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4. October, 1938In the early part of my stay in Cyprus, I spent two days in an examination of the a sample basket of terracottas. By chance this basket contained almost entirely human heads, either broken off at the neck or with part of the body. An investigation of these heads resulted in three observations: 1: That almost all of them were from the same clay or very similar clays, colored differently in firing; and all were of approximately the same size. 2: That about two one third of these heads were made entirely by hand; the other two thirds were molded from molds, but only the faces, from single drawn molds. Further, that many of the heads could be traced to a single face mold — I sorted out into five groups the heads from the five commonest face molds. 3: That the heads also could be grouped according to headdress, into some dozen groups, but that the headdress groups and the mold groups had no particular connection — i.e. two heads of the same mold might wear different types of headdresses, and vice versa. In a rather hasty visit, shortly afterwards, to the Nicosia Museum, I was surprised to find that of all their
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5. terracottas which I saw, not one was of a mold I recognized as among our types.
The above observations suggest the following hypotheses, to be tested as the work progresses: 1. That these heads, homogeneous in size, clay, and general appearance, form a group also inter-related by headdress forms and molds, and therefore probably of the same workshop. 2. That the products of this workshop are found much more at Curium than elsewhere in Cyprus. 3. That the figurines must be studied from three (at least) viewpoints a. By headdress TYPES b. By complete figure TYPES c. By face MOLDS 4. Of these three, a. + b. c. may be studied in the present state, but b, perhaps most important of all, depends upon prior joining of parts. 5. The un-molded faces and molded faces may or may not be of the same workshops; interrelation of types and of clay must be sought. 6. That any serious work on the figurines cannot be done with only a single basket, which may contain only heads and therefore conceals any significance the complete types may have.
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain
