Furniture element: kneeling male figure

Unknown

ca. 18th century BCE · Ivory, gold leaf · Ancient Near Eastern Art

This fragment belongs to a group of carved ivories, mostly furniture elements, probably found at the site of a palace at Acemhöyük in central Anatolia. Carved in the round, the piece shows a kneeling figure who is missing his head. He wears a long kilt belted at the waist, with traces of gilding remaining on the belt. His bare chest and arms are softly modeled, with a navel defined just above the belt. His feet are visible emerging from his kilt when seen from the back and sides. The figure has attachment holes drilled in its flat base, and likely adorned a piece of furniture. The pink staining of this piece indicates that iron oxides are present on the surface, although it is not known whether this was a deliberate decorative treatment, or a result of contact with the soil in which this and other pieces of carved ivory from Acemhöyük were buried.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 18th century BCE

Medium

Ivory, gold leaf

Culture

Old Assyrian Trading Colony

Department

Ancient Near Eastern Art

Credit line

Gift of Mrs. George D. Pratt, in memory of George D. Pratt, 1937