Miniature tripod chairs, both empty and with seated figures, have been found at many religious, domestic, and burial sites of the Mycenaean period. They likely had some special significance and have often been interpreted as thrones for deities. The figures take the same form as freestanding female statuettes that may depict goddesses. A terracotta group with the same composition (31.11.8), dated to the eighth century bce, is exhibited nearby.
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Title:Terracotta female figure in three-legged chair
Period:Late Helladic IIIB
Date:13th century BCE
Culture:Helladic, Mycenaean
Medium:Terracotta; hand-made
Dimensions:H. 3 1/8 in. (8.9 cm)
Classification:Terracottas
Credit Line:The Cesnola Collection, Purchased by subscription, 1874–76
Object Number:74.51.1711
Said to be from Alambra, Cyprus
Cesnola, Luigi Palma di. 1894. A Descriptive Atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Vol. 2. pl. I.2, Boston: James R. Osgood and Company.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1895. The Terracottas and Pottery of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in Halls 4 and 15. no. 8, p. 2, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Myres, John L. 1914. Handbook of the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus. no. 2018, p. 337, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Swindler, Mary Hamilton. 1941. "Forty-Second General Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America: The Goddess With Upraised Arms." American Journal of Archaeology, 45(1): p. 87.
Nilsson, Martin Persson. 1950[1927]. The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion, 2nd. p. 305, Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 15, 167, pl. 7c, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Mylonas, George Emmanuel. 1956. "Seated and Multiple Figurines in the National Museum of Athens." The Aegean and the Near East: Studies Presented to Hetty Goldman on the Occasion of Her Seventy-Fifth Birthday, Saul S. Weinberg, ed. p. 114, n. 16, Locust Valley, N.Y.: J. J. Augustin.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1966. The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans. p. 6, fig. 13, London: Phaidon Press.
French, Elizabeth B. 1971. "The Development of Mycenaean Terracotta Figurines." Annual of the British School at Athens, 66: p. 170.
Karageorghis, Jacqueline. 1977. La grande déesse de Chypre et son culte à travers l'iconographie de l'époque néolithique au VIème s.a.C.. p. 87, Lyon: Maison de l'Orient.
Orphanides, Andreas G. 1983. ""Bronze Age Anthropomorphic Figurines in the Cesnola Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Master's Diss.." Master's Diss. no. 17, pls. XVII–XVIII.
Amandry, Pierre. 1986. "Sièges Mycéniens Tripodes et Trépied Pythique." Philia epē eis Geōrgion E. Mylōnan : dia ta 60 etē tou anaskaphikou tou ergou, Vivliothēkē tēs en Athēnais Archaiologikēs Hetaireias, 103. no. VII.55, p. 173, pl. 7b, Athens: Hē en Athēnais Archaiologikē Hetaireia.
Connelly, Joan. 1990. "Hellenistic Terracottas of Cyprus and Kuwait." The Coroplast's Art: Greek Terracottas of the Hellenistic World, Jaimee Uhlenbrock, ed. p. 97, fig. 89, New Rochelle, N.Y.: College Art Gallery, State University College New Paltz.
Karageorghis, Vassos, Joan Mertens, and Marice E. Rose. 2000. Ancient Art from Cyprus: The Cesnola Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 16, p. 26, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Hermary, Antoine. 2000. Amathonte: Les figurines en terre cuite, archaïques et classiques, les sculptures en pierre, Vol. 5. n. 250, p. 105, Paris: Editions Recherché sur les Civilisations.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 24, pp. 41, 412, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Karageorghis, Vassos, Gloria Merker, and Joan R. Mertens. 2016. The Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art : Terracottas. no. 17, pp. 24–25, 252, Online Publication, [CD-Rom 2004], New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Aruz, Joan and Michael Seymour. 2016. Assyria to Iberia : Art and Culture in the Iron Age pp. 35, 38, fig. 13, New York.
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