Baked clay
H. 16.5 cm; W. 5.6cm
Ur (Iraq). VIII Expedition, 1929-30. PFG/T [Pit F, E7, Level 3.00 m].
Late Ubaid (Ubaid 4)
31-16-733 (U. 15385)

This female figurine is one of many such distinctive representations from the site of Ur dating to the Late Ubaid period, ca. 4500 BCE. Broad, angular shoulders and narrow waist are characteristics of the type. In this example, the hands are placed just above the hips in an almost defiant pose and incised lines indicate fingers, legs, and the pubic region. Appliqué dots appear at the shoulders and back and five narrow holes are pressed into the blunt nose and the chin near the thin, slightly upturned line of the mouth. The thick neck supports a large, triangular head with elaborate hairstyle. The hair is shown in bitumen-coated clay rising in a high, upright fashion. Eyes are rendered by heavy, angled cuts into thick, raised eyelids reaching from the blunt, punctated nose to the back of the head. These large, strangely reptilian eyes are the most distinctive feature of the form, causing many to label the type ‘lizard-headed.’

When this figurine was uncovered Sir Leonard Woolley, director of the Ur excavations, described the type as ‘deliberately grotesque’ and ‘half-human.’ He said that the body was “by no means unpleasing” but that the head was “unduly large [and] absolutely reptilian in character” (Woolley 1955: 12). It was his opinion that such figures represented creatures or deities of the underworld and that the appliqué pieces at the shoulders could have been meant to signify scales. He points to the fact that the deity Ningizzida was associated with snakes and that the god himself could be represented in a human form covered in scales.

Of course, Ningizzida is a male deity while the vast majority of these figurines are female. Furthermore, the most complete male figurine was found in a woman’s grave. The essence of the type, then, would seem to be geared to the feminine, perhaps as a symbol of fertility or of nurturing. Indeed, in some examples, the woman is shown nursing a child, who also has an elongated head with bitumen hair. The rare male figure, too, conforms to this style, with hands at waist, large appliqué dots at shoulders, high bitumen hair and curious, lizard-like eyes.

The fact that many of these figurines (including the one shown here) were found in burials indicates that they were votive or religious in character – they were given to the dead to take with them or act for them in the afterlife. They could represent earth deities, but it seems unlikely that they were all meant to represent Ningishzida. Instead, it is possible that the figures were formed in a particular artistic style of the period, meant only to represent people as they were pictured in the minds of artists. Perhaps the figurine was even meant to represent the dead person herself. The skeletons with which most of the figurines have been found were not well preserved, but in many cases, the body was laid out on its back with hands at the pelvis, similar to the pose of the figurines. It is therefore possible that we are gaining an insight into the perception of people and social practices in the Ubaid period through these pieces.

Figurines of this type are always nude, but some have painted circles around the waist, neck or wrists indicating belts or jewelry. Because there are no signs of a garment, the small circles and ovals placed at the shoulders may indicate ritual scarring or tattooing on the nude form. Similarly, the holes at the nose and mouth may indicate intentional piercings. The two at the sides of the nose are almost certainly meant to represent nostrils, but the other three are likely to be holes for labrets or rings in the lower lip and nasal septum.

In fact, body decoration seems to have been common in the period. In addition to beaded jewelry, smooth, button- or spool-like objects interpreted as labrets for insertion into pierced lips are common in Ubaid levels and well before. At Choga Mami near Mandali (Iraq), labrets were found in building levels of the Samarran era as were figurines that are quite similar to those (somewhat later, Ubaid period) from Ur. These figurines, from about 6000 BCE, help to show the progression of the style. They have a great deal of marking on the nude form, typically in short parallel lines or a series of dots, probably indicating tattooing or body painting. In many cases, they also clearly show pierced and studded lips, cheeks and ears. The eyes are heavy, large, and deeply cut and have the addition of painted lines on the eyelids that seem to signify eyelashes.

It is often suggested that the eyes of the figurines at Choga Mami and at Ur resemble coffee beans. But coffee beans also resemble cowrie shells, which were used to reconstruct eyes in decorated skulls of the Pre-pottery Neolithic B period, particularly at Jericho, ’Ain Ghazal and Tell Ramad in the Levant. In an apparent form of ancestor worship or apotropaic ritual, these human skulls, mostly females, were covered in plaster to represent flesh and cowries were often inserted into the filled eye sockets, recreating a human face. The shells are a good approximation of the shape of an eye, but they have a long slit rather than a pupil-shaped hole. They also have raised lines along the slit that radiate outward in the way that eyelashes radiate from eyelids. Thus, the form may indicate closed or half-closed eyes. Perhaps this was the ideal artistic vision of eyes in general, beginning in the Later Neolithic, around 7500 BCE, and continuing for at least 3000 years in the region.

Figurines in this peculiar representation of the human form are common in the Ubaid period and are found across Mesopotamia with a concentration in the south at Ur, Uruk and Eridu, and in the north at those sites that seem most influenced by the Ubaid culture, sometimes called Ubaid “colonies.” Despite the reptilian features, figurines of this style are probably meant to correspond to the concept of people in general, perhaps those in a special position in society with special markings. They may even indicate that some of the Ubaid peoples were subjected to a form of head binding in infancy, causing the skull to ossify in an elongated form. Whether they are representations of the divine or the mundane, however, such figurines give us insight into the people who made them as well as their image of themselves and their existence in a time so far removed from our own.

William B. Hafford

Bibliography

Kenyon, Kathleen
1966  Archaeology in the Holy Land. New York.

Oates, Joan
1969  “Choga Mami, 1967-68: A Preliminary Report.” Iraq 31, pp. 115-152.

Safar, Fuad, Mohammad Ali Mustafa and Seton Lloyd
1981  Eridu. Baghdad.

Schmandt-Besserat, Denise
2002  “From Behind the Mask: Plastered Skulls from ’Ain Ghazal.” Origini 24, pp. 95-139.

Woolley, Sir Leonard
1955  The Early Periods. Ur Excavations, vol. 4. London and Philadelphia.