Kretikon Keimelion. Nota su una testa fittile da Agrigento

A female terracotta head was found in 1975 during the excavations of the ‘terrazza dei donari’ in Agrigento. Scholars have noted an unusual coexistence of Geometric-Protodaedalic features and vestiges of the Cretan Subminoan style. Variously dated between the early 7th and early 6th centuryB.C., the head has been considered as part of a votive image brought by the Geloan colonists who founded Akragas. Nonetheless, as regards both style and size, the head from Agrigento appears inconsistent with the coroplastic of the Geometric and Orientalizing period. Indeed, its closest parallels are the Cretan terracotta figures of the late 2nd millennium B.C., in particular the so-called ‘goddesses with upraised arms’, very popular during the LM IIIC. This evidence represents the case of a late 2nd millennium B.C. relic dedicated in a sanctuary not before the 6th century B.C., thus leading us to interpret the head from Agrigento as a keimelion, i.e. an object worth keeping by virtue of its intrinsic or evocative value.