Chapter 10　Baked-Earth Sculpture

Terra cotta means earth baked. A flowerpot and a brick are terra cotta-that is, earth or clay baked until it is brownish red.You may have made things out of mud-cups and saucers-and the old Greeks made figures of people in the same way and out of the same thing, mud or clay.They made little statues of women, smaller than dolls, out of clay and then baked them so that they would not crumble to pieces.The baking process turned them into terra cotta.

It was the custom to place these little figures or little statues-called figurines and statuettes-in tombs and graves, and thousands of them have been dug up and are now in museums. Because they were first dug up in a town in Greece named Tanagra, all such statuettes are Tanagra figurines.They are usually figures of ladies carrying a fan or a parasol, all very finely dressed.Yes, the Greek ladies had fans and parasols like the ones you might still see on occasion today in a movie or a play.What is unusual in Greek sculpture is that these female figures are fully clothed.

Most of the statuettes are original but some of them are copies of large statues. As many of the large statues have disappeared, these figurine copies show us what the originals looked like.But they show us more than that.If you want to find out what the Greeks really were like, go to a museum and look at these little figures.The big, famous marble statues are of gods and goddesses, athletes and warriors.They were more nearly perfect