Daidala
type of sculpture attributed to the legendary Greek artist, Daedalus
The daidala (Greek: δαίδαλα) is a type of sculpture attributed to the legendary Greek artist Daedalus, who is connected in legend both to Bronze Age Crete and to the earliest period of Archaic sculpture in Bronze Age Greece. The legends about Daedalus recognize him both as a man and as a mythical embodiment.
History
Daedalus was credited as the reputed inventor of agalmata, statues of the gods which had open eyes and moveable limbs. These statues were so lifelike that Plato remarked upon their amazing and disconcerting mobility, which was accomplished with techniques that are clearly those of the "daidala". The writer Pausanias thought that wooden images were referred to as "daidala" even before Daedalus’s time. The name "Daedalus", more specifically, has been suggested by Alberto Pérez-Gómez to be a play on the Greek word "daidala" which appears in archaic literature as a complement of the verb "to make", "to manufacture", "to forge", "to weave", "to place on", or "to see". Daidala were the implements of early society: defensive works, arms, furniture, and so forth.
Description
Daedalic sculpture is representative of the Orientalizing period in Greek art. Eastern influences are particularly noticeable in the head seen from the front; it resembles an Eastern head, with wiglike hair, but is more angular, having a triangular face, large eyes, and a prominent nose. Furthermore, the hair usually forms two upward-facing triangles on either side of the face.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5209083. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Daidala” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.