This figure dates to the eighth Century BC – a period known in the history of Cyprus’ pottery as ‘Cypro-Geometric III’. The island had been settled by Mycenaean workers and traders during the late Bronze Age.
Terracotta figurines of the ‘snowman’ type were widely accessible to all social classes, and their acquisition in antiquity has been compared to the purchase of a candle for a saint in a modern-day church (Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art: Terracottas)