.

Two limestone statuettes of the god Herakles-Melqart
holding lions in the manner of the Master of Beasts. From Cyprus.

Left: This statuette has been dated to the Archaic period, 600-475 BC. The figure has
a beard but no moustache, wears a lionskin over the back of his head and a short,
girdled tunic with a pleated killt. In his clenched left hand he holds two lions by their
tails. the right arm is now missing. Provenance unknown.

Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation.

Right: the beardless figure is about half the size of the other statuette and less
detailed. Classical period, around 450-350 BC. He wears a lionskin on his head and a
knee-length, girdled tunic with half-length sleeves. In his clenched left hand he holds
a lion by its tail, and in his raised right hand he holds a club. Provenance unknown.

Cyprus Archaeological Museum, Nicosia.

1. Asian antecedents of Master/Mistress of Animals type images

A Hittite rock-face relief known as the "Schwertgott" (Sword-God) in Yazilikay, central Anatolia, dated 1250-1220 BC, shows a male figure standing frontally with his head in profile facing left, holding in each hand a lion by one of its rear paws. The relief is still in situ; there is a plaster cast in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

See:

2. The eddies of Lethaios

3. Delphi statuette from the throne of Midas?

The claim was made by Keith DeVries, a professor and curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, on 5th January 2002, at the 103rd Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Philadelphia, subsquently reported in the popular press and debated in academic articles.

4. Precious metal goddess plaques

5. Alfred Körte on the Dorylaeum relief

6. The Dorylaeum relief in Mendel's catalogue

7. Maenad antefix from Pietrabbondante

The Samnites were an ancient Italic people who lived in Samnium in south-central Italy. Although often at war with the Greeks in Magna Gracia (southern Italy), they adopted several aspects of Greek culture, including the cult of Dionysus, and imported Greek goods such as Apulian ceramics.

Pietrabbondante is thought by some historians to be the location of ancient Bovianum, the meeting place of the assemblies of the confederation of the four Samnite tribes, the Caraceni, Caudini, Hirpini and Pentri. The site of the sanctuary there, first excavated in the 1840s, includes a theatre and a temple.

The antefix was exhibited as part of the temporary exhibition The gift of Dionysos in the Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum, 13 July 2011 - 30 September 2012. So far I have been unable to discover further details of the exhibits on loan from the Molise region of south-central Italy.

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