- Matthias Recke –
VOTIVES WITH OPEN BODY CAVITYFrom the various interpretive models in the research,^44 the statues and torsos with
open body cavity (see Figs. 59.7, 59.13) are conspicuous because of the discrepancy
between the simultaneous representation of inside and outside and the window-like
opening that completely ignores vitality in attitude and gesture. They are among the
most characteristic examples of the genre of anatomical votives. Three different sub-
types may be distinguished: small-scale statuettes in the style of Tanagra-fi gurines
(originally a Hellenistic Greek style),^45 representations up to life-size (usually as busts,
but also in the form of complete statues) of draped worshippers (see Fig. 59.7),^46 and
torsos without heads where the arms and legs are only depicted as stumps (see Fig.
59.13).^47 In the statuettes and the large-scale statues there exists a serious contradiction
between the attitude of a worshipper or offering-bearer and the gaping hole that is
placed, without regard for the clothing, in the region of the abdomen, and that reveals
the viscera, from heart, lungs placed above the liver, stomach, and kidneys to bowel
and bladder. While with the draped fi gures it is evident through their attitude and
gestures that living persons are being portrayed, in the usually nude torsos vitality is
shown through a strong pose. In these contradictory representations they wished to
recognize votives that thematized the inner diseases that could not be further defi ned.
Against this is posed the absolute rarity – fewer than 40 examples are known today
- but one must consider whether in this period a projection of the interior to the
exterior of a body was even possible. That quite concrete incisions in the body, in the
sense of an abdominal surgery, could be intended is shown by a torso in Ingolstadt:
on the edge of the opening before fi ring small paired holes were carved that must be
understood as stitches indicating a seam, by which the abdomen was closed again
(Figs 59.15–16). Are the votive fi gures with open body cavity then evidence for major
surgical operations? Any one subject to the opening of the chest that exposes the lungs
would not survive due to the inevitably occurring condition of pneumothorax.^48 Based
on written sources such as Celsus, we do know, in fact, that complicated abdominal
surgeries were being performed by his time – but certainly without exposing the lungs.
That the entire surgical site was shown from heart to intestine, would not be a literal
representation but a symbolic image implying a major abdominal operation.^49 The
polyvisceral plaques that show the complete surgical site from heart to intestine are to
be understood as a less expensive version of this type.^50
Figure 59.14 Right foot. Göttingen, Archäologisches Institut, Inv. TC 219 © Archäologisches
Institut der Universität Göttingen, Photo Stephan Eckardt.