Harvard Art Museums

Group of Two Human Figures

Date: 15th-13th century BCE
Medium: Arsenical copper
Culture: Syro-Hittite
Department: Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art & Numismatics
Institution: Harvard Art Museums
Object ID: 54964

From the Harvard Art Museums record

These two joined figures have heads in the shape of flat irregular circles, pinched out in the front to form noses. On each head, there are very small raised lumps on either side of the pinched projection, depicting eyes. A rod-like point juts out of the top of the head of the larger figure. Near the midsection of each figure is a belt-like raised band. The larger figure appears to be male, with genitalia rendered, but there are also two round lumps on the chest that may be meant to represent female breasts. The larger figure holds an upraised object in its left hand, possibly a club or a scepter. Its right arm is held out straight from the body and ends with a raised lump, possibly depicting a hand. The right arm of the smaller figure seems to go behind the larger figure and then juts out perpendicularly from the torsos; the left arm is short and may have been broken off. The back of the group is flat and featureless, except for the belts and a raised band indicating the right arm of the smaller figure and the left arm of the larger.

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Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Provenance: From the collection of Lilian and Benjamin Hertzberg.

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