Xoanon

A xoanon (/ˈzoʊ.ənɒn/ ^ⓘ,^[1] Greek: ξόανον; plural: Greek: ξόανα xoana, from the verb Greek: ξέειν, xeein, to carve or scrape [wood]^[2]) was a wooden cult image of Archaic Greece. Classical Greeks associated such cult objects, whether aniconic or effigy, with the legendary Daedalus. 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 his Description of Greece, notably the image of Hera in her temple at Samos. "The statue of the Samian Hera, as Aethilos [sic]^[a] says, was a wooden beam at first, but afterwards, when Prokles was ruler, it was humanized in form".^[3] In Pausanias' travels he never mentions seeing a xoanon of a "mortal man".

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