The clay, female statuette from Paros Archaeological Museum (B 3648) was excavated at the ancient sanctuary of Despotiko and is one of the largest Daedalic style ceramic works ever found in Greece.

The statuette lacks its lower half, right hand and left forearm. Contrary to this, the painted decoration has survived in excellent condition and depicts characteristics of the face, hair, headdress (now partly lost) and the figure's dress. The triangular shapes of both face and hair are characteristic of the Daedalic style, as expressed in Attica and the Cyclades. More specifically, the statuette was created in a Parian workshop and was constructed combining free hand modelling with ceramic wheel (for the missing lower part).

The ancient sanctuary of Apollo, where the statuette was found, is being systematically excavated twenty years now on the islet of Despotiko, just to the West of Antiparos and in direct visual contact with the sacred island of Delos. More than twelve ancient buildings have been brought to light up to date in the vicinity, while the earliest cultic traces date to the 9th century BC. The statuette was unearthed into the main sacred building of the archaic sanctuary, along with hundreds of votive objects of Cycladic, Corinthian, Ionic, Cypriot and Egyptian origin which had been deposited there during the archaic period. Among them, one cannot but mention many intact ceramic vases and figurines, fragments of kouros statues, seal stones, an ostrich egg and objects of ivory, gold, silver and faience.

The statuette's findspot, its size, hand gesture and exquisite quality, supports the excavator's opinion that this was the cult statue of the earliest sanctuary and that it depicts goddess Artemis, who was here worshipped alongside her brother, Apollo.

Date: 675 -650 BC
Dimentions: Max. height 25,1 cm, Max. thickness 1,25 cm

The exhibit is located at the temporary exhibition entitled "From the South to the North: Colonies of the Cyclades in the Νorthern Aegean", open until the 31th of August 2020.