*** Welcome to piglix ***

Xoanon


A xoanon (Listeni/ˈz.ənɒn/,Greek: ξόανον; plural: ξόανα xoana, from the verb ξέειν, xeein, to carve or scrape [wood]) was an Archaic wooden cult image of Ancient Greece. Classical Greeks associated such cult objects, whether aniconic or effigy, with the legendary Daedalus. Many such cult images were preserved into historical times, though none are known to have survived to the modern day, except where their image was copied in stone or marble. In the 2nd century CE, Pausanias described numerous xoana in his Description of Greece, notably the image of Hera in her temple at Samos. "The statue of Samian Hera, as Aethilos says, was a wooden beam at first, but afterwards, when Prokles was ruler, it was humanized in form". In Pausanias' travels he never mentions seeing a xoanon of a mortal man.

Some types of archaic xoana may be reflected in archaic marble versions, such as the pillar-like "Hera of Samos" (Louvre Museum), the flat "Hera of Delos" or some archaic kouros-type figures that may have been used to represent Apollo.


...
Wikipedia

...