Cypriot Base-Ring Earthenware Figurine
Cypro-Archaic I (700–600BC). Height 20.6cm.
A statuette of a horse and rider, made of pinkish-buff clay with a matte light buff slip and decorated in red and black paint.The horse has tall, thick legs, a short body, high neck and mane, flat nose, and conical ears and is decorated with black ladder patterns and red bands and patches, with a red tail and black eyes. The rider has a cylindrical body, conical headdress, and long arms reaching towards the horse’s ears, has a red-painted body, black ladder patterns on the arms, and black-painted eyes.
The location and find date of the object is not recorded. It has been suggested that it may have come from Ayios Theodoros.
The figurine was given as a gift by L.Z. Pierides to the Crown Prince of Sweden Gustaf Adolf in 1925 and later donated to the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. In 1982 it was part of a deposit to the Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm, Sweden (Inv. No.: NM Ant 1742) joining objects from the SCE in the wider Cyprus collection.