Kiely Thomas, Higgs Peter. Four unpublished marble sculptures of Hellenistic date from Cyprus in the British Museum. In: Cahiers du Centre d'Etudes Chypriotes. Volume 39, Marble sculpture is rare on Cyprus before the Hellenistic period and, even during this time, the number of securely provenanced and dated examples is surprisingly limited. This is especially the case since, while older C4th BC. As a result of these perhaps quite typical Cypriot responses to external artistic and political influences, the channels and dynamics of iconographic transmission are somewhat uncertain in the absence of large numbers of imported models in stone, all the more so given the limited contextual information available for the majority of attested examples.
The latter problem is compounded by the fact that some of the key Hellenistic iconographic types — both divine images and human portraits — which are adopted on the island from the late r C4th BC themselves have a long chronological range within the Eastern Mediterranean. This is especially problematical when based on circular arguments such as the supposed influence — to give one example in a Cypriot context — exercised by portraits based on specific Ptolemaic prototypes on the broader production of images of votaries.
This is especially so given both the small number of examples likely to represent actual portraits, but also the well-known tendency of Cypriot sculptors in previous generations to employ models and styles long after they were current in their original context.
Finally, as Connelly has suggested, the apparent divergence between iconographic types according to material — stone versus. It is a great pleasure therefore to contribute to this ongoing debate by publishing four previously little known examples of small-scale Hellenistic marble sculpture from Cyprus in the British Museum henceforth BM. All four are of female subjects and have an assured or at least likely findspot or collection history.
They were rediscovered during the survey and reorganisation of all the material from the island held in the Department of Greece and Rome as part of the Cyprus Digitisation Project CDP. The CDP, generously supported by the A. Leventis Foundation since , aims to create a comprehensive and fully illustrated online database of all the material from Cyprus held in the BM.
