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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.1119
Title
Seated Deity
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
statuette, sculpture
Date
2nd Millennium BCE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Asia, Levant
Period
Bronze Age
Culture
Levantine
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/303751

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Leaded copper
Technique
Cast, lost-wax process
Dimensions
32.2 x 5.3 cm (12 11/16 x 2 1/16 in.)
Technical Details

Chemical Composition: ICP-MS/AAA data from sample, Leaded Copper:
Cu, 95.45; Sn, 0.49; Pb, 3.16; Zn, 0.47; Fe, 0.01; Ni, less than 0.01; Ag, 0.01; Sb, 0.41; As, less than 0.10; Bi, less than 0.025; Co, less than 0.01; Au, less than 0.01; Cd, 0.008

J. Riederer

Technical Observations: The patina is a mottled green and brown, and the friable terracotta-colored and black surface accretions that are trapped in many of the pits and under the arms appear to be clay or soil-based. There is no evidence that the hands were originally cast separately and joined. The uneven texture of the surface suggests that the figure was cleaned both electrolytically and mechanically (which left the surface pocked with corrosion pits and scraped smooth facets and a sequence of chatter marks on the neck). The hands are missing; whether they were broken off intentionally is not clear.

The statuette is a solid, lost-wax cast. The cast probably started from a flat, elongated slab of wax that was cut, bent, and modeled into shape. The detail in the facial features is minimal, no doubt in part due to corrosion and later treatment. A metal flash on the back of the proper right arm suggests that the figure was not perfectly finished in the round at the time of its production. Whether some of the many facets on the torso are due to the original shaping of the statuette is unclear. The figure appears to have been cast in one piece originally, but the neck and legs are repaired (particularly the proper right leg). The joins are concealed with a reddish-brown coating that fluoresces under ultraviolet light. The crack that runs around the neck is visible under magnification, and a blob of bright silvery solder is visible on the back where the surface has been scraped down to bare metal. The stump on the figure’s underside bears peening marks, as if it had been worked over with a hammer. There are thicker, slightly different accretions, perhaps corrosion, around the ears, and flaking of the surface around the nose.


Francesca G. Bewer (submitted 2012)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, NY, (by 1943), bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.1119
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
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

Publication History

  • George M. A. Hanfmann and Donald P. Hansen, "Hittite Bronzes and Other Near Eastern Figurines in the Fogg Art Museum", Türk Arkeoloji Dergisi (1956), Vol. 6, No. 2, 41-58, pp. 47-49, no. 2, figs. 3-4.
  • Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), p. 256 (checklist).

Subjects and Contexts

  • Ancient Bronzes

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu