Terracotta website update

The long promised terracotta website is coming on a piece. Greco-Roman Egyptian Art and Terracotta will become the number one place to go to for all things about this area.

The website will be clean and concise, combining the precision of archeological line drawings with contemporary flat graphics.

 

Terracottas are a great way to find out more about this period of Egyptian history. These figurines are often very small. They normally measure between 10 and 20 cm. (Although terracotta, as a material, was also used for larger statues in the ancient world).  These figurines were used as either votive objects (placed in temples) or in the house, as either decorations or religious items.

What are terracottas?

To make them, you pressed wet clay into a mould and baked them. The figurines were sometimes painted. They were relatively cheap to produce and many have survived from across the Meditterenean. Sometimes we have terracottas made by the same mould. Sometimes similar subjects were portrayed in different cultural mileus. This makes them good topics to compare in mass.

Their subject varies from gods and emperors to non-elite individuals. I first became interested in them when I first saw the Isis-Thermouthis figurine in the British Museum.