Standing Male Wearing a Kilt, 10th-9th century BCE

Standing Male Wearing a Kilt

10th-9th century BCE · Sculpture

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Standing Male Wearing a Kilt” now? Collection: Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

Harvard Art Museums

Cambridge, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked
In this state since
Source
The museum

About the sculpture

Standing atop a three-pronged base, this stylized human figure wears a short belted triangular kilt, which suggests that he is male (1). His bare torso has wide-set nipples and tapers from his straight, broad shoulders to a slim waist. His arms are set akimbo, and his hands rest atop his belt. His legs are slightly splayed and have articulated knees and toes. His round eyes consume most of his triangular face, which is distinguished by a long protruding nose and small mouth. His hair is rendered as a single relief element that terminates in round coils, evoking ears, at either side of the face. The reverse of this relatively flat statuette is undecorated, but the buttocks are modeled.

Figures of similar style (for example, 1943.1162) are depicted on various types of bronze objects attributed to early first millennium BCE Luristan, but the provenience of these works is not confirmed (2).

Read on

NOTES:

1. See Man in the Ancient World: An Exhibition of Pre-Christian Objects from the Regions of the Near East, Egypt and The Mediterranean, exh. cat., Paul Klapper Library, Queen’s College, City University of New York (Flushing, NY, 1958) 15, no. 35; and O. W. Muscarella, Ancient Art: The Norbert Schimmel Collection (Mainz, 1974) no. 147.

2. See P. R. S. Moorey, Catalogue of the Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, 1971) nos. 178, 187, and 351, pls. 34, 37, and 55.

Amy Gansell

Harvard Art Museums

Details

Accession number
1991.31

In the catalog

Sources

On view at Harvard Art Museums

Museum page