Canabus

Canabus (κάναβος or κάνναβος) was a wooden stock or framework used by potters and sculptors round which the clay was laid (Poll. 7.164). In small statues (sigilla) and vessels it was of the simplest description, and mostly of the form of a cross, crux or stipes (Tertull. Apol. 12; ad Nat. 1.12). Scaliger on Festus (s. v. Stipatores) compares it to the framework of a trophy. It is applied to very lean persons (Strattis ap. Pollux, 10.189; Anth. P. 11.107), as we should say a scarecrow. It is the same word as the Latin cannaba, a booth, both signifying a construction like a scaffold or framework (Fick, Vergl. Wörterb. 2.50). The word seems to have been also used for the outline figure which sculptors and painters used as a model (Suidas, s. v.). In this sense Aristotle (Gen. An. 2.6, 18 = 743, 2 a) compares the appearance of the arteries and veins diverging from and converging to the heart to those who draw κάναβοι on the walls; they present, he says, the form of the whole body (αἱ μὲν γὰρ φλέβες ὥσπερ ἐν τοῖς γραφομένοις κανάβοις τὸ τοῦ σώματος ἔχουσι σχῆμα παντός, H. A. 3, 5, 3 = 515, 35 a). They are, as Blümner says (Technol. 2.117), figures indicated by the sketch of the most essential muscles.

[L.C.P]