Cypriot Model small boat with figure: Cypro-Archaic II (600-480BC)

Probably missing two figures, no paint discernable, remains of barnacles and other sea growths. Middle section of hull apparently a modern reconstruction, originally concealed by paint (currently being removed). Terracotta. Possibly originally white painted or Bichrome Ware (DJ 269 AN 249)

The boat was probably intended as a votive offering at a coastal shrine. The marine growths suggest it was in a wrecked ship or deliberately cast into the sea. A figure, probably the steersman, reclines by the sternpost, and might represent the donor, thus putting him under the protection of the deity. On the thwarts across the front are scars probably marking two(?) missing figures of rowers, the large foot well suggesting they faced backwards. Within the projecting prow is an object hard to identify: possibly an animal head. Below it, on the underside is a vertical flat projection, probably a cutwater. Small model boats with figures have mostly been found at Salamis or the nearby Famagusta area on the East coast. Many boat models have also been found at the port city of Amathus, though most of those represent larger ships not containing figures.

A TL test by Oxford Authentication dates the piece as 850-1250 CE, but this must be wrong. The Byzantines didn’t make models like this. Reputedly it sustained fire damage, or may have had reconstruction work dried in an oven.

Cf. V Karageorghis 1995, Pl LXXV (7)– LXXVII, p.128-131; V Karageorghis 2006 p186, 189.