Phoenix Ancient Art S.A.

The statuette is whole, only the tips of the feet may have been broken off. The gray-brown surface is partially covered with a green patina. The structure of the statuette is very simple: it was modeled as a rectangular bronze plaquette to which the arms and the head were soldered.

This figure is probably a woman, as proven by the two small and visible circular bulges below the neck, representing breasts. The two folds of the body (along the waist and the knees) indicate that the figure was seated; the right tenon, visible on the buttocks, served to fix the statuette to a seat, now lost. The woman wears a long garment and a high tiara, of pointed shape, on the head. Incisions (mouth) or bulges (lips, eyebrows) summarily indicate the features of the powerful and squared face; the eyes were probably inlaid. Her bust is decorated with two undulating lines, probably representing snakes whose heads seem to be separated on the belly. The arms are folded: the right hand is clenched in a fist and pierced to hold some object, now lost. The left hand was protected by a sort of silver cylindrical glove, with three long, wavy fingers, decorated with fishbone-shaped incisions, the shape reminding one of the snakes on the chest.

This statuette certainly belongs to a group of bronze figurines that O. Negbi calls Syro-Anatolian and that she dates between the middle of the 15^th and the 11^th century B.C. The presence of the snakes places this figure in the category of the deities: these animals, which are a symbol of life and revival, also appear on portable terracotta altars.

NEGBI O., Canaanite Gods in Metal, Tel Aviv, 1976, pp. 50-53, n. 1451-67.

See also:

AMIET P., Art of the Ancient Near Eastern, New York, 1980, n. 488.

GRAY J., Near Eastern Mythology, New York, 1985, p. 96 (altar with snakes).

SEEDEN H., The Standing Armed Figurines in the Levant, Munich, 1980 (PBF I, 1).