Deities, Dolls, and Devices

A report on the prehistoric ceramic figurines recovered from the Franchthi Cave in Greece.

Talalay reports on a small body of figurines (twenty-four figurines and twenty-one fragments) recovered during excavations at Franchthi Cave and at the nearby open-air settlement along the present shoreline. She also reexamines the theoretical and methodological foundations of scholarship in the field of figurine studies. A thorough and pathfinding study of the most important body of figurines from southern Greece, this book will be especially valuable to specialists in prehistoric Greece and to all scholars interested in early representations of the human figure in prehistoric art and in the significance of these representations to the members of early human communities. The book also makes a contribution to the growing body of literature on gender in early societies with a critical evaluation of the uses of evidence in addressing gender issues.