Funerary statuette of a reclining male figure

This male bearded figure from Cyprus, wearing a himation and having a wreath on the head, is depicted as reclining on a rectangular couch, propped up by pillows. Similar statuettes, usually of terracotta and rarely of stone, are commonly found in the entrance passages ("dromoi") of 4th c. BC tombs at the city of Marion. Their context of discovery suggests that they were used as funerary gifts. The reclining figure is identified with the dead, probably represented as a symposiast since in the missing left hand he perhaps held a cup containing "pharmakon", that is the wine that brought immortality. Alternatively, the hand may have held a flower (lotus?), whose perfume ensured the deceased's happiness in the Nether World. The dead participating as a symposiast in a funerary banquet was a popular subject in Near Eastern mortuary iconography and is also encountered in Greece. The illustrated statuette was the product of an important workshop at Marion, the provenance of many more reclining and enthroned figures with mould-made faces, wheel-made limbs and hollow bodies; frequently, the decoration was embellished with polychromy. Statuettes in honour of the dead were expensive and their quality most probably reflected the status of the deceased in local society.