Prehistoric Terracotta Head of a "Demonic Being" from Dodona (Epirus, Greece)

This paper concerns a clay figurine head dated to the late prehistoric period and found in the sanctuary of Zeus in Dodona. The head is stored in the Archaeological Museum of Ioannina, but was published only in 2016, in the catalogue of the temporary exhibition on Dodona hosted by the Acropolis Museum (Athens, Greece): it has been dated to the 16th -11th centuries B.C. and defined as representation of a demonic being. The article proposes to date this figurine head to the 13th -11th centuries B.C. and argues that it represented a female divine image with Gorgon features. The particular head may have been part of a terracotta figurine, which portrayed a prehistoric goddess of wild nature and fertility in her horrifying hypostasis. In this interpretation, the terracotta head from Dodona provides material evidence for worship of the Minoan-Mycenaean Great Goddess in one of her primitive aspects in Dodona during late prehistoric time.

Keywords: Dodona, sanctuary at Dodona, Mycenaean period in Dodona, Mycenaean pottery from Dodona, prehistoric terracotta figurines, prehistoric goddess of Dodona, Gorgon.