What is a Cult Statue?

Having posed the question of what a cult statue is in a previous post, I did what any blogger should have done: googled it.

The only clear answer I could find was from Answers.com, which defines a cult statue thusly:

Image of a divinity that served in antiquity as a focal-point for worship and cult rituals. Most cult statues were housed in temples or shrines, although outdoor worship of images is also attested. Although aniconic worship (i.e. of a non-anthropomorphic symbol of a deity such as a rock or pillar) is known in Near Eastern, Greek and Roman cults, most deities by the late 2nd millennium BC were worshiped in an anthropomorphic form and were, as such, earthly substitutes or humanized manifestations of the presence of a deity.

So my tentative answers to my own questions are:
In the description of the Parthenon on pp. 147-153 the author repeatedly refers to the statue of Athena inside the Parthenon as a cult statue. For a specific example see the last paragraph on p. 150. In this context "cult" differentiates between statutes that were not the focal point for worship and cult rituals and a statue that was worshiped. A cult statue is not materially different from another statue of the same subject, but its function was different. I'm guessing there could be a statue of Athena which was not the focus of worship or cult rituals, in which case it would depict the same subject matter as the cult statue of Athena inside the Parthenon, but it would not be a cult statue.

What do you think?

Click here to return to Art History Reading Group home page