Lesley Fitton, British Museum He is the first male figurine to
be added to the collection, and so is vastly outnumbered by the
female figurines surrounding him, but he looks lovely and very
much at home in his new surroundings. You can even see the
‘ghosts’ of his painted eyes, so the lighting is, luckily, just
right. The ‘hunter-warriors’ are so called because they show an
active male role. They are defined by the presence of a
shoulder-strap (baldric) and a belt, and some are also shown
with a dagger. This one has no dagger, but we have decided to
display him next to an actual dagger of the same period. He is
also near to a female figurine of the late, Chalandriani
variety, so it’s possible to see how he fits towards the end of
the sequence of production. He was made in the Cyclades (the
Greek islands in the Aegean Sea) around 2300-2200BC. Male
Cycladic figurines are rare, but ‘hunter-warriors’ are more rare
still – in fact, only three other relatively well-preserved
examples are known worldwide. We had sca