Figurines of Neolithic Thessaly - The A. Bastis Collection
INTRODUCTION
Figurine material included in this Corpus follows the typological presentation of the first two volumes entitled respectively Figurines of Neolithic Thessaly I and II: it is distinguished in two main categories, Heads and Bodies (male, female or parts of them) each one of them comprising naturalistic and schematic figurines (according to their prevailing features) with easily discernible subcategories.
Figurines of the A. Bastis collection are surface finds, hence unstratified. They present additional problems in dating, since they formed part of a private collection for a long time before they were filed as acquisitions of the Volos museum. Thus there has been great loss of information data or no information at all even about their finding spot. On the other hand administrative obstacles or restrictions resulted to avoidance or even rejection of archaeometrical methods such as thermoluminescence, in order to prevent harmful impact on the objects. Consequently, in all cases the most reliable aids to dating have been typological comparisons with similar stratified material (in what concerns the general structure and decoration) and- in some cases- comparison of raw materials.
Information on modelling techniques and decoration exists in the introduction of the first volume of the series.
Publication of the material aims to its first detailed presentation rather to its interpretation and function.
Presented here are 186 clay and stone figurines, of which 70 are classified as heads and 116 as bodies. They all bear a serial number, followed by their file catalogue number in the Archives of the Research Centre for Antiquity of the Academy of Athens (ORF), as well as by their Inventory number of the Archaeological Museum of Volos. Next comes the name of the site where they were found. Information about their provenance was furnished by the collector. Whenever Mr Bastis was not sure about the exact Thessalian find spot, I classify the specimen as of unknown provenance (unfortunately this is the case of most of these items). For some sites of the Eastern Thessalian plain the name of its location is followed by a site number (ATAE), according to Gallis 1992 (ATAE stands for the initials in Greek of the words Inventory No of the topographical archives of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Larisa). Some of the sites in the Western Thessalian plain are also identified in the same way.
Measurements are maximal, in centimetres, H height, W width and T thickness. The measurements are followed by a definition of colour and by a detailed description of each item.
