The Demeter of Knidos is a life-size, seated ancient
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
statue that was erected near the ancient port of
Knidos
Knidos or Cnidus (; grc-gre, Κνίδος, , , Knídos) was a Greek city in ancient Caria and part of the Dorian Hexapolis, in south-western Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side ...
, south-west
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
(now near
Datça
Datça is a district of Muğla Province in south-west Turkey, and the center town of the district. The center is situated midway through the peninsula which carries the same name as the district and the town ( Datça Peninsula). It was a nahiya of ...
in present-day
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
). Now part of the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
's collection, it is an impressive example of
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
sculpture from around 350 BC.
[British Museum Highlight]
Marble statue of Demeter
BritishMuseum.org, retrieved 10 January 2016[British Museum Collectio]
Statue
BritishMuseum.org, retrieved 30 November 2013[British Museum Research Project at Knido]
Return to Cnidus
BritishMuseum.org, retrieved 30 November 2013
Description
The statue is made of
marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...
and in its seated position is approximately high. The
goddess is seated on a throne and while parts of the sculpture are in excellent condition, the back and arm-rails of the
throne
A throne is the seat of state of a potentate or dignitary, especially the seat occupied by a sovereign on state occasions; or the seat occupied by a pope or bishop on ceremonial occasions. "Throne" in an abstract sense can also refer to the mona ...
, as well as her lower arms and hands, separately carved, are missing. The head was also carved independently from the body and fixed onto the neck. Demeter is depicted in a serene, timeless manner, that unveils her motherly role in the
Greek pantheon of gods.
Sanctuary of Demeter
Demeter was the goddess of the Earth, of agriculture and of fertility who created the
harvest, the grain and other crops as well as the circle of
seasons
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...
. At Knidos she was worshipped with
Hades and the other
underworld deities
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwor ...
including her mythical daughter
Persephone
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone ( ; gr, Περσεφόνη, Persephónē), also called Kore or Cora ( ; gr, Κόρη, Kórē, the maiden), is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after ...
.
[ The Sanctuary of Demeter at Knidos was laid out in 350 BC, when the city was reestablished. The sanctuary consisted of a long terrace built into the side of an acropolis, overlooking the city and seascape below. Many votive sculptures were deposited within the sanctuary. Most of these were discovered by excavators in fragments, but the statue of divine Demeter herself remains relatively intact.
]
Excavation and Removal
The British archaeologist Sir Charles Thomas Newton excavated The Demeter of Knidos in 1857–58Martin-Luther Universität: "Dermeter of Knidos".
/ref> and almost immediately removed it to London to become part of the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
's Ancient Greek and Roman collection.[
]
References
{{Reflist
Further reading
*B. Ashmole, 'Demeter of Cnidus', Journal of Hellenic Studies-1, 71 (1951), pp. 13–28
*C. Bruns-Ozgan, Knidos: A Guide to the Ancient Site, Konya 2004
*G.Bean, Cnidus, Turkey beyond the Maeander, London 1980, chapter 12, pp 111–127
Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the British Museum
Marble sculptures in the United Kingdom
Hellenistic sculpture
4th-century BC Greek sculptures
Sculptures of Greek goddesses