Some pretty rarefied books come across my desk. One that recently caught my eye is Volume 5 (B) of The Coroplastic Art of Ancient Cyprus.¹ It is a beautifully produced folio volume that is essentially a catalogue of small molded female Cypriot figurines from a period of a little more than 250 years, beginning in about 750 B.C.

The plates picture nearly a thousand of these figurines carefully classified—by site (some without provenance), by various characteristics (figures with a triangular pubis, a large collar or little eyes) or by larger rubrics (figures with arms at the side, hands cupping the breasts or hands carrying an offering, or figures playing a tambourine or a lyre, or holding a child).