Idols. 203 example, instead of a very small number of statuettes, however carefully selected they may be as specimens of the class. But what serves to dispel any lingering doubt, is the situation given to these images by their makers. Some, having got out of their original place and having been thrown in the refuse heap at an early date, have been picked up in the ruin and soil of ancient cities ; but nearly all, whether marble or clay figures, have come from sepulchres. What part they played, and why they were placed there, is not difficult to grasp. Portraits of the defunct, like those pictures we find in the shaft-graves and the serdabs of the mast abas of the ancient Empire, they certainly are not. The art of these tribes was not advanced enough to take so bold a flight ; besides, how is it possible to identify the owner of the grave with the nude female figure which in the vast majority of cases is found in the grave } ^ Unlikely in itself, the assumption is inadmissible in the case at issue. The statuettes are not unfrequently from graves wherein arrow-heads, knives, and other objects pointing to the presence of tribal chiefs had been deposited. The statuettes found in the prehistoric graves of the Archipelago and of Argolis fulfilled a very similar function to that which was ascribed to those small figures of limestone or earthenware placed in Egyptian hypogaea by the friends of the mummified defunct."^ According to Egyptian belief, oushebti or sponsors were told off to help the dead till and sow the fields of the subterranean world ; here the goddess of life and fecundity protected man during the short span of life which he passed in the light of the sun, and then descended with him into the grave to defend him against the perils of a shadowy and unknown region. To this series may be added two figures from the islet of Keros, near to Amorgos (Figs. 353, 354) ;^ one is a flute-player, the other twangs a string instrument. There are no clear indi- cation*^ as to the sex to which they belong, but we may take it for granted that men were meant. Are these gods } We
- T. Bent, in his paper entitled Researches in the Cyclades, found two small
figures in one of the graves at Antiparos, and he raises the question whether they were not meant to represent man and wife {Hellenic Studies), But as nothing about them denotes difference of sex, his view must fall to the ground. He adds a little further that he came across many more female than male figures. - History of Art, ^ U. KoHLER, Prcehistorisches von den griechischen Inseln (Athenische Mittheil- ungen).
