Anthropomorphic female figurine: zu sehen — Harvard Art Museums

Of Fragments and Forgeries

These figurines—with their curious faces (sometimes deemed “bird-like”), elaborate headdresses, and emphatic hips—are puzzling. Examples like numbers 1–4 [1998.15.16; 1992.256.12.1–3; 2022.242.1–3; 1969.177.86.1–2] have been found across today’s northern Syria and southeastern Türkiye (Turkey) in sanctuaries and graves dating from the second millennium BCE. Their applied breasts and incised pubic triangles mark them as female, encouraging modern interpretations about fertility and sexuality. Number 5 [1953.118], likely made on the island of Cyprus, shows similar features, attesting to ideas about female bodies shared between distant but connected communities of the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia during the Bronze Age.

Who exactly do they depict? Goddesses or worshippers? Both or neither? Any answers are complicated by wrinkles in their modern stories that raise a more urgent question: are these objects even ancient?

All six figurines moved through the art market without documented findspots, making it difficult to interpret them or even assess their authenticity. Number 6 [1999.252] may be a modern forgery. And while numbers 2–4 [1992.256.12.1–3; 2022.242.1–3; 1969.177.86.1–2] arrived at Harvard as single objects, each, in fact, comprises several pieces that are not original to each other. It is not clear whether the fragments are all ancient, all modern, or a combination of both. Displayed here disassembled, the objects offer a cautionary tale about the uncertainty that accompanies poorly documented paths on the art market.