Terracottaprotomes and -busts from Policoro/Heracleia

Terracottaprotomes and -busts belong to the most common finds in sanctuaries in the Magna Graecia (= South Italy) and Sicily. They usually represent female figures that are most often identified with the goddesses Demeter and Kore/Persephone. Thus it is of no surprise that many of these votives have been and are still found to a great extent in the sancutary of Demeter in Policoro, the ancient Heracleia at the Gulf of Tarent. The main goal of this project is the registration and analysis of these terracottaprotomes and -busts of Policoro. The project will than take into consideration the whole area of the Magna Graecia and Sicily as well as the Greek mother-island and the other Greek colonies in order to enable better classification of the Policoro-finds. Another goal of the project is to clarify the problems in relation with the typlogy (concerning the development of the single forms) and interpretation (chronological development and changes in the representation of gods and/or humans) of these protomes and busts. Other aspects dicscused, that have been rarely considered up to now, are f.e. the connection between where the votives were erected and where they were found, the one between use and form, the cult function, the connection between iconography and local cult. There has never been a study of this kind. Moreover most of the Policoro-finds belong to the 4th Century BC which is a period that is rarely represented in the current publications of findings. Therefore this project promises new information about ancient life from an art history and cult history point of view in the Magna Graecia, Sicily and the whole Greek world in general that is of great interest to archeological research.

In the course of the project the terracotta-protomes and -busts of the sanctuary of Demeter at ancient Siris/Heraclea, today`s Policoro at the gulf of Taranto, and the ones of the sanctuary of Demeter and Artemis- Bendis at S. Maria d`Anglona, situated an the outer limits of the Heraclean chora, have been analysed. The absolute majority of the finds make part of the bust-protomes in Tarentine-style, which reached their climax in the middle of the 4th century B.C. Among the approximately 2000 finds from Policoro and approximately 350 finds from Anglona 30 different types could be identified, which were then put into a chronological series - according to their respective types - starting from the Tate 5th up to the early 3rd century B.C. Stylistic analyses allowed us to recognise types in Tarentine-own style from those that were influenced by protomes of the eastem-greek area. A comparison between the Heraclean bust-protomes and material from Tarentine sites led us to reconceive the former opinion that the terracotta-production of Heraclea depended strongly from Taranto. The discovery of these bust- protome-types from the 6th /5 th century B.C is of utmost importance to the protome-research. These bust-protomes, that are the oldest ones, were only known from Lokroi and its surroundings. Based an these new finds and some stylistic and typological unique "mask"-protomes we can recommend to assign to archaic Siris - at least since the 6th century B.C. - its own terracotta-production, as well as products in its own style. As far as cultic questions are concemed we were able to gain new knowiedge by new discovered types and by comparing the terracottas from Heraclea and Anglona. The analysis of the protomes showed, that the main part of these terracottas didn`t have holes for suspension, in contrary to what was assumed. Most of them were simply placed (at least at Heraclea and Anglona). The thesis that terracotta-protomes and -busts functioned as cultimages could not be confirmed and furthermore a statistical analysis of the terracottas revealed, that only a few types were found in increasing number in certain parts of the sanctuary and therefore can possibly be related to special cult-festivals. Altlhough the great importance of teiracotta-protomes` and-busts (espeseially in the Magna Grecia) has long been known, these terracottas were almost unstudied up till now. This is only one of tlie reasons, wliy the project`s results are highly important for different fields of research.