The Baubo Figurines and Modern Reception

A distinctive class of terracotta figurines excavated at Priene in Asia Minor, showing a face set directly into a torso with the legs suggested below it and no separate head or neck, has been labelled Baubo figurines by modern scholars since the nineteenth century, an identification made by archaeologists reasoning from the literary Baubo's association with bodily exposure rather than one supported by any inscription naming the figurines themselves.

Some later scholars, including feminist scholarship examining traditions of ritualized female bodily display across cultures, have placed Baubo in comparison with other apotropaic or humour bearing female exposure figures found in different traditions, including the sheela na gig carvings of medieval Britain and Ireland, while other scholars caution against treating these as evidence of one continuous cross-cultural tradition rather than independently arising local practices that happen to share a superficial resemblance. This entry records the comparison as a live scholarly conversation rather than as an established connection, consistent with how thin the ancient evidence for Baubo herself actually is. The Priene figurines themselves are not narrative illustrations of any specific episode from the Demeter myth; they are a self contained type of object found in domestic and votive contexts, so their connection to the literary Baubo rests on thematic resemblance rather than on any inscription, findspot association or accompanying text that names them.