Axoanon (/ˈzoʊ.ənɒn/ ⓘ,[1]Greek:ξόανον; plural:Greek:ξόαναxoana, from the verbGreek:ξέειν,xeein, to carve or scrape [wood][2]) was a woodencult image fromArchaic Greece. Classical Greeks associated such cult objects, whetheraniconic oreffigy, with the legendaryDaedalus. Many such cult images were preserved into historical times, though none are known to have survived to the modern day, except as copies in stone or marble. In the 2nd century CE,Pausanias described numerous xoana in hisDescription of Greece, notably the image ofHera in her temple atSamos. "The statue of the Samian Hera, as Aethilos [sic][a] says, was a wooden beam at first, but afterwards, whenProkles was ruler, it was humanized in form".[3] In Pausanias' travels he never mentions seeing a xoanon of a "mortal man".
Some types of archaic xoana may be reflected in archaic marble versions, such as the pillar-like "Hera of Samos" (Louvre Museum), the flat "Hera of Delos" or some archaickouros-type figures that may have been used to representApollo.
A different type of cult figure in which the face, hands, and feet were carved of marble and the rest of the body made of wood is calledacrolith. The wooden part was usually covered either with cloth orgold leaf.
ForStrabo,[4] the "carved" xoanon might also be ofivory;[b] Pausanias, however, always usesxoanon in its strict sense, to denote a wooden image; atCorinth Pausanias noted that "The sanctuary of Athena Chalinitis is by the theater, and near it is a naked xoanon of Herakles, said to be by Daidalos. All the works of this artist, though somewhat uncouth to look at, nevertheless have a touch of the divine in them."[5]
Of the works of Daidalos there are two in Boeotia, a Herakles in Thebes and the Trophonios at Lebadeia. There are also two other xoana in Crete, aBritomartis at Olous and an Athena at Knossos. ... At Delos, too, there is a small xoanon of Aphrodite, its right hand damaged by time, and instead of feet its lower part is square.[c] I am persuaded that Ariadne got this image from Daidalos.
— Pausanias, 9.40.3
Similar xoana were ascribed by the Greeks to the contemporary of Daedalus, the equally legendarySmilis. Such figures were often clothed in real textiles, such as thepeplos that was woven and ceremonially delivered to Athena on the Acropolis of Athens into historic times.
The wood of which a xoanon was carved was often symbolic: olivewood,[d] pearwood,Vitex, oak,[e] are all specifically mentioned.
In Athens, in theErechtheum, an ancient olivewood[6] effigy ofAthena was preserved. The Athenians believed it had fallen to earth from the heavens, as a gift toAthens; it was still to be seen in the 2nd century CE.[7] On the island ofIcaria a rustic piece of wood was venerated for the spirit ofArtemis it contained or represented (Burkert).[f]
The importance of the xoanon in local cult ensured that it would be carefully copied when colonies were founded, and sent out with the colonists from the mother-city.
Strabo (4.1)[4] reports that themetropolis Massilia (modernMarseille) was founded byPhocaeans. Their cult ofArtemis of Ephesus was transferred with the colony, justified in thefounding myth by a dream, and the artistic design of the cult image — Strabo uses the termdiathesis (Greek διάθεσις) — was re-exported to Massiliote sub-colonies, "where they keep the diathesis of the xoanon the same, and all the other usages precisely the same as is customary in the mother-city".[8]
Similarly, cementing cultural ties between thePhocaean colony at Massilia and the Phocaean community inRome, "Among the others, the Romans have consecrated Artemis' xoanon on the Aventine, taking the same model from the Massiliotes" (Strabo, 4.1.5).[4] So the cult image of theLady of Ephesus, identified asArtemis inGreek understanding, was established asDiana Aventina at Rome, of whom marble copies survive (see illustration at right).