Series·Swedish Cyprus Expedition

Ayia Irini: terracotta figures

333 object photographs

Sites: Ayia Irini-Palaeokastro, Korovia-Palaeoskoutella

The sanctuary of Ayia Irini lies on the rock plateau near the north-west coast, between the plain of Morphou and Cape Kormakiti. It came to light in November 1929, when the village priest, Papa Prokopios, brought the upper part of a terracotta statue from his own field to the Cyprus Museum. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition dug the site with Erik Sjöqvist in charge. SCE II traces the cult from Late Cypriote III to the end of the Cypro-Archaic period, with a brief revival in the 1st century BC.

These 333 object photographs show the terracotta figures. SCE II describes how, from the middle of Cypro-Archaic I, the votive figures were set in concentric semicircles around the altar: the smallest statuettes nearest it, larger statuettes and small statues behind, and life-size statues at the back. Floods later buried many of them where they stood. Of the roughly 2,000 figures found, about 1,000 came to Stockholm in the division of the finds. Here, 215 prints are labelled "Minor Plastic"; others carry the record's style labels, among them Proto-Cypriote I and II, Cypro-Greek I and Neo-Cypriote, with the expedition's find numbers (A.I. or A.J.).

Photographs of the figures in place around the altar are in the Ayia Irini fieldwork series, the seals in Ayia Irini glyptic, and Sjöqvist's find lists in D II:1e.

Sources

Gjerstad, E., Lindros, J., Sjöqvist, E. and Westholm, A. 1935. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition: Finds and Results of the Excavations in Cyprus 1927–1931, vol. II. Stockholm, pp. 642 and 820–824.
Göransson, K. 2012. 'The Swedish Cyprus Expedition, the Cyprus collections in Stockholm and the Swedish excavations after the SCE.' Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 42, p. 416.