From Asterix to Prehistoric Greece: A menhir at the Diachronic Museum of Larissa
Highlights
One of the very few menhirs discovered in Greece is female and represents an exceptionally rare, early attempt to depict the human form on a monumental scale.
Let’s be honest: what most people know about menhirs is limited to the enormous upright stones that Obelix – Asterix’s super-strong sidekick – obsessively carved and hauled around. And although René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s beloved comic series is not exactly lauded for historical accuracy, menhirs are very much real. These upright megalithic monuments, primarily associated with prehistoric pre-Celtic cultures, are thought to have served ritual or funerary purposes. What’s more, the greatest concentration of them in Europe is in fact encountered in France – at Carnac in Brittany, to be exact.
The Diachronic Museum of Larissa is home to one of the very few menhirs ever discovered in Greece, whose distinctive features set it apart from its Western European counterparts.
The Diachronic Museum of Larissa is home to one of the very few menhirs ever discovered in Greece, whose distinctive features set it apart from its Western European counterparts. Rather than a simple standing stone mass, it represents one of the earliest known attempts in the Greek world to render the human figure in stone on an almost life-size scale.
Standing 2.15 metres tall, the menhir unearthed at Soufli Magoula bears a carved, albeit highly schematic, figure identified as a woman, possibly a priestess. Although her face is devoid of features, her limbs, breasts, five rows of necklaces and parts of her clothing are clearly discernible, carved in relief on both the front and the back of this anthropomorphic stele.
Although it most likely dates to the Early Bronze Age (3300-2200 BC), we don’t have enough information to determine its original function. Yet its strikingly abstract form is almost like a missing link in the remarkable evolution of Greek sculpture, occupying a place of honour in the museum’s permanent exhibition.
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