Bendis - New York City, NY - Statues of Religious Figures on Waymarking.com

This sculpture is located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Museum placard indicates that the 3rd century BC limestone work is believed to be from the Temple Apollo Hylates at Kourian...and that the head and body come from different statues. "She wears Oriental dress, with a soft Phrygian cap and a long-sleeved tunic and trousers."
Wikipedia (visit link) adds:

"Bendis was a Thracian goddess of the moon and the hunt whom the Greeks identified with Artemis. She was a huntress, like Artemis, but was accompanied by dancing satyrs and maenads on a fifth-century red-figure stemless cup (at Verona).

By a decree of the oracle of Dodona, which required the Athenians to grant land for a shrine or temple her cult was introduced into Attica by immigrant Thracian residents, and, though Thracian and Athenian processions remained separate, both cult and festival became so popular that in Plato's time (c.?429-413 BCE) its festivities were naturalized as an official ceremonial of the city-state, called the Bendideia. Among the events were nighttime torch-races on horseback, mentioned in Plato's Republic, 328:

"You haven't heard that there is to be a torchlight race this evening on horseback in honor of the Goddess?” “On horseback?” said I. “That is a new idea. Will they carry torches and pass them along to one another as they race with the horses, or how do you mean?” “That's the way of it,” said Polemarchus, “and, besides, there is to be a night festival which will be worth seeing."
The 'Bendideia' also featured a solemn joint procession of Athenians and Thracians to the Goddess's sanctuary, located at the harbor of Piraeus. A red-figure cup (skyphos) (at Tübingen University), of ca 440-430, seems to commemorate the arrival of the newly authorized cult; it shows Themis (representing traditional Athenian customs) and a booted and cloaked Bendis, who wears a Thracian fox-skin cap."

Associated Religion(s): Thracian and Greek Statue Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art Entrance Fee: 0 Artist: unknown Website: [Web Link]

Visit Instructions:
Take a picture of the statue. A waymarker and/or GPSr is not required to be in the image but it doesn't hurt.

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Date Logged Log   07/24/2013 Metro2 visited it