Dancing Silenus (Olympia B 5555)
The dancing Silenus is a bronze statuette from the middle of the 6th century BC. It was found in 1964 during excavations under the direction of Emil Kunze in Olympia and is located in the Archaeological Museum Olympia under inventory number B 5555 .
The statuette was in a filling from the classical period , which contained a multitude of archaic remains such as bronzes, iron remains and shards. The find came to light during excavations northeast of the peristyle at the house of Nero . Although the figure must have come from one of the art centers of the time, the exact place of manufacture is unclear. It is only certain that the statuette comes from the Peloponnese .
The statuette is a Silenus with Ithyphallos , whose arm position in connection with the raised head represents a dance movement. According to the archaic type, the Silenus is designed as a completely hairy hybrid between humans and animals. The ears and tail are those of a horse, the legs either horse or buck legs, whereas the hair corresponds to the representation of a buck. The figure is therefore to be regarded as an early example of the fact that the long-standing separation of silenced and satyr depictions on the basis of horse and buck characteristics was only academic and not present in Greek art. The human parts of the figure also slide into the animal, namely the arched belly and sagging chest, the thin arms and the design of the flat head with a bulbous nose and long goatee, which is why it is assigned to a development stage of Silenic figures in which the demonic expression increasingly made way for the goblin-like.
literature
- Hans-Volkmar Herrmann : Dancing Silenus . In: Alfred Mallwitz , Hans-Volkmar Herrmann (ed.): The finds from Olympia . German Archaeological Institute, Athens 1980, p. 127.
Web links
- Bronze statuette of an ithyphallic Silenus in the Arachne archaeological database