Farfalle nell'Egeo: una rassegna delle raffigurazioni dell'età del Bronzo nelle Cicladi, a Creta e nella Grecia continentale

Giorgia Baldacci,

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Abstract

Among the Aegean Bronze Age images of the natural world, those of butterflies, which appear on various media (seals, signet-rings, gold leaf ornaments, ivory, frescoes) in Crete, in the Greek Mainland and in the Cyclades, play an interesting role, for their diffusion as well as for their possible symbolic meaning. This contribution collects and reviews all the representations of butterflies, in an overall view and on the basis of both iconographic and archaeological survey, with a particular attention of find contexts. The aim is to verify the occurrences of the motif, as well as its possible symbolic values that, on the basis of the variety of representations, must not be considered a priori as univocal.