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Details
LOT 1149
Tel Halaf Mother Goddess Fertility Figure
6TH MILLENNIUM B.C.
3 3/8 in. (71 grams, 86 mm).
Modelled in the round crouching female figure with hands supporting the breasts, knees drawn up, pinched facial features and applied-band headdress; pigment detailing to shoulders and thighs; restored. [No Reserve]
Provenance
Acquired in York, Yorkshire, UK.
Ex P. Watson collection, UK, 1990s.
This lot has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database, and is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
Footnotes
In the 7th millennium BC, cultures in the Near East began creating organised settlements with developed religious and funerary practices. The Halaf culture of Anatolia and northern Syria produced a variety of figures representing females and associated with fertility. It is not known whether figures such as this were intended to represent real, ideal, or divine women. However, scholars believe that their primary purpose was to encourage female fertility.
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