Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This thin, flat female figure stands frontally, hands held before her chest and touching at the finger tips (1). The figure’s head is spherical, in contrast to her flattened body. Her hair is arranged under a cloth head covering, with a securing strap encircling her head like a diadem (2). The eyes are raised, round bumps, the nose is wide and flat, and the mouth is rendered as a slight depression above a prominent chin. She wears a long robe, with a collar indicated, that falls down to her feet (3). The arms are folded sharply at the elbows, and a slight rounding below the arms may indicate the sleeves of the garment. There may be some raised vertical detail of the garment on the back of the statuette between the shoulder blades, but the back of the body is otherwise flat and featureless.
This statuette was found at Nuzi in what the excavator considered to be a chapel of the goddess Ishtar (4). E. A. Braun-Holzinger notes the similarities between the metal statuette and a terracotta statuette from the same context, 1931.141 (5). It can be difficult to determine whether these statuettes are meant to represent human or divine beings (6).
NOTES:
1. Compare E. A. Braun-Holzinger, Figürliche Bronzen aus Mesopotamien, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 1.4 (Munich, 1984) 49, nos. 175-78 (all from Nuzi; no. 176 is this piece), pl. 42. Compare also a figure from the Ishtar Temple at Assur, in W. Andrae, Die archaische Ischtar-Tempel in Assur, Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft in Assur 4 (Leipzig, 1922) 101-102, no. 145, pl. 58 = Braun-Holzinger (supra) 51-52, no. 185, pl. 37; and one from Ur, Braun-Holzinger 1984 (supra) 104, no. 352, pl. 58.
2. Compare a gypsum female head with a similar hairstyle from Assur in Andrae 1922 (supra 1) 10-11 and 68-71, no. 80, fig. 30, pls. 28 and 39.
3. Originally there was a circular-sectioned tang that extended from below the feet; see R. F. Starr, “Kirkuk Expedition,” Fogg Art Museum Notes 2.5 (1930): 182-97, esp. 194; and R. H. Pfeiffer, “Yorgan Teppe: Preliminary Report of the excavations During 1928-29,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 34 (1929): 2-7, esp. 5.5. The tang may have become detached after it was subjected to electrolytic cleaning; see R. J. Gettens, “The Restoration of Bronzes from Iraq,” Fogg Art Museum Notes 2.6 (1931): 273-83, esp. figs. 3-4 (the before and after treatment images).
4. R. F. S. Starr, Nuzi: Report on the Excavation at Yorgan Tepa near Kirkuk, Iraq (Cambridge, MA, 1937-1939) 307-308.
5. Braun-Holzinger 1984 (supra 1) 49, no. 176, pl. 42. Compare also a limestone figure from the temple of Ishtar at Assur in Andrae 1922 (supra 1) no. 160, pl. 58, and a large number of terracotta examples from the same site, ibid., 91, pl. 56.
6. Braun-Holzinger 1984 (supra 1) 44.
Lisa M. Anderson
