EARLY SPEDOS VARIETY, CIRCA 2600-2500 B.C.

It has been suggested that the gouges to the neck and upper right thigh of this figure may be the result of deliberate damage in antiquity. As Getz-Preziosi states (p. 24 in “Risk and Repairs in Early Cycladic Sculpture,” Metropolitian Museum Journal 16), “Some sort of funeral custom may have existed – a rite beyond our own experience – involving the intentional breaking of objects and even the deliberate discarding of parts of them. Recent excavation of Cycladic cemeteries has revealed that the images were not always accorded conventional respect at their interment: they were sometimes buried face down or weighted down by other objects.” For similar examples also with uneven placement of the breasts, see nos. 156 and 157 in J. Thimme, Art and Culture of the Cyclades.