CANNANITE BRONZE STANDING IDOL. CIRCA: 1900-1500 B.C.

拍品描述

A CANAANITE BRONZE STANDING FIGURE OF A DEITY, LEVANT, CIRCA 1900-1500 B.C. Cast in the round and standing frontally upon simply modelled legs, the figure holds its arms outstretched horizontally, the hands rendered as flattened terminals with rudimentary indication of fingers. The torso is columnar and flat, articulated at the chest by two applied circular bosses representing the nipples or, alternatively, apotropaic discs. The shoulders are broad and sloping, the neck short, and the head surmounted by a tall conical headdress or crown rising to a projecting terminal, giving the figure its characteristic silhouette. The surface is heavily encrusted with a green and cuprite-red patina, with mineral accretions across the body and traces of the original modelling still legible at the chest, face, and extremities. Mounted on a modern rectangular black plinth. The frontal, hieratic pose with arms extended and the tall conical headdress place the figure within the well-known type of Levantine standing bronze deities produced during the Middle Bronze Age. Such figures were cast solid by the lost-wax process in a range of sizes and levels of finish, and were deposited in temples and household shrines as votive offerings or as cult images. The raised arms of the present example, held horizontally rather than in the smiting attitude, suggest a posture of benediction or invocation rather than aggression, and are found on figures interpreted as either male tutelary deities or female consorts within the pantheon of Canaanite Syria-Palestine. The tall crown, closely related to the Egyptian white crown of Upper Egypt, reflects the wider Levantine borrowing of Egyptian iconographic vocabulary during a period of intense contact between the two regions. Bronze in this context carried both economic and ritual weight. The alloy required tin, imported at considerable distance, and its use for cult figures signals commissions of some means, whether by temple institutions or by private dedicators of standing. The corpus of Canaanite bronze figures constitutes one of the most direct surviving witnesses to the religious life of the second-millennium Levant, predating the textual traditions of Ugarit and the later Hebrew Bible, and gives material form to deities otherwise known only by name. This figure exemplifies the smaller votive class of Middle Bronze Age Levantine cult bronzes, in which schematic modelling and a strongly frontal presentation carried the essential attributes of divinity without recourse to fine detail. Its condition, with heavy burial patina and legible principal features, is characteristic of the type as recovered from temple and shrine deposits across the Syro-Palestinian corridor. Dimensions: Height 7.5 cm

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