Sphyrelaton of a winged goddess (Olympia B 6500)
The Sphyrelaton of a winged goddess is a cold forged sculpture ( Sphyrelaton ) from sheet bronze , which was made around 590–580 BC. Was manufactured. It was in 1957 during excavations in the southeastern part of the Zeusheiligtums in Olympia found in a well and is located under the inventory number B 6500 in the Archaeological Museum Olympia .
The sculpture is heavily fragmented, the bronze sheet shows numerous cracks and was completely decomposed in some places. The missing places were filled with plastic. The height of the figure is 53.8 cm, the wing length 24.3 cm. The Sphyrelaton shows the upper body of a female figure, the interpretation of which turns out to be problematic. The upturned edge at the bottom suggests on the one hand that the figure was riveted to a lower body, on the other hand it can also have served as a protome . This is also supported by the lack of arm attachments, which would probably be present in a full plastic. The assignment is even more speculative, since the goddess of victory Nike is the most common winged motif in Olympia, but the archaic sculpture also depicts many other goddesses with wings. A clear assignment could therefore not be made.
literature
- Hans-Volkmar Herrmann : Sphyrelaton. In: Alfred Mallwitz , Hans-Volkmar Herrmann (ed.): The finds from Olympia. German Archaeological Institute, Athens 1980, pp. 137–138.
Web links
- Sphyrelaton of a winged goddess in the Arachne archaeological database