Iron Age Terracotta Figurines from the Southern Levant in Context

Abstract

As the two editors state in their introduction (1–9), the volume contains papers delivered at two special sessions on figurines organized at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, which took place in Baltimore in November 2013. This conference context explains the scientific bias: material culture is here considered from the perspective of religious history, it is considered as a—sometimes conflicting—illustration of written evidence. As asserted on the first page, “Clay figurines remain the most common ‘religious’ objects excavated in the Near East and the Mediterranean”—the tyranny of cultic interpretation of figurines (and notably of “Judean Pillar Figurines,” referred to in the abbreviated form “JPFs”) thus pervades the volume, generally at the expense of other approaches, such as study of the chaîne opératoire of a craft or of the functionality of objects and related human agency. The result is sometimes frustrating, all the more so since in most cases interpretation relies on a selective sample of figurines: answers are sought even before the whole corpus is constituted, which is not a sound method.The geographical and chronological limits are defined in the introduction (2–4): the core of the volume is devoted to Phoenicia, Philistia, Jordan, and Israel (an interesting mixture of ancient and modern designations), and to a chronological timespan from 1200 to 333 BCE. Additional papers help to establish the broader geographical context: Cyprus (E. Walcek Averett), Syria (A. Pruss), and Egypt (V. Vaelske). One wonders why Phoenicia was included in this “southern Levant” complex. With the exception of the first two (which both address methodological issues) and the final three papers, all other contributions are paired with “responses,” which serve as a sort of critical review to the preceding essays.The first paper (I. J. de Hulster) considers figurines from “a comparative and iconographic perspective.” It reviews the existing literature as well as the methodological difficulties and shortcomings of many studies dealing with terracotta figurines from Judah. One concern fuels the reflection: the possible religious interpretation of the Judean pillar figurines (JPFs) and, consequently, their possible disappearance after the Iron Age, as well as the possible religious interpretation of this disappearance. Annie Caubet, next, adopts a broader view and places Iron Age pillar figurines, viewed from “a technical perspective,” in their Mediterranean context. Beyond Judah, the type is well attested in Phoenicia and Cyprus. The JPFs are a local version, with distinctive local traits (most notably the prominent breasts), of a widespread type. In Cyprus, the pillar figurines, manufactured in the Kition workshops, are documented by numerous examples, which were scarcely exported outside the city. In Phoenicia and Cyprus, as in Judah, the type disappeared before the fifth century BCE (although not all coroplastic production ceased). This disappearance, however, does not raise the same concern as in Judah. Some minor inaccuracies should be corrected: the attribution by Cesnola, and accepted here by Caubet, of the large-sized head at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (60, fig. 3.5) to Amathous, is probably erroneous. No large-molded terracotta statues were manufactured at Amathous (this is a technical specialty of eastern workshops of the island, Salamis and Idalion).The next two essays deal with figurines from Phoenicia (A. Nunn) and Philistia (D. Ben-Shlomo), and they receive a “response” by M. Cohen. Nunn proposes a general typology of anthropomorphic figurines from Iron Age II Phoenicia. As pointed out by Cohen in her response, the criteria applied to distinguish between types (alternatively technical, functional, iconographic, or geographic) lack consistency and weaken the efficiency of the classificatory system. Ben-Shlomo draws a detailed and informed overview of figurines found in Philistia. Since most terracottas date to Iron Age I, one wonders why Philistia is here coupled with Iron Age II Phoenicia. The author convincingly argues for strong inspiration from Aegean and Cypriot production, later mixed with Canaanite traditions. This view is contested by Cohen, whose thesis (the Philistine figurines must also have “inland comparanda” because of the “neighboring relationship” [160] of Philistia with the polities of Israel, Judah, and Transjordan) needs further support to convince this reviewer.Robert Deutsch and E. D. Darby address the topic of JPFs. Starting from a technical and iconographic description of the figurines, Deutsch draws a clear and balanced state of the art and points to the frequent association of JPFs with rattles (perhaps evidence of a ritual performance). Darby focuses on archaeological contexts and deconstructs previous interpretations of the JPFs, which have relied on their heavily reconstructed find contexts (she even deconstructs any possibility of relying on contextual documentation to interpret the figurines). This radically critical approach is contested by B. Alpert Nakhai in her response: she defends the common view that JPFs were associated with a domestic cult practiced by women. Note that, contrary to what Alpert Nakhai states (216), Darby does not affirm that “JPFs cannot be associated with women”; rather, she affirms that no decisive argument proves that JPFs should be associated with women.The last twinned essays concentrate on figurines from Transjordan. Regine Hunziker-Rodewald presents the preliminary results of an online open-access database of Iron Age female terracotta figurines from Transjordan, particularly concerning the circulation of molds. I am not convinced by her suggestion that molded figurines which “show a minimal frame of clay around their proper shape” constitute a hybrid between Late Bronze Age plaques and Iron Age pillar figurines (224). Rather, they are direct descendants of the Late Bronze Age plaques without any links to pillar figurines, the production technique of which was radically different. Similarly, the suggestion that some molds were taken from ivory figurines (235), a technique that is not, to my knowledge, attested elsewhere, needs more support. Michèle Daviau and E. Zeran concentrate on horse figurines. They nevertheless manage to include a female deity: they suggest that the equine images allude to Astarte (who is sporadically represented on horseback). The interpretation is far-fetched and M. L. Steiner in her response rightly highlights the weakness of the argument. Daviau and Zeran’s detailed description of the horses and of their manufacturing techniques nevertheless is interesting, especially when the authors note that muzzles were modeled separately and attached to the horses’ heads (264).The last three papers deal with figurines from neighboring regions. Walcek Averett offers a comprehensive description of the state of Cypriot coroplastic studies (note that the respective locations of Enkomi and Salamis are inverted on the map [293, fig. 13.1]). Pruss presents the poorly known corpus of Iron Age figurines from Syria. Some technical remarks raise questions: Are the early Iron Age plaques (such as the one illustrated on p. 337, fig. 14.3) really handmade? The impression actually is that the figurine is moldmade with some details added by incision. Is the lack of painted decoration really owed to local tradition, as the author claims (351, 354, etc.), and not to the current state of preservation? What is the proof that plaques of the Achaemenid period were made from molds of stone or another durable material (357) and not from terracotta or plaster molds taken on a clay prototype? One may also doubt that the ubiquitous “Astarte plaques” were small-scale copies of a cult statue (343): Is this not a Greek tradition that appears only from the classical period onward and is not otherwise attested in the region under study? The last essay (Vaelske), on Egyptian terracottas from the “Late Period” (664–332 BCE) aims to demonstrate that coroplastic art of the period is heir to a long local tradition. However, the limited corpus, its heterogeneity, its restricted diffusion, and the lack of iconographic parallels in other media (such as the bronze and wood figurines) demonstrate that terracottas were not favored in the Nile valley.Despite the rich evidence that the volume provides and the obvious value of individual papers, the purpose and meaning of the book as a whole escapes this reader. Sometimes general and sometimes specialized, the compiled papers do not sketch a comprehensive picture of Iron Age terracotta figurines from the southern Levant. Moreover, the additional papers on the coroplastic art of neighboring regions stand too much on their own in splendid isolation and do not actually serve to contextualize the evidence from the southern Levant. All in all, the book provides us with a good overview of debates concerning the interpretation of clay figurines—albeit almost ten years after the workshop was held. A comprehensive handbook of terracotta figurines from the region, still lacking and much needed, will hopefully be published in the not-too-distant future.