Seated Deity

This large, majestic seated figure probably represents a deity. The narrow, flat body bends gracefully at the knees and waist to assume an enthroned position. A stump on the underside of the figure may be the remains of a peg for attachment to a seat (1). The symmetrically arranged arms are bent at the elbow and extend out from the body; the hands have broken away. The attenuated body reveals no detailing. A triangular cutout below the knees separates the legs, which terminate in short, rounded feet. In contrast to the flat unornamented body, the large oval head rises on a long neck and displays subtly modeled facial features. Semicircular ears jut out from the sides of the head, which merges directly into a short pointed conical headdress. Seated figurines constitute a well-defined group for the Levantine and northern Syrian regions during the second millennium BCE. When depicted with a tall crown, they are generally interpreted as deities. Many of them hold their right hand palms outward in benediction and their left hands in a fist. Others hold a vessel in one or both hands. Stylistically, these seated figures have as broad a stylistic range as those figurines in the smiting position (for example, 1992.256.80), from extreme Egyptianizing to those displaying more Hittite influences (2). The pointed crown and lack of Egyptianizing elements locate the manufacture of this figure further north and inland. A closely comparable piece is assigned by O. Negbi to a Syro-Anatolian group of bronzes dating to the second half of the second millennium BCE (3). An excavated example from Megiddo and a close parallel from Kamid el-Loz retain gold and silver foil covering the figures, a common practice that may account for the unfinished-looking body of the Harvard piece (4). NOTES: 1. G. M. A. Hanfmann and P. Hansen, “Hittite Bronzes and Other Near Eastern Figurines in the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University,” Türk Arkeoloji Dergisi 6.2 (1956): 43-58, esp. 47. 2. O. Negbi, Canaanite Gods in Metal: An Archaeological Study of Ancient Syro-Palestinian Figurines (Tel Aviv, 1976) 46-58. 3. Ibid., 57, no. 1456 (said to come from Homs, no other provenance), fig. 61, pl. 32. 4. For the Megiddo example, see ibid., no. 1453, fig. 59, pl. 33; for the Kamid el-Loz example, see R. Hachmann, Bericht über die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen in Kamid el-Loz in den Jahren 1968 bis 1970 (Bonn, 1980) 47, no. 68 (=64, no. 6), pl. 17.2. Marian Feldman