Kyrenaika Semata: ‘iconographic topoi’ between classical schemata and local tradition

The use of lithic versions of ‘wooden agalmata’, of anthropomorphized baetyles and of hermae dressed up for specific cult and funerary purposes seems to be well known in Cyrenaaica, attesting a combination between classical schemata and local religious uses and artistic traditions. The hybridization between classical architecture and local tradition has been often investigated by the Archaeological Mission of Chieti University in Cyrenaica, through different markers, as urbanization of Libyan villages, cohabitation of Greco-Roman and Libyan features in the rupestrian extramural sanctuaries or in funerary architecture. However, the most interesting re-elaboration of classical schemata with Libyan meanings, of hybridization among different cultures, can certainly be investigated looking at the numerous sculptures with stratified meanings, which come from Cyrene. Some of them have been realized as ‘silent’ and faceless semata for the archaic burials and tombs in the necropolis, such as the so called ‘funerary godesses’, becoming soon recurrent and standardized schemata for the immense necropolis, with specific chthonian meanings and symbolic messages, and then transformed into recurrent ‘iconographic topoi’ as part of the funerary monuments, without proper limits between sculpture and architecture of the tombs. Lithic versions of dressed up poles have often been used in this region as agalmata of gods of a Greco-Libyan/Romano-Libyan pantheon, which often has syncretized meanings, attributes and iconography of gods and goddesses. This paper has been planned remembering long and enthusiastic conversations with Sara during our evenings in a desert university; both lost in our discussions, in front of a rakì, talking of her articles about the gestures of the silence for Tacita Muta and of my researches concerning the uses of these mysterious silent semata and their schemata.. She was strongly fascinated by the rock-cut Dionysus from a remote sanctuary of the chora, and particularly by the Cyrenean funerary goddesses, by the meaning of their anakalypsis, by their development and by how they then became iconographic topoi for Greek and Roman Cyrenaica. May the ‘funerary goddesses’ continue to be silent witnesses of our discussions about strange schemata and fascinating semata!