Type, Group and Series: A Reconsideration of Some Coroplastic Fundamentals

Abstract

Although so much that has been written about ancient terracotta figurines has concentrated particularly on their arrangement into groups of various kinds, very little attention has been given specifically to the principles necessarily governing any such classification. The object of the present article is to attempt to remedy this neglect in so far as it concerns Greek mould-made terracottas, more especially of the archaic period. This chronological restriction has been thought desirable, partly because of the limitations of my own acquaintance at first hand with material of later date, partly because rather different technical factors do somewhat influence the classification of, for example, Hellenistic terracottas. But it is not to be overlooked that, with suitable modifications, the principles considered here probably have a validity that extends far beyond the archaic period in time and, for that matter, far beyond Greece in area. In the interests of simplicity and clarity it will be necessary to restrict to the basically essential the illustrative material employed and the critical appraisals of classificatory systems used by earlier writers. To offset this brevity let it here be stated that it is expected that the near future will see the publication of the first of a series of detailed studies in which the principles here evolved will be applied on a large scale. Technical matters will be dealt with here only in so far as they have a direct bearing on classification.