ABSTRACT
That the naked figures in Greece of the Orientalizing period are of Near Eastern derivation has been universally acknowledged.1 What might be worth re-thinking is the meaning of their nudity. Does it always denote fertility, which is the most common assumption, or can their nudity also have another meaning? ‘A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become nude’, says A.Stewart.2 Our female figures are nude in this sense because their nudity is charged with sexuality.
