RiEile

Depiction of human body has deep roots in history. In this article I would like to introduce you to various Bronze Age anthropomorphic figurine traditions from several archaeological sites and to put them into broader historical and artistic context. Modern archaeologists resent the aesthetic-driven appreciation of the ancient objects, as such attitude leads towards biases against incomplete or broken items, and most importantly encourages looting of archaeological sites in search of 'treasures'. Even if the object form a disturbed site eventually reaches archaeologists, the context of the find is irreversibly lost, and without context, the object loses a lot of its scientific value. Having said that, I still believe that there is nothing wrong in admiring the aesthetic value of these items, and in drawing inspiration from them. As more than 3000 years divide us from the Bronze Age societies, we may never know for sure how the figurines were used and regarded by the people of the time, but their appeal is long-lasting nonetheless.

I am not trying to cover the topic of Bronze Age figurines exhaustively, and for this article I have chosen clay figurines from just a couple of sites out of personal preference.

Plank-shaped figurine - Earring figurine - Flathead figurine

Early/Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-1600 BC) is characterized by plank figurines. They are rectangular highly stylized depictions of human body with a narrower neck and head or sometimes a pair of necks. Facial features are incised or painted similar to the decorations on contemporary vases. Plank-shaped figurines do not have any clear gender-specific features, although some have breasts and some later examples are holding an infant. However, it does not allow to assign any gender to them as a group. There are object models of combs adjacent to this tradition and some scholars argue that these figurines were associated with textile production.

This tradition evolved in the Late Bronze Age through transitional anthropomorphs into two distinct styles: figurines with pierced ears (sometimes called bird-faced for their squished faces and 'Astarte type' due to assumed stylistic influences), and flathead figurines. Both types are clearly female in shape with modeled breasts, incised pubic triangles, and some figurines hold an infant. Earring figurines have big ears often with several earrings, and flathead figurines have small ears modelled in the same way as in Base Ring Bulls. It was proposed that this style was influenced by the Aegean figurines (below) or the depiction of the Egyptian goddess Hathor.

Here are some further resources:

© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte / Herlinde Koelbl

The figurines have slit eyes, protruding noses and bird-like features. The wings on the male figurine enhance this impression. Their sex is immediately obvious from their shape. These figurines are permanently kept in Mary Museum, Turkmenistan, that unfortunately does not have a website. The pictures above come from an exhibition at the Neues Museum in Berlin, where I was lucky enough to see them.

In Altyn-Depe, a related site, some similar, yet distinct figurines were discovered:

What makes a figure anthropomorphic? It turns out that you do not need much to see a face or a body in an object. As humans are social animals, and other people are vitally important for us, human brains are wired to detect faces and to interpret them. If you record electrical activity of the brain with scalp electrodes (electroencephalogram) you can detect event-related potentials associated with face processing. Our visual processing has been so well trained to see faces, that we can see them everywhere: on toasts or on Mars. Seeing familiar patterns in randomness is called pareidolia, and it happens not only to people, but to monkeys as well. In the hominin lineage there is a documented progression from just finding pareidolia-inducing natural objects (as early as australopiths) though modification of already human shape-like objects to their creation de novo by our species.
Why is this important for artists? Because people see human-like shapes in things that are very far from realistic representations. On one hand, one should be cautious to avoid unwanted 'faces' and 'bodies' in otherwise inanimate objects, as they might create a comic effect, on the other hand, one can push stylization to its extremes, creating expressive shapes that still can be read as human characters.