Terracotta Female Musicians from the Sanctuary of Fontana Calda (Sicily), in E. Lafli, A. Muller (éd.) Figurines de terre cuite en Méditerranée grecque et romaine II. Iconographie contextes, Lille, Presses universitaires du Septentrion-Université de Lille 3, 2015, pp. 181-188.

In the Sanctuary of the Fontana Calda in Butera (central-south Sicily) was brought to light a sacred deposit. The discovery, made in the 1950s, revealed, among many other things, hundreds of single statuettes of aulos, tympanon, kymbala, and harp players, and groups of aulos and tympanon players. They can be dated between the end of the 6th c. and the beginning of the 3rd c. B.C. Many other places in Sicily have yielded these particular types, especially sanctuaries like Fontana Calda that were dedicated to “chthonic” divinities. The representations seem to refer to ceremonies where the protagonists were exclusively women, with the musical instruments perhaps evoking exact episodes of myth and the sorrowful search by the mother of Kore, who had been abducted by Hades. Music was the background in every moment of the sacred ritual of which the female musicians of Fontana Calda offer a rich and singular repertory.