Xoanon

A xoanon (Greek: ξόανον; plural: ξόανα "xoana", from the verb ξέειν, "xein", to carve or scrape [wood] [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. Bennett appends a useful list of the sixty-six "xoana" mentioned by Pausanias, who sometimes uses the phrase "xylon agalma", "sculptured image of wood"] ) 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, except where their image was copied in stone or marble. 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.] It should be noted that in Pausanias' travels he never mentions seeing a "xoanon" of a mortal man.

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.

A type of cult figure in which the face hands and feet were carved of wood and the rest of marble is called acrolith.

Woods and textiles

For Strabo, the "carved" "xoanon" might also be of ivory; [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)] 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. [Compare the image of the "Lady of Ephesus" whom the Greeks called Artemis: Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.] I am persuaded that Ariadne got this image from Daidalos." (Pausanias, 9.40.3).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.

The wood of which a "xoanon" was carved was often symbolic: olivewood, [The olive is sacred to Athena.] pearwood, "Vitex", oak, [The oak is especially sacred to Zeus.] are all specifically mentioned. In Athens was preserved in the Erechtheum an ancient olivewood [Athenagoras, "Laws" 17.] 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. [Pausanias, 1.26.6.] 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.

=Copies of venerable

Such an archaic image of wood of the Tauric goddess was stolen by Iphigeneia and Orestes in "Iphigeneia in Tauris" (lines 1359-59). The importance of the "xoanon" in local cult ensured that it would be carefully copied when colonies were founded, and sent out with the colonists from the mother-city, the "metropolis". Massilia (modern Marseille) was founded by Phocaeans, as Strabo (4.1) tells; the cult of Artemis of Ephesus was transfered with the colony, justified in the founding myth by a dream, and the artistic design of the cult image— Strabo uses the term "diathesis", δάθεσις— was re-exported to Massiliote sub-colonies, "where they keep the "diathesis" of the "xoanon" the same, and all the other usages precisely the same as is customary in the mother-city"; [Quoted in Daniela Dueck, Hugh Lindsay and Sarah Pothecary, "Strabo's Cultural Geography: The Making of a Kolossourgia" (2005:121).] Similarly, cementing cultural ties between the Phocaean colony at Massilia and Rome, "Among the others, the Romans have consecrated Artemis' "xoanon" on the Aventine, taking the same model from the Massiliotes" (Strabo, 4.1.5). So the cult image of the Lady of Ephesus, identified as Artemis in Greek understanding, was established as "Diana Aventina" at Rome, of whom marble copies survive ("illustration, left").

Notes

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

*Palladion
*Daidala