Standing Female Figure

This rudimentary female statuette has a narrow body that ends in a single forward projection for the feet. A slight groove above the projection suggests a lower hemline of a garment. The shoulders and arms form a triangular area. The hands reach upward to touch two rounded, pellet-shaped breasts. The head features a projecting beak-like nose, with slashed mouth and two bulging pellet-shaped eyes in front of the horizontally projecting triangular ears. The back of the figure is smooth. This charming, rudimentary statuette clearly represents a nude goddess of the Astarte type. However, its lack of distinguishing characteristics makes it difficult to assign it to a particular region. It was probably a votive offering in a sanctuary somewhere in the Levantine coast or Cilicia. While there are no immediately comparable examples have been found, the statuette may be grouped very loosely within the broad area of votive figurines representing a nude fertility goddess that are known from Cilicia down the Levantine coast to Israel during the Late Bronze Age. David G. Mitten