Minoan Xoana

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Life-sized Minoan cult statues have not survived, but they have left some traces.  Bronze curls from one such statue, or xoanon, were found in the basement of the Great Goddess Sanctuary at Knossos, and other sites, such as Chania and Anemospilia, have yielded clay feet.  Minoan cult xoana were made of wood, probably cypress, as it was very durable.  Oftentimes the xoana were little more than a dressmaker’s dummy with a carved and painted head, with hair made from fine bronze or gold wires, and clay feet peeping out from under the sacral robes.  Incidentally, this tradition of dressing the deity in new robes carried on into later, Classical times.

Below is an illustration of the Anemospilia xoanon as it might have looked, surrounded by artifacts in the positions in which they were found; as you can see, the fringed robes are draped around the wooden body, concealing it. 

The ragged-looking mound to the lower right of the illustration is bare rock, and part of the altar.  Bronze Age Aegean altars often incorporated living rock, possibly for the worship of chthonic deities, the earth-mother goddess, or the earthquake god, Poseidon.