“Anthropomorphic figurines of the second millennium BC from Tell Arbid. Preliminary report,”
Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 22 (Research 2010), pp. 617–626.
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ISSN 2083–537X (Online)
Keywords: terracotta anthropomorphic figurines, Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, Khabur
Ware period, Mitanni period, Syria, North Mesopotamia.
“The collection of 2nd millennium BC anthropomorphic figurines from Tell Arbid, a site in the Khabur river basin in northern Mesopotamia, comprises just eight specimens, but it introduces some new types of representations that have not been attested so far in the region. A comparison with figurines of the 3rd millennium BC illustrates changes in the anthropomorphic minor arts of the time. Finally, some of the figurines seem to attest to the presence of motifs deriving from outside of Mesopotamia, from the Levant and Anatolia, in the iconography of the region” (author’s abstract).
This paper deals with human figurines found at Tell Arbid by the Polish–Syrian mission during 1996–2010 excavation seasons. After a description of the entire assemblage, also compared with Urkesh material (on p. 618), the author moves to a discussion on ‘supra–regional cultural contacts in the light of anthropomorphic minor arts’, stretching the comparison from the Mittanian area until Egypt (he recognizes, e.g., “representations of females with a Hathor–like hairstyle and a distinctive headgear” [p. 622]). Moreover, he offers in the third part of the paper a ‘comparative analysis of 2nd and 3rd millennium BC figurines’, reaching the following conclusion: “Middle and Late Bronze Age specimens seem to continue an earlier tradition. Already in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC, a gradual increase in the number of female representations could be observed […]. Finally, some of the older figure types […] apparently disappeared at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. These changes related to the formal features of the figurines […] as well as to the character of the represented figures […] most probably reflected some shift in their function and meaning at the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC” (pp. 623–624). – [Despite the author mentions, as for Urkesh, Buccellati and Kelly–Buccellati 2002 and Kelly–Buccellati 1998 (see p. 618), he does not make any reference to the full publication of Tell Mozan’s human figurines in Kelly–Buccellati, Digital Monograph Human Figurines].
As for Urkesh/Tell Mozan’s human figurines, cf. also the dedicated topical book.
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