Un masque humain à Hyria de Naxos, nouveau témoignage de contacts chypriotes

Abstract

Eva SIMANTONI-BOURNIA A Human Mask from Hyria on Naxos: New Evidence of Cypriot Contacts p. 119-132 Nine sherds of a terracotta mask representing a male bearded figure of nearly life size, dating to the end of the 8th - beginning of the 7th c. BC, were discovered in 1994 in the sanctuary of Hyria on Naxos. The Naxian mask owes its importance to the rarity of this type of objects, above all in the high period. The terracotta masks from the Sanctuary of Orthia at Sparta, the best known and most striking in the Greek world, are nearly all later and most of them related to a different stylistic tradition. The Cypriot Geometric I terracotta masks brought to light in the sanctuaries of Kition and Salamis in Cyprus are the nearest parallels to the Hyria example. It is suggested that the idealised bearded Hyria mask was worn during some sort of pageant (δρώμενον) by the person playing the role of the husband of the goddess of fertility who was venerated along with Dionysus in the great Naxian sanctuary and is identified with Ariadne. The representation, frequent in the cult of Dionysus, of a sort of ritual union in the cult practices at Hyria is probable. The Cypriot contacts, confirmed by our mask, support the parallel, which we have suggested before on the basis of the finds from the sanctuary and from literary evidence, between the Naxian Ariadne and the great Cypriotoriental goddess.