The Bronze Age: Canaan - The Ashmolean Museum

The Bronze Age
5. Canaan (c.3000–1150 B.C.)
A. Introduction
(i)
The Early Bronze Age (c.3500–2000 B.C.)
As, in contrast to Mesopotamia and Elam (cf. van Buren 1930; Barrelet 1968; Spycket 1992), there has
never been a systematic survey of terracotta production in Canaan, the following introduction to nos 300
and 300A is more extended than for some of the previous sections of this catalogue. The term Canaan is
used here to embrace the region west of the river Jordan from the Negev in the south to mount Carmel
and the Sea of Galilee in the north. The third millennium is characterized there archaeologically by the first
appearance of urban settlements, to a degree planned, with both public and private buildings within
defensive walls. The pottery of these settlements has been studied in detail; but surprisingly little has been
systematically published relating to other uses of clay, particularly figurines. Handmodelled animal figurines
appear to be ubiquitous during the Early Bronze II–III (c.3000–2300 B.C.) periods across the southern
Levant (cf. Gophna 1996, 148–9). Amongst clay models of inanimate objects special attention has been
directed to the so-called “bed models” (cf. de Cree 1987–8; Beck 1993; Gophna 1996, 149). Some bear
carefully rendered criss-cross patterns depicting the surface as a woven mat, whilst others have rows of
incised holes. They are from non-temple contexts. As some, if not the majority, are square rather than
rectangular they may in fact represent stools. Indeed, Beck (1993, 38) suggested that they were model
birth-stools rather than votive beds. They belong primarily to Early Bronze III (c.2500–2300 B.C.), though
examples from Tel Dalit, and possibly Gezer, may date as early as Early Bronze I (Gophna 1996, 149). As
the known examples of model clay furniture from Mesopotamia belong to the earlier second millennium
B.C., rather than the middle of the previous millennium, there are at present no grounds for this
phenomenon indicating Mesopotamian influence in the west, as has been suggested. They may simply be
an aspect of local terracotta production, albeit at present far less evident than the production of
anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines. A model building was found at Tell Arad (Bretschneider
1991, no. 8, pl. 10).
At Tell Yarmuth, a major urban settlement, de Miroschedji (1982; 1999) has reported “a fragment of a
ceramic object in the shape of a building. The facade is decorated, on the left side of the door, with the
image of a man (head missing) in low relief, and an animal (rear legs only preserved). The original object
may have evoked cultic ceremonies performed around temples, also represented on contemporary seal
impressions from northern Canaan.” In addition, this site yielded “numerous animal figurines, several
human figurines... the female figurine is from a late Early Bronze II context, the male figurine was found
in an Early Bronze III B dwelling” (de Miroschedji 1999, 14, cf. 1997). In an Early Bronze III level at
Khirbet ez-Zeraqun a terracotta model shows a tripod stand with a man standing on it in front of a solid
cylindrical object (de Miroschedji 1997, fig. 17:1).
At Beth Yerah (Khirbet Kerak), in level IV (Early Bronze III), a headless, free-standing columnar figurine
of a woman nursing a child, suggests that the theme of woman as mother, as distinct from “giver-ofbirth”,
isolated by Bolger (1996) as a significant innovation amongst Cypriot terracottas at about the same
time, may indeed have implications for changing social values. The same level at this site yielded “five
animal figurines, two clay models of houses, and a fragment of a clay figurine of a roaring lion”
(N.E.A.E.H.L. 1993, 256). Taken with the scattered references through the literature on the Early Bronze
Age in Canaan, they suggest a repertory of handmodelled images as various as, if not more various, than
that to be found at present in the archaeological record for Syria and Mesopotamia before the last
centuries of the third millennium B.C.
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(ii)
Early Bronze IV to Middle Bronze II (c.2300–1650 B.C.)
In the transitional phase between the end of the urban-based cultures of the Early Bronze Age in Canaan
and a revival of town-life in Middle Bronze IIA, surviving indications of continued human activity are
virtually confined to mortuary contexts, where evidence for imagery of any kind is to all intents and
purposes so far unknown. During this period regular relations between Canaan and Egypt, where there
was a two century break in centralised control (“First Intermediate Period”), lapsed (cf. Redford 1992,
57–63).
With the revival of urban life in Canaan in the first two centuries of the second millennium B.C. there is
at present little, if any evidence, for a revival of terracotta production before Middle Bronze IIB in the
eighteenth to seventeenth centuries B.C. The emergence of a Canaanite dominated dynasty (XV) in Egypt
reopened contacts between the two regions. At the same time several significant features in the
archaeological record (mudbrick architecture; new mortuary practices; and ceramic changes) indicate
strong contacts, possible some actual immigration, into Canaan from Syria. The contrasting cultural and
iconographic influences evident in Canaan at this time are exemplified by glyptic, with cylinder seals
illustrating the Syrian ingredient, scarabs the Egyptian. As Keel and Uehlinger (1998, 19) have stressed:
“a person studying Palestine must assume that influences came both from Egypt and the Near East, not
only in regard to matters connected with form and style but also when dealing with semantic issues”.
It would appear that the appearance on Canaanite scarabs at this time of the ‘nude female’, depicted
frontally with her arms down her sides, rather than bent across her abdomen or holding her breasts derives
from the imagery of Syrian seals. Such figurative designs are rare then on Egyptian scarabs. The visual
isolation of this figure on scarabs exactly parallels her appearance on baked clay plaques in Mesopotamia
from the late Akkadian Period (c.2150 B.C.) and the self-contained appearance of this motif on Babylonian
cylinder seals of the first centuries of the second millennium B.C.
In the west the so-called Nude Goddess lifting her garments appears first in Syro-Cappadocian and
Anatolian glyptic early in the second millennium B.C. and then more commonly in the “Earlier”
(c.1850–1720 B.C.) rather than in the “Later Syrian Group” of cylinder seals. She does not appear at Tell
Atshana (Alalakh), (cf nos 258 ff) where even the dressed goddess partially revealing herself is rare (cf.
Teissier 1984, 80–1). Barrelet (1955) agreed that the “Winged and Armed Goddess” and the “Nude
Goddess” were all aspects of Ishtar in Syrian glyptic: as goddess of love she is shown revealing herself,
either with her long garment put to one side or by lifting a veil; sometimes both are combined (cf. Teissier
1984, nos 490, 496). Here, as in Babylonia, there remains a degree of ambiguity about the exact status of
this nude female, when neither a horned headdress nor wings indicate divinity in a particular
representation of her.
At present there is no clear evidence that even a sporadic production of zoomorphic terracottas persisted
when anthropomorphic clay images were temporarily eclipsed after the end of the Early Bronze Age. The
first type to reappear in clay are doves associated in many ancient Near Eastern cultures with the local
goddess of love. The basis for regarding pigeons and doves (the Columbidae family of birds) as models of
lovers is their courtship behaviour, kiss-like billing and cooing, and faithful relationships (cf. Ziffer 1998).
In a Middle Bronze II shrine at Nahariyah (Dothan, M. 1956), a coastal site in Northern Israel, clay doves,
generally shown in flight, were the only votives in terracotta, whilst nude female figurines there were in
metal, as at a contemporary shrine at Megiddo (Loud 1948, pl. 245, 18–19; cf. Keel and Uehlinger 1998,
31–37). Male metal figurines are rare at this time and equally absent in clay. At Megiddo (area CC), for
instance, in metal 16 were female, 6 male (Negbi 1976, 131). On contemporary seals in Canaan the nude
female is associated with caprids and lions, as well as doves; but at this stage neither she nor her votaries
are apparent in clay images.
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(iii)
Late Bronze Age (c. 1650–1150 B.C.)
Terracottas related to the Syrian Type Badre MAI:2 (cf. nos 222; 254–7) appear at Tell Taanach in
northern Canaan before the end of Middle Bronze IIC and were in use there in the Late Bronze Age. This
type is handmodelled and not highly standardized (cf. Lapp 1964, 39–40; 1967, 35–7; 1969, 45). At much
the same time and again from the north the single open mould was introduced for the manufacture of clay
plaques portraying standing or reclining nude females in low relief, with and without attributes. In spite
of their Egyptianizing features, these figurines in clay do not initially have close parallels in Egypt (cf.
Pinch 1993, pl. 47–8). Variations on this motif are relatively rare throughout the Late Bronze Age and
other anthropomorphic subjects are exceedingly rare (cf. in general: Keel and Uehlinger 1998, 97–108).
Moulds facilitated mass-production, at least sometimes in direct association with pottery, as in a potter’s
workshop at Tell ed-Duweir (Lachish) (Tufnell 1958, 90–91, 291–3, pl. 49). Kletter (1996, 35, n.8)
suggested a general trend in their development from the earliest which had a wide background (or
surround) that narrowed with time through into the Iron Age. Then the heads began to protrude more
conspicuously and finally the background disappeared.
Evidence for a contextual study of Canaanite terracottas outside their appearance in public buildings and
graves is also extremely meagre, as Daviau (1993) demonstrated. Regrettably the publications of Bronze
Age houses available to her were very deficient in the relevant information as much of it dates before
excavation methods were rigorous enough to provide it. In this it is inferior to comparable data for the
Iron Age analysed by Holladay (1987). Daviau was able to isolate a few animal figurines, one “model
shrine”, and one or two moulded female terracottas (Daviau 1993, 238–4, 287–9, 290, 294, 307) in Late
Bronze houses. She reported no reference to clay figurines from Middle Bronze Age houses, as would be
anticipated if they do not appear until very late in that period. The fact that the Late Bronze Age plaques
were mouldmade, to a very restricted and standard set of patterns, would appear to indicate that there was
now a degree of control being exercised over the creation of popular, relatively cheap imagery. However,
once it was current, at least potentially, anyone could have made a mould from a positive and then
circulated replicas. Until detailed petrographic studies have been made, it may only be assumed that these
plaques were part of the repertory of objects made and distributed by professional potters, rather than by
individual householders. They do not appear to have been amongst the recurrent furnishings of shrines
or temples in Canaan (cf. Ottosson 1980). It is over half-a-century since any attempt was made to list
Canaanite terracottas, even the anthropomorphic ones, systematically, as Badre (1980) did for Syria.
Mouldmade plaques showing nude females monopolize the Canaanite repertory of anthropomorphic
images in clay. They have been conventionally classed by scholars in two groups: Qudshu and Astarte
plaques (cf. Keel and Uehlinger 1998, 97–108). In neither case has the identity of the female represented
yet been established beyond reasonable doubt. As none is inscribed, they are better designated simply A
and B.
(a)
Nude Females
(1) Type A: Qudshu Plaques (cf. no. 300)
In this group the nude female appears with attributes (plants, etc.). The Egyptian word qdš was once
believed to identify a specific goddess (cf. Albright 1939, 117). It is now translated as an epithet (“Holy;
Holiness”), which might apply to any goddess. Its application here is a modern academic convention,
which may inappropriately give the impression that her identity is known, whereas it derives from the use
of this epithet on Egyptian stelae adjacent to various named goddesses.
She appears as a full-frontal nude female with shoulder-length hair, curling over at the ends in so-called
“Hathor” locks, after the Egyptian goddess of that name who wears them. She is shown with arms bent
holding flowers, usually identified as lotuses on either side of her, and is sometimes also framed by plants,
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usually identified as papyrus. Her feet point sideways, not forwards. This type of plaque does not appear
to have survived in Canaan after the end of the Bronze Age (unlike the ‘Astarte’ type). This type of nude
female occasionally appears, on metal and terracotta plaques, associated with animals: the lion and the
horse (Keel and Uehlinger 1998, 66–7, figs 70–73). This is the strongest evidence for the nude female in
this category representing a goddess or her cult image through her divine identity might have varied
amongst a range of possible “Mistresses of Animals” (cf. Wiggins 1991); but without a “familiar” animal
or divine headdress she might be a suppliant to the goddess rather than the goddess herself.
(2) Type B: Astarte Plaques (cf. no. 300A)
This category, again a term of convenience, also depicts full-frontal nudes framed by a groove or ridge
round the end of the plaque, which is comparable in shape to the previous type. Both types might have
been laid flat, propped up or held in the hand; none is self-supporting. On this type the hairstyles vary,
with the occasional appearance of headdresses. There are a number of different arm positions: held down
the sides with hands touching hips (the commonest position on comparable figurines in Egypt); with
hands cupped under the breasts, sometimes as if displaying or offering them; with both hands placed on
the abdomen, which is sometimes slightly bulging as in pregnancy; with one hand held downwards
touching or indicating the genitals and the other bent at the elbow with the hand on a breast. On this type
the feet are commonly together, pointing forward. They have no attributes. This type survived into the
Iron Age.
Miram Tadmor (1982) has argued that the figure is represented as if reclining and is most commonly
found in tombs, consequently relating them to the so-called “concubine figures” of Egyptian tombs and
to limestone examples from the cemetery at Deir el Balah (Dothan, T. 1979). But Keel and Uehlinger
(1998, 100ff.) have demonstrated that eighty per cent of published Late Bronze Age graves do not include
clay plaques and even when they appear in family graves, there are only one or two. The vast majority,
complete and fragmentary, are recovered from family living quarters or in debris. When they appear in
graves it is then as “household goods”, in common with the other ceramic equipment. Moreover, Pinch
(1983) has convincingly deconstructed the old arguments for identifying such figurines as “concubines”
in Egyptian tombs, not least since they are not invariably associated with male skeletons in graves there.
Few questions in the study of terracottas in the ancient Near East, as will be evident from the earlier
section on the Babylonian nude female plaques, is more difficult to resolve and therefore more contentious
than the problem of her (or their) identity when no attributes identify a goddess. Keel and Uehlinger
(1998, 108) take the radical approach by arguing that: “the modern question about whether a figurine
represents a goddess or a woman, posing strict alternatives, is too short-sighted. The plaques portray the
goddess as a woman, and conversely they identify the female worshippers... with the goddess.” There is,
however, no unambiguous evidence that they were exclusively associated with women rather than with
men, who also petitioned goddesses in the context of sex and family life. Moreover, it is not evident that
the modern concept of a “role model” is appropriate even for women. Ancient goddesses, particularly
Ishtar (who was also a warrior goddess) and her cognates in the Levant, had diverse functions and may
have been worshipped by men and women for different purposes. Van der Toorn (1998, 94) conceived
these images as “reflections of official cult images or symbols, used outside the cult for devotional and
prophylactic purposes”. This would accord with the view of some Egyptologists that contemporary
popular imagery showing divinities there represent well-known cult images of them, not the deity him or
herself (cf. Schulmann 1981).
This line of argument would be strengthened if it could be demonstrated that the “frame” does not
represent the edges of a bed, but rather an architectural feature. In other words, she stands rather than
reclines, as indeed the feet together, facing forward, is seen to indicate in other contexts when the nude
female is set on a small podium. This would then present the image set in a shrine. Keel and Uehlinger
(1998, 101–105) have explored this possibility in the light of some ceramic plaques of such shrine fronts
in which the clearly depicted architectural elements confound any suggestion that these figures recline
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rather than stand. Complications enter in, however, with the appearance of apparently identical pairs of
nude females within shrines, as at Tell Qasile in Iron Age IB, late in the eleventh century (Mazar 1980,
82–4, pl. 30; Bretschneider 1991, 128ff., 229, no. 79), and when the nude female appears with a child in
an “architectural” context (Mazar 1985). Are they goddesses or suppliants
The “goddess or her image” problem arises in Egypt with popular worship of Hathor, the local goddess
of women. As Pinch (1993, 94–5) points out “it is difficult to decide whether many votive stelae show a
deity or the deity’s manifestation in a sacred animal or a cult image or object. When Hathor is shown
enclosed in a shrine or standing on a plinth, a statue is meant. The depiction of such statues on New
Kingdom votive statue could be due to a lingering reluctance to show living, private individuals in the
presence of a deity”.
In Canaan, as elsewhere, in the ancient Near East, the cult statues in major shrines were much more than
simple representations of deities. They were made and repaired according to elaborate prescriptions which
transformed the lifeless image into a living incarnation of the deity in contemporary eyes and minds. They
were then treated exactly as Kings and Queens. The consubstantiality of deity and image might only be
destroyed through elaborate rituals. Popular images in clay were of an entirely different order. When they
show a deity it is in all probability a famous cult statue not the deity per se that is intended; when a mortal
then a devotee or suppliant. The problem in this case is being certain that type A represents a goddess and
type B a suppliant (or vice versa). Since in Egypt both goddesses and women hold plants, this is not a
criterion for divinity. It may well be that both types represent suppliants or devotees of a goddess. If so,
she was the audience, not the image. Consequently, without any inscribed plaques naming her, her identity
remains an open question, with Anat or Astarte most often suggested (cf. Hadley 2000, 191–2).
(b)
Female with a child
This is a relatively rare motif among Late Bronze Age mouldmade plaques. It may challenge any easy
assumptions that these are images of a goddess rather than of women suppliants. In one pattern,
represented by a nearly complete example from Revadim (Beck 1986) and a fragment from Aphek
(Kochavi 1990, 20 figs 17, 38), the female has exaggerated “Hathor” locks down to her navel with her
arms curved round and hands displaying her genitals. She wears a crescentic neck pendant and on the
body, in low relief, a stylized nursing child is shown below each breast. On each thigh a tree and caprids
are similarly modelled. More naturalistic representations of a female with a child on her hip being nursed
appear in Late Bronze II, from the late fifteenth or early fourteenth century B.C., and survive into the Iron
Age (cf. Winter 1983, 118ff. Type 7: Rowe 1940, pl. 68A.4; James 1966, fig. 112:7). Egyptian parallels
show Hathor as ‘nurse’, clothed. Keel and Uehlinger (1998, 84) argue that “the nakedness of the goddess
on the terracottas is a typically Canaanite feature. The Canaanite nursing goddess is an indigenous form,
not just a local adaptiation of an Egyptian theme”.
(c)
Males
The surviving miniature male imagery of the Late Bronze Age is predominantly made of cast metal (cf.
Moorey and Fleming 1984, 71–78). An exception is a crude clay plaque from Tel Dan, dated to the
fourteenth or thirteenth century B.C., reported to be mouldmade. It shows a dancing man playing a lute.
It appears to be a locally made, rather crude, variant of a Late Bronze Age Syrian type of mouldmade clay
plaque (cf. Dornemann 1985, fig. on p.55) and as such is isolated in Canaan.
(d)
Zoomorphic
No study has yet been devoted to the handmade animal terracottas of Bronze Age Canaan that continue
a tradition established in prehistory. None are mouldmade. They commonly include the primary
domesticates; bovids, sheep and goats. Birds are also recurrent, notably pigeons and doves, usually
associated with a major fertility goddess (Ziffer 1998). A selection of zoomorphic terracottas was
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published from levels XVIII to IV at Megiddo (Loud 1948, pl. 244–6) illustrative of the standard range;
but with few illuminating details about their associations and contexts. As in prehistory many quadrupeds
are too schematic to allow for close identification, whilst levels of damage at times preclude it even with
the more realistic examples. There is enough scattered evidence to suggest that these images, as in the Iron
Age, may well have been more common than the plaques depicting women.
(e)
The Canaanite Legacy
This is fully considered in the following section on terracottas of the Southern Levant in the Iron Age,
after 1200 B.C. In their wide-ranging summary of the contemporary imagery Keel and Uehlinger (1998,
154) have remarked of the varied use of terracotta, particularly for cult-stands and other related objects
in the early Iron Age, that “we see a fundamentally ‘conservative’ approach when terracotta serves as the
medium. Various older ways to depict the subject matter are still visible on plaques and cult stands long
after such styles went out of fashion for those who used other media... This ‘conservative’ tendency makes
sense sociologically, since most of these terracottas are associated with ‘private’ or family piety”.
Minimal variation of form and imagery is the most striking aspect of Late Bronze Age Canaanite
terracottas in human form, whose iconography was primarily, if not exclusively, of significance to women.
In pottery manufacture there tends to be least variation of forms when production is most centralized and
vice versa. By this criterion Canaanite anthropomorphic figurine production was highly standardized and
centralized, at least in so far as control over its imagery was concerned, extending an official iconography
into the households and work places of Canaan and from time to time into the graves of Canaanites.
This imagery would appear to have been focussed on one major goddess, primarily of interest to women;
but, in considering these images, the much later words of Jeremiah (44: 19) should be held in mind: “The
women added, ‘When we offer incense to the “Queen of Heaven” and pour libations in her honour, do
you think we make cakes for her with her features on them, and pour libations to her, without our
husbands’ knowledge” There is little difference between mouldmade clay plaques and moulded dough
images, save that the latter are perishable. The “Queen of Heaven” is not certainly identified, but belongs
to the closely related group of major goddesses including Assyro-Babylonian Ishtar and West Semitic
Astarte and Asherah (cf. Hadley 2000, 59).
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BRONZE AGE: CANNAN – CATALOGUE
B. Catalogue
(i)
Gezer
The Ashmolean collection includes only two terracottas from Bronze Age Canaan. Both are from Gezer,
which is about eight kilometres south-southeast of Ramleh in modern Israel, where the road from the
coastal plain meets the main route from Jerusalem and the Judaean highlands at the approach to the
Ayalon valley. It was first excavated between 1902 and 1909 by R.A.S. Macalister for the Palestine
Exploration Fund. The two terracottas catalogued here were acquired soon after these excavations from
near the excavated area. As Macalister published his small finds by categories rather than by chronological
periods, few of his small finds can be related even to his schematic strata and virtually none to specific
excavated structures. Subsequent American excavations in 1964–74, in 1984 and in 1990 are still in process
of publication. In the mature Late Bronze Age (Macalister’s “Third Semitic Period”), to which no. 300
belongs, Gezer was the site of a flourishing town from the fourteenth into the twelfth century B.C., when
the settlement was partially destroyed and then deserted for a period of time.
300. Plaque with nude female in low relief; mouldmade; baked; buff fabric; nude female
with curling (“Hathor”) sidelocks of hair, multiple necklace, bracelets and anklets; genitals
emphasized with incised lines; both feet facing to the right; long fingered hands clasping
the breasts; the figure is flanked by two sets of lotus flowers: that framing her lower body
has upright flowers, that framing her upper body has flowers bent over to touch at the
top of the centre of the plaque.
AN1912.621: “reported found on a private property of Gezer outside limits of Palestine
Exploration Fund excavations (by Macalister), and bought by an Armenian dealer in
Jerusalem” L: 12cm.; W: 4.9cm.
Moorey 1969, pl. 126b; 1987, pl. 43; Pritchard 1943, 13 (for type); cf.: from American
excavations at Gezer (Dever et al. 1970, pl. 25A,B; 37:10–11; 1986, pl. 54:2; 55:4; 58:8; cf. Kletter 1996,
270–272: many examples from Macalister’s excavations).
This is a good example of the type of terracotta conventionally termed a Qudshu plaque, discussed here
in the introductory section. It is an elegant, standardized design in the distinctively Egyptianizing style,
which is largely explained by the contemporary Egyptian occupation of Canaan. However, mouldmade
nude female plaques presented as offerings by ordinary people to Hathor in Egypt (Pinch 1993, types 4–6,
pl. 50–51) have both feet forward and lack the floral attributes, the jewellery and so-called “Hathor curls”.
In Egypt such figurines were also made in faience, stone and wood.
In Canaan there is still very little detailed information on the archaeological contexts of these plaques (of
both main types) and no modern corpus of them comparable to that provided by Leila Badre (1980) for
Syria. Some are reported from graves. Keel and Uehlinger (1998, 100) estimate that they appear in about
twenty per cent of Late Bronze Age burials; but possibly significant details about the sex of the associated
burials is not available in any coherent form. The vast majority of reported examples are from domestic
contexts and consequently they are often found damaged when excavated. There is no agreed
identification of the identity of the image (cf. especially Keel and Uehlinger 1998, 97–108), as explained
above.
In Mesopotamia nudity on clay plaques was merely a variation of attire and less indicative of the
supernatural character of an image than such bodily features as wings and bird claws or such attributes as
a horned crown. When they are absent, as in Canaan, unless it is simply ritual nudity in the presence of
a deity, its significance remains unexplained. All the Canaanite images appear as young females; their long
flowing hair may have erotic connotations, as in Egypt (cf. Pinch 1993, 214) and in Babylonia. Neither
Babylonian nor Egyptian goddesses were normally shown without clothing; when Hathor is, it is when
she is identified with Nut, who is always shown nude when personifying the sky. In Egypt the clay female
fertility figurines, of various types, offered to Hathor are identified as women and particularly associated
with the production and rearing of children rather than simply with sexuality (cf. Pinch 1993, 225). They
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do not have any attributes or special headdresses to indicate divinity. Van der Toorn (1998, 94) who, on
balance, interprets the Canaanite plaques as “reflections of official cult images or symbols, used outside
the cult for devotional and prophylactic purposes”, is at one with Pinch over the function of such images
in so far as he draws attention to the way in which biblical and extra-biblical Hebrew texts reveal that
matters of fertility and child-birth were of no less concern in Canaan and Israel (as in Genesis 30: 14–16
and the Song of Songs 7:14).
At Tell ed-Duweir (Lachish) a potter’s workshop situated in a cave, dated to Late Bronze II, provides a
rare demonstration that such mouldmade figurines were made by some potters at least along with their
standard ceramic repertory. The relevant finds (Tufnell 1958, 90, pl. 49:1–5) included: two ‘Astarte’
plaques; part of a mould for one; and “the lower half of an unbaked figurine, the details of which did not
turn out too plainly from the mould. The same may be said for the upper part of another plaque”.
Although apparently commonest in the Late Bronze Age, plaque figurines survived into Iron Age II
(c.1050–750 B.C.), when they were “very different from their Bronze Age predecessors” (Kletter 1996,
34ff.) (see below).
301. Bovid (); handmodelled; baked clay; buff core with creamslip; hollow-bodied
animal, legs missing and rump damaged; the hollow head is like a spout opening
at the mouth; the eyes and nose are applied in clay with deeply incised pupils
and nostrils; horns broken off.
AN1912.622 (acquired with no. 300 above). L: 10.8cm.
Macalister (1912, pl. CXXIV–VI) illustrated many fragments of hollow,
handmade animal figurines, primarily their heads, sufficiently like this one to
suggest that the reported source of it is plausible, even if they offer no clear guide
to its date. Many animal-head fragments similar to this are spouts from vessels, whereas this object has
no aperture other than the open mouth. In the absence of close published parallels it may only be broadly
dated to the later Bronze or early Iron Age.
(ii)
Tell ed-Duweir (Lachish)
Tell ed-Duweir, ancient Lachish, is situated in the low hills west of Hebron. It was first systematically
excavated in 1932–1938 by the Wellcome-Marston Expedition, directed by Starkey. Excavation of the
main settlement only reached the Iron Age II occupation levels. Evidence for earlier periods came from
caves and tombs, from a section cut into the mound and from surface clearances. Tomb (or Cave) 4004,
whence came no. 301A, consisted of three chambers, primarily used for burials in Middle Bronze IIC to
Late Bronze II, and then re-used late in that period (cf. Tufnell 1958, 281). It may originally have been cut
for use as an olive press. Tufnell (1958, 282) described it thus: “the amount and variety of the funerary
equipment and the concentration of the shattered offerings into a depth of only 30cms. suggests that the
cave was used as a charnel house. The offerings were not necessarily exceptional among the community
of Lachish, but conditions have conspired to preserve them in tenacious mud within a deep and sheltered
cave”. The Ashmolean Museum received an allocation of finds which came to England following the
official division; but only after they had been prepared for publication following World War II. Renewed
excavations at the site were directed by Ussishkin from 1973.
301A. Nude female plaque; mouldmade in high relief; dark blue glass; broken plinth; arms bent;
hands clasping breasts; rather pronounced abdomen, possibly indicating pregnancy; the
surface has deteriorated since excavation and the colour has changed; thread-hole at the
shoulder for use as a pendant.
AN1955.501; from tomb 4004 at Tell ed-Duweir (Lachish); fifteenth century B.C.; L: 5.5cm.
cf. Tufnell 1958, 33ff., pl. 27:3; Moorey 1969, pl. 12a; Barag 1970, 188–91, 199; Kühne 1969,
311, fig. 5; Winter 1983, fig. 27.
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BRONZE AGE: CANNAN – CATALOGUE
Barag (1970) listed the examples of these glass plaques known at the time, including this one, and briefly
discussed the type. Although the appearance of the glass now varies considerably across the group, since
it has deteriorated, they would appear to have been dark blue in colour when made. Details are now
obscure. Extant examples have a remarkably wide geographical distribution, from Greece through Anatolia
into Syria, Canaan, Cyprus, Egypt and Mesopotamia. There appears to be a large size, about 7.5cm. long,
to which this example probably belonged, and a smaller one, at about 4.5cm. long. They were clearly mass
produced but exactly where is not yet evident. Somewhere in Syria or Canaan is likely for this example.
Barag (1970, 188) remarked that: “all the glass plaques of the “large” nude female are closely related, and
some may have been cast in the same or nearly identical mold (e.g. the plaque from Lachish (no. 301A
here)) and the plaque found at Megiddo during Schumacher’s excavations).” It is however, difficult to
offer a precise date, since such precious objects are likely to appear in archaeological contexts much later
than the date of manufacture. All belong to the Late Bronze Age (c.1550 B.C. onwards). At Tell Atchana
(Alalakh) examples are reported from levels VI, V and II (Woolley 1955, 247, 302).
These plaques were evidently designed as pendants. The value of glass in relation to gold or silver is not
known; but it was an élite material (cf. Barag 1970, 188, n.189). The nude as depicted here belongs to the
Astarte rather than the Qudshu type as represented on clay plaques. It might be cited in support of the
suggestion that this type, at least, was used as an amulet or talisman by a woman devotee or suppliant of
one of the major Canaanite Goddesses.
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