Series·Swedish Cyprus Expedition

Vouni: sculpture and terracottas

253 object photographs · 1927–31

Site: Vouni

This series holds 253 object photographs of limestone sculpture and terracotta figures from Vouni, the hilltop site on the north-west coast that Alfred Westholm excavated for the Swedish Cyprus Expedition in 1928–1929. Most of the sculpture came from the palace and its sanctuaries, among them the main sanctuary, where Room 129 held a group of statues, and the Temple of Athena on the summit, where fragments of statuettes of the goddess lay in front of the building. The helmeted head of Athena, no. 210, is one of them.

The records keep the expedition's classification. Limestone pieces carry the style names of the publication, such as "Cypro-Greek I, Vouni I–II" and "Cypro-Greek II, Vouni III–IV": the Vouni sculpture was divided into a numbered series of styles, which then served to class the sculpture from Paradisotissa and Mersinaki. Terracottas appear as "minor plastic": small figures, animals, a rider and an adult holding a child. Several records note that the piece is, or is probably, in the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia; the finds were divided between Cyprus and Sweden in 1930. Field photographs of the rooms are in rooms 66–135 and the temples.

Sources

Gjerstad, E., Lindros, J., Sjöqvist, E. and Westholm, A. 1937. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition: Finds and Results of the Excavations in Cyprus 1927–1931, vol. III. Stockholm, pp. 109, 262–276, 297.
Hellström, P. 2009. "The Palace of Vouni Revisited". In Medelhavsmuseet: Focus on the Mediterranean 4. Stockholm, pp. 28–42.
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, pp. 399–421 (p. 411).