Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This smiting figure with simple modeling has an almost flat body, while the head is cast in the round. The roughened appearance of the figure’s surface, an effect attributable to the original wax model, produces an abstract form in combination with the lack of defined musculature or clothing. The head bends slightly to the proper left, while the body sways slightly to the right at the hips. The most prominent features of the head are the large slender nose and semicircular ears that extend out perpendicularly from the head. The simplified Egyptian White Crown with flaring base and flat top suggests a creation place in the Syro-Palestinian region. The right foot is slightly forward but not fully striding, in contrast to most smiting figurines, which advance with the left foot. The front section of the proper left foot is missing, and the proper right foot lacks its heel, perhaps due to casting flaws. Both hands are clenched in fists, which are unpierced and show no sign of having held separate objects. The flat body is more typical of early second millennium pieces, yet the raised arm position appears principally in the Late Bronze Age (c. 1600-1200 BCE) (1). A group of bronze figurines with similarly flat bodies was revealed by erosion along the Orontes River in western Syria and dated close to 2000 BCE (2). The Orontes figurines, however, wear a distinctive headdress that appears as a tall spike backed by a spreading fan-like element. The Harvard piece may be dated sometime later, in the middle of the second millennium BCE.
The geographical area of the Levant, comprising the regions of present-day Israel, Lebanon, western Syria, and south-central Turkey, produced an extraordinary number of small copper alloy figurines from the end of the third millennium into the beginning of the first millennium BCE (3). Most of these figurines depict a standing male figure with left foot advancing and right arm raised in a position of smiting (4). Often the hands are pierced with holes to hold weapons or armor. These separate elements are preserved in a few examples, the most spectacular being a warrior holding a spear and shield found in a late thirteenth or early twelfth century BCE building at Enkomi on Cyprus (5). The figurines have a wide distribution, with examples found as far away as Greece, but the majority is concentrated along the Mediterranean coast of the Levant (6).
While the figurines share a common conceptual underpinning, the actual forms and styles of the small copper alloys display a remarkable range of diversity. In general, they appear to move along a spectrum from those that include a high degree of Egyptianizing elements, presumably produced in regions closer to Egypt, to those showing stronger affinities with the Hittite artistic tradition of central Turkey. Such stylistic features are evident in the shape and type of the tall crown, the form of the short skirt or kilt, and the proportions of the body. The basic iconography of the smiting figure is derived from the Egyptian image of Pharaoh defeating his enemies; yet, there is no exact parallel in Egypt, indicating a peculiarly Levantine iconographic conception. The figure most likely represents a deity, sometimes identified as either Baal or Reshep, two West Semitic gods. Although no definitive evidence exists to support these attributions, some examples have horns on their headdresses, which are a Near Eastern attribute of divinity (7). Where archaeological contexts are sufficiently well preserved, the figurines are clearly associated with cultic spaces. The largest group of excavated figurines comes from several locations in the temple complex at Byblos on the Lebanese coast, while another set was excavated in a Late Bronze Age temple complex at Kamid el-Loz in inland Lebanon (8). The precise dating of the figurines remains fraught for several reasons. First, many were hoarded and only buried well after their date of manufacture. Second, there is only poor information available, if there is any at all, on the provenience of a large portion of the figurines in museum collections. Finally, while the overall conception of the figurines unites them as a group, the diversity of individual features and styles often makes stylistic comparisons difficult.
NOTES:
1. H. Seeden, The Standing Armed Figurines in the Levant, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 1.1 (Munich, 1980) 92.
2. Ibid., nos. 67-69, 72-75, and 79.
3. For Levantine copper alloy figurines in general, see O. Negbi, Canaanite Gods in Metal: An Archaeological Study of Ancient Syro-Palestinian Figurines (Tel Aviv, 1976); and P. R. S. Moorey and S. Fleming, “Problems in the Study of the Anthropomorphic Metal Statuary from Syro-Palestine Before 330 B.C.,” Levant 16 (1984): 67-90.
4. For the smiting copper alloy figurines, see Seeden 1980 (supra 1); D. Collon, “The Smiting God: A Study of a Bronze in the Pomerance Collection in New York,” Levant 4 (1972): 111-34; and ead., “Note on ‘A Bronze in the Pomerance Collection, New York,’” Levant 5 (1973): 133.
5. J.-C. Courtois, J. Lagarce, and E. Lagarce, Enkomi et le bronze récent à Chypre (Nicosia, 1986) pl. 18.4.
6. For distribution maps, see Seeden 1980 (supra 1) pls. 118-19.
7. For a summary of problems relating to the identity of Levantine copper alloy statuettes, see Moorey and Fleming 1984 (supra 3) 78-80.
8. For the Byblos copper alloy statuette hoards, see Seeden 1980 (supra 1) 36-102. For the Kamid el-Loz examples, see H. Kühne, “Die Bronzestatuetten aus dem ‘spätbronzezeitlichen’ Tempel,” in Bericht über die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen in Kamid el-Loz in den Jahren 1968 bis 1970, ed. R. Hachmann, Saarbrücker Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 22 (Bonn, 1980) 63-81. For a general discussion of context for the anthropomorphic statuettes, see Moorey and Fleming 1984 (supra 3) 76-77.
Marian Feldman
