This document is part of the online version of the book Amheida II: A Late Romano-Egyptian House in the Dakhla Oasis / Amheida House B2 by Anna Lucille Boozer, which is available at http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/amheida-ii-house-b2/. It is published as part of the NYU Library's Ancient World Digital Library and in partnership with the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW). Further information about ISAW's publication program is available on the ISAW website. Please note that while the base URI of this publication is stable, the exact content available at that address is likely to change over time.
Figurines may be defined as anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, or geometric objects that are typically (although not always) made of clay or stone. These objects had the capacity to provoke the men, women, and children who lived in the houses of Amheida to think about negotiable issues of identity, sexuality, status, and human representation. Figurines are not simply realistic models or portraits, but provide mutable, flexible perspectives on what it means to be human.↩#p1807
Figurines are a highly evocative but poorly understood artifact category. In part, the evocative nature of figurines makes it difficult for scholars to confront these objects in their own terms. Our presumed familiarity with such objects and the history of scholarly approaches to the material also may hinder our investigations. Although our understanding of the figurines from B2 is dependent upon their Romano-Egyptian context, it is instructive for us to look at other cultures as well. Divergent cultural venues may help us to refine methodologies and categories of analysis and open up new interpretations.↩#p1808
The author examined all of the figurines from Street S1, House B2, and Courtyard C2 on site during the 2008 field season. Figurines from other contexts and other visual media from Amheida were also examined during this and previous field seasons for purposes of comparison. It is difficult to determine the precise number of figurines from B2 and its surroundings since it is sometimes uncertain whether fragments originate from the same figurine. Joins have been made whenever it was possible.↩#p1809
Data for this study derive primarily from three torso and leg fragments, two complete heads and five additional fragments. The most common type of figurine depicted was the female form, as evinced by either a clothed body or a coiffed head. There was a single unclothed male figure (Inv. 11509), also distinguished as the only limestone figure in this assemblage. A poorly preserved hybrid animal figurine (Inv. 3516) was made of sandstone. One of the ceramic figurines, a female head (Inv. 11920), was handmade, while the others were mold-made. One figurine represents a quadruped (horse or donkey?) (Inv. 11914).↩#p1810
In order to maximize the potential of the Amheida figurines, the present study takes the following approach: (1) document all figurine fragments; (2) include all depositional contexts; (3) consider the materiality of the figurine; (4) explore the life cycle of figurines. This approach structures the following four sections.↩#p1811
Figurine Documentation
The current study documents all of the figurines and figurine fragments that we have found in and around B2 in order to understand the range in figurine types, their life cycle, and also how these figurines fit into the occupants’ lives. This practice is more inclusive than most studies of figurines, which typically include only the best-preserved and most spectacular finds. Many past excavations overlooked or simply discarded mundane and incomplete figurine fragments.1 Moreover, most published studies of figurines rely upon museum collections, which entails that we see a highly biased and decontextualized selection of these artifacts.2 These past practices have distorted our abilities to establish a full and representative understanding of figurines as they were found in archaeological contexts. Moreover, these prior practices have distorted our sample size towards the better-preserved and more elaborate examples of figurines.3↩#p1812
In order for us to reconstruct the quotidian role of these figurines, it is essential that we document and publish all fragments by context, regardless of their condition. This approach acknowledges that everyday objects hold agency in domestic lives because individuals have constant and consistent interaction with them. It is possible that the quotidian component of everyday objects endows them with more efficacious agency than objects that individuals encounter on only rare occasions. Recently, the unconscious actions and influences of people’s lives have received much attention in social theory.4 Archaeologists have also begun to consider all types of performances ranging from private daily activities as well as monumental, public spectacles as important dimensions of meaningful activities.5↩#p1813
The repetition of specific acts, gestures, and performances lead individuals towards identities that may become community-wide norms.6 Since identities result from multifarious bodily acts and performances that solidify aspects of identity, we must thoroughly examine the material components of these repetitious acts. Recording, analyzing, and publishing all recovered figurine fragments moves us closer to understanding mundane domestic performances and how figurines participated in these activities.↩#p1814
Contextual Usage of Figurines
Most Romano-Egyptian figurines, regardless of spatial or temporal locus, have been found in trash pits in a broken state. At Karanis, most figurines were found in the fill of streets, houses, and granaries (in storage bins) and areas adjacent to or in temples.7 Although it is likely that individuals primarily used figurines in other areas of the site, these contexts can tell us a great deal about the social consideration of figurines. For example, we can discern social values of figurines depending upon what other objects accompanied the figurines, what objects never accompanied the figurines, the state of the figurines, the intentions behind these secondary depositions (accidental or deliberate), and where these depositions were located.↩#p1815
At Amheida, only one of our figurines was found on a floor level within the house. The small statuette (Inv. 11509) was found in room 7 (the aithrion) of the house along with some ceramic vessels and a clay tablet. The street, which contained forty per cent of our figurines, was our most prolific context. These figurines were found just below wall and roof collapse on the surface of the top street level along with ceramics, a small metal object, an ostrakon, slag, bone, and a donkey hoof. Thirty per cent of our figurines were found in the exterior courtyard along with loom weights, ceramic vessels, an ostrakon and a lamp in a somewhat mixed context. A hand-made figurine (Inv. 11920) was found just above the surface of the courtyard with an ephemeral hearth along with organic material, slag, ceramics, and animal coprolites. Thirty per cent of the figurines were found inside House B2.↩#p1816
Removing, disposing, caching, and secluding are all symbolic acts that eliminate objects from circulation while simultaneously conferring reverence upon their materiality.8 It is common in numerous archaeological scenarios to find caches of objects that individuals still considered to be sacred so they removed them from circulation. The deposition of these figurines outside of the house may mark recognition that they have been removed from active participation among the living to fulfill their role within Romano-Egyptian daily life. Yet none of these figurines appears to have been placed in a cache. Rather, these figurines seem to have been placed outside of the Area 1 houses (B2 or other) without thought of protecting them from the elements or otherwise recognizing them as significant material culture. It therefore seems likely that individuals no longer viewed these objects as potent participants within their life worlds. As others have argued, figurines deposited in such a way may have been highly disposable in nature and had very brief use-lives.9↩#p1817
Figurine Materiality
Materiality studies explore objects and architecture as agents for constructing meaning, articulating identity, and reflecting social experiences.10 An important component of the new materiality that defines Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt was the production, use, and deposition of terracottas. Changes in the technology and material media that individuals used for crafting figurines can have profound consequences for how people projected their own or other peoples’ identities. Terracottas offer an ideal category of material for understanding the assimilation process between Egyptians and Greeks in terms of iconography, religion and history.11 As such, terracottas were one of the most significant categories of things through which people expressed, maintained, negotiated and contested identities and realities.↩#p1818
Terracottas are ceramic objects that can take myriad shapes including vessels, water, and waste pipes as well as decorative embellishment on architecture, but they are best known in the form of figurines. It is equally important that terracottas (and indeed most figurines) were used and consumed in houses within the confines of the city, although they are found in mortuary contexts as well. Perhaps most importantly, terracottas belong to a category of objects that made their appearance during a time when individuals belonged to a multi-cultural society with influences from Egyptian, Greek, and Roman traditions. We must situate these figurines from Area 1 within this social matrix in order to understand how they functioned in daily life.↩#p1819
In the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods the production of molded terracotta figurines spread from Alexandria to the chora, although in practice the placement of these figurines within social life varied considerably from their native context. The Alexandrian terracottas appear to have been secular and imitated Greek Tanagra and Myrina models. The early “Tanagrine” type of terracotta figurines found at Alexandria may derive from Boeotian precursors, since Boeotians were renowned for this art since at least the third century BCE.12 On the other hand, the chora terracottas were more traditionally Egyptian, representing deities or persons performing cultic activities, thereby taking on a more religious and sacred role than initially found for such figurines. It is not clear when terracotta figurines were introduced to the Dakhla Oasis, although we can say that their presence is evident at other Roman Period settlements in the oasis, such as Mut el-Kharab and Ismant el-Kharab.13 On the basis of this evidence, it is clear that terracottas came to the oasis either prior to or along with the developments that occurred here during the Roman Period.↩#p1820
Miniaturization of the human body is a particularly poignant facet of materiality, since miniature human bodies provide an Other against whom individuals construct identity.14 Representations of the human form provoke us to contemplate what it means to be human, or even a specific type of human. Looking, especially looking at the human body, is a potent political behavior.15 For example, Alexandrian craftsmen codified ethnic stereotypes, performers, and deformed individuals materially in terracottas that could be mass-produced and distributed.16 This form of stereotyping recognizes the politics of differentiation and similarity within identity constructions during the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods.↩#p1821
Miniaturism demands selection, since not all components of the original can be included in the miniature. When individuals regard a figurine they note both what features are present and what features are absent, often without realizing it.17 For example, Alexandrine artisans reduced and removed details that did not accentuate stereotypical features on ethnic terracottas, thereby amplifying the impact of the stereotypic features that they chose to represent. Miniaturism not only reduces elements and properties, it also multiplies the weight of the abstracted remainder.18 In other words, the features that remain become much more potent when isolated from other features that act as background noise. The fixed features that are represented are not open to negotiation while those that are left undefined invite consideration and imagination.19↩#p1822
Because figurines are so diminutive, individuals can pick them up and turn them in their hands, feeling their texture as well as seeing all of their different components. The difference between looking and touching is important. Unlike other visual media, such as wall paintings, statuary or architecture, the small stature and three-dimensionality of figurines provokes us to hold them and move them around in order to understand the entire object. Our own human body and its relationship to the figurine is significant since individuals probably animated figurines through physical engagements such as dressing, posing, moving, and offering to the figurines. Such activities would draw individuals into another world, or a shared world, between the figurines and their normal daily life.↩#p1823
It is intriguing that the other visual media recovered from Amheida reveal considerably different treatments of the human form. Wall paintings uncovered in a higher status domestic context (Amheida House B1) show more detailed and “lively” examples of the human form rendered in a predominantly Greek style.20 Bronze objects from the temple mound (Area 4.1) are significantly more detailed and draw upon traditional Egyptian modes of representation in depicting Osiris. As more visual media become available at Amheida, meaningful patterns between these types of representation may become visible.↩#p1824
Life-Cycle of Figurines
I follow a life cycle approach to the Area 1 figurines, which views figurines as objects with fluid and flexible meanings. Most figurine scholarship proposes specific meanings or anecdotal functions for figurines (i.e., dolls, toys, ritual figures, magical items, and so on). Often these anecdotal interpretations do not offer substantive arguments or evidentiary links to support their interpretations.21 Such categorical and anecdotally functional descriptions do not help us to understand figurines in their own terms. Rather, it is more appropriate to view figurines as mobile (rather than static) objects within the everyday experiences of individuals. The size and portability of figurines alone should suggest that they could move from and around a number of contexts. In other words, we should be attentive to the possibility that figurines may have life cycles of their own, since a single figurine may traverse many different phases of meaning from its creation, decoration, use, reuse, and eventual discard.↩#p1825
This viewpoint indicates that analytical categories of analysis such as “toy” or “ritual object” are not useful for understanding these objects. We should focus on the meaning and engagement of these figures with people. With which family members did the figurines interact most frequently? Where did these interactions take place? When did these interactions occur? Rather than categorize, we ought to ask why certain types of representational imagery are integral to this particular household and this particular family. In other words, we should ask what a figurine is an image for rather than an image of.22↩#p1826
With these caveats in mind, I follow the life cycle of the figurines from Area 1 at Amheida. The life cycle of figurines begins with the gathering of materials for making the object. The choices that individuals make when constructing figures have meaningful implications for how individuals understood and interacted with these objects. This process, in the case of our figurines, involves collecting local stone and clays as well as paints for decoration. The fashioning of the clay figurines involved the preparation and cleaning of clays. In the Roman period, ceramic figurines from Kysis exhibit two primary fabric types, a coarse gray fabric sometimes slipped with beige, typical of the output of local pottery ateliers of Kysis itself, and a finer red-orange fabric exemplary of the Kharga Red Slip Ware, which Ballet thinks must represent imports into Dakhla from the outside.23 The ceramic figurines from House B2 are largely composed of A1a, a ubiquitous fabric on the site used for a variety of vessel types.24 Furthermore, the close proximity of kilns to House B2 leads us to think that these figurines were produced locally and within close proximity to their final resting place.↩#p1827
Although the figurines display a Hellenistic sensibility in their form, it is the reliance upon molds that distinguish post-Pharaonic terracottas from other ancient Egyptian representation in fired clay. During the Pharaonic period craftsmen largely confined molding techniques to faience technology and preferred to model ordinary ceramic figurines by hand.25 It was not until the Late Period that terracottas became typical, as a result of the increasing influence of the Greek and later Hellenistic world upon the daily life of Egypt.26 The great age of ceramic figures begins with the modeled heads of foreigners from the foreign quarter of Memphis, which was certainly due to the strong Greek presence there.27↩#p1828
The use of molds for terracottas bears a significant role in their materiality. Molds can be duplicated, which allowed craftsmen to disseminate virtually identical figurines across a large geographical area in a type of mass production.28 In many cases, a sculptor probably produced a small three-dimensional figurine that formed the basis of the original molds. Following the creation of molds, a single trained ceramics craftsman could form figurines.29 After firing, craftsmen applied an undercoat of gypsum before painting the exterior of the figurine in bright colors as a finishing touch that often appears hurried or cursory to our modern eyes.30 This gypsum undercoat is visible on many of our figurines. The manufacture of terracottas may have been a special skill separate from that of making ceramics used for food consumption and storage, although the makers of these figurines did not hold a high social status.31↩#p1829
This manufacturing practice links Ptolemaic and Roman terracottas more to the everyday products of the potter’s workshop than to the Hellenistic sculptural forms that they externally mimic.32 Indeed, archaeological evidence shows that terracotta figurines and Ptolemaic pottery have been found in abundance alongside a large number of pottery kilns.33 Within the Dakhla Oasis, Ballet believes that ordinary potters fashioned these figurines as part of their regular ceramic production duties.34 The proximity of terracotta figurines to ceramic vessels may have affected the social perceptions of these figures.↩#p1830
Figurines (anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, miniature vessels) comprise a small portion of the enormous number of clay objects that we recovered from House B2 and greater Amheida. These terracottas underwent a mundane, technical manufacturing process alongside other ceramics, and yet it is the terracotta that later transformed into a resonant being or embodied object that transcended its initial material category of ceramic. Frankfurter believes that local priests may have recommended specific deities to families with particular needs, fears, or desires, consecrating the appropriate terracotta within the temple itself before the family took it home.35 Frankfurter provides no evidence to back these claims, yet it is possible that individuals indoctrinated their new figurine into its role within the family through magico-religious means.↩#p1831
Writing on the curing figurines of the Cuna Indians of Colombia, Taussig observes that it is the spirit within the wood, not the exterior form, which determines efficacy.36 In order to capture the spirit one has to replicate the image in some form, no matter how schematic. This situation of spiritually endowing an object provides a salient example of objects merging with people or spirits by virtue of the interwoven relationships between persons and things and persons and spirits via things.37 Indeed, representation of the body's corporeal specificity was required for Egyptian magical intercession; one had to materialize or at least vocalize the name of the enemy or the one desired, if one hoped to manifestly control them. Mimesis, doubling, and representation are all crucial elements of efficacious magical practice and these elements are clearly discernable within our Romano-Egyptian context.38 The terracotta may have formed an appropriate vessel for containing the spirit, much like many of its ceramic counterparts served as storage containers for foods.↩#p1832
The rough clay head (Inv. 11920) within our catalogue presents a particularly intriguing example of this issue of form and efficacy. It was not mold-made, nor does it exhibit any degree of specialized skill. It may have been manufactured within the home, and individuals may have relied upon clays prepared across the street in the area of the ceramic kilns. This figurine draws us to question how the method of manufacture affects a figurine’s meaning. Were mold-made figurines more prestigious than hand-made figurines? Did they have different functions? Its form recalls figurines that individuals used for magic, which were not uncommon during the Roman Period.39↩#p1833
Practitioners of magic often relied upon figurines for carrying out their wishes, either fashioning the figurine themselves or purchasing one from potters.40 These wishes could range from spells intended to arouse love, pain, or even death. Practitioners often inscribed these desires on tablets or the figurine itself.41 The differentiation between religious and magical spheres is at times a knotty thread to unwind, and the margins between the two are notoriously malleable. Ostensibly the division is one between official religion versus local practice, between community distance and the possibilities for individual communication. It is thus not surprising that the individuality of magic is often reflected in the media chosen for magical practices. These handcrafted magical objects can be seen as devices that secure the acquiescence of individuals and entities in a network of enmeshed intentionalities.42 The desire to create a double of the original rests in the notion that the copy extracts power from the original.43 Yet, as Taussig explains, the magically important thing is the spirit of the material, not its carved outer form.44↩#p1834
There are only a few clues in the surrounding courtyard context that help us identify our figurine as having participated in magic. Clay figurines used for magic were often broken, burned in fires and deposited among broken pots, just as this figurine was.45 There was also a miniature lamp (Inv. 11917) found within close proximity to this figurine and lamps are often associated with magical activity. Unfortunately, many of these signatures are common at archaeological sites, so we cannot say definitively that our figurine contributed to magical practices. Furthermore, we have insufficient data on domestic magical practices to provide a convincing range of comparanda. At this point, it is important to suggest this possibility since asking these sorts of questions provokes new approaches to subsequent archaeological material, even when we are unable to answer them definitively with the material at hand.↩#p1835
If we turn to the limestone figurine (Inv. 11509), the stone could easily have derived from Dakhla itself, since the cliff which bounds the oasis to the north (among other locations) is composed of limestone.46 The manufacture of this figurine out of stone would have required some degree of skill and different craftsmen from those who produced the terracottas. The craftsmen who made the stone figurine differed from those who made the clay figurines. Craftsmen who worked through architectural, sculptural, and painted media tended to hold higher status than did those working in ceramics.47 The workmanship on this statuette mimics, but does not replicate, Hellenistic canonical models, suggesting a local manufacture. Comparable statuettes have been found at Karanis, and Gazda suggests that they, along with terracottas, were produced for less-affluent patrons.48↩#p1836
It is entirely possible that Amheida’s inhabitants viewed stone figures as a different category of object from clay figures, rather than the overarching “figurine” category that we use in this volume. Indeed, looking towards aesthetic parallels between figural categories such as figurines, paintings, ceramic decoration, weaving, and so on may help us understand which categories people viewed as overlapping. Is it significant that the only male figure we found was of stone? It could denote the social contexts in which the figures were used. Maleness, in this household, may have been represented in a different type of medium and have involved different practices than femaleness. It is also possible that the greater cost of working in stone could be excused for male but not female figures. It is, of course, important to remember that the figurines we recovered represent only a portion of the assemblage that once existed in this house and that various practices with the figurines likely involved a number of additional objects no longer available to us.↩#p1837
The role of these figurines once they entered the home has been debated for a long time, although recent scholarship has coalesced around the idea that families viewed these figures as cult objects for service in popular worship.49 It is quite certain that terracotta figurines stood in homes since most extant figurines from “primary” contexts derive from houses and the subject matter of the terracottas overwhelmingly related to the house and public festivals.50 Likewise, data from Karanis suggests that smaller than half life-size statuettes, such as ours, rested in houses and granaries, although they were also found in streets and in or near temples while larger statuettes stood in temples alone.51 Indeed, such contexts indicate that we should not divide figurines between religious and profane uses.52↩#p1838
Within the house, families either hung figurines on the wall or put them in an altar, such as an interior or exterior niche.53 It is important to recognize that these figurines are not the static objects that they appear to be when we find them. During phases of daily usage, individuals may have added or subtracted secondary materials from these figurines, such as cloth, food, and oils and perhaps ritually clothing them on certain days.54 In House B2 we found that soft organics were poorly preserved and recovered very little from any context in and around this structure so we cannot say what these materials might be. The positioning of the figurines among other objects, such as lamps, would have added important significance to them and changes in these assemblages may have accompanied various seasons, ceremonies, rituals, or narratives. All of these modifications would have involved individual participation in the handling of figurines: dressing, undressing, positioning, and offering. Some families may have set up figurines in the context of a domestic altar with room for offerings, vessels, incense, and decoration.↩#p1839
Frankfurter argues that the religious dimension of the home functions variously as an outpost, extension, and miniaturization of the local temple. Domestic cults may have involved many varieties of paraphernalia, often miniature or cheaper versions of objects found in temples.55 Domestic altars thereby function as a bricolage of familiar and familial with the Other in transitional cultures, such as Roman Egypt. “Official” religion merged with local and common, everyday objects endowing the domestic altar with new and amplified meaning through “cruder” everyday material objects.56 Again, we do not find much in common between the domestic material culture in Area 1 and temple objects, but it is not possible to rule out such comparisons at this time. Indeed, material from Karanis indicates that larger versions of household sculptures originally stood in temples.57↩#p1840
At some point in the life cycle of these figurines, families removed them from active circulation. As mentioned earlier, the deposition of these objects in the contexts in which we found them can shed much light on their place within domestic life. In general, most of the figurines in our catalogue were found in “secondary” contexts such as rubbish areas, street fill, and external courtyard fill. Only one of these figurines was found on a floor level within the house (Inv. 11509). The placement of these figurines within secondary deposits indicates that, at this stage of their life cycle, they were not associated with special cultic areas such as shrines or niches. Indeed, the loose fill that surrounded the majority of our figurines removes them from the notion that individuals created special caches for the ritual objects that they retired from active duty. It is the general absence of figurines within the house that is most meaningful. This absence seems to be a result of an intentional deposition of figurines outside of the area of the house, perhaps removing them upon abandonment or placing them in the street next to the house walls.↩#p1841
Although we do not have a statistically meaningful data set, it is of interest that one of the figurines found in the house (Inv. 11509) was entirely different from all of the others in terms of gender, material, manufacture, style, and so on. Did the occupants identify this figure more strongly with domestic space and thus leave it behind? Or was its meaning considered more fluid, such that it did not require dismantling and discarding if the occupants shifted their belief systems?↩#p1842
Following a number of anthropological studies that draw attention to the symbolic significance of “garbage” disposal, it seems likely that the occurrence of figurines in “garbage” pits in the street and exterior courtyard is an intentional social act that ought to be queried.58 Not all trash has the same social meaning – they do not have the same shape, contents, or process of filling. For example, the street shows successive layering of street levels superimposed by trash, while the exterior courtyard manifests a more general accumulation of animal coprolites and debris along with an ephemeral hearth.↩#p1843
It is unclear at what point these figurines were considered unusable, if they underwent some sort of damage, or if the family changed religious practices and decided to remove them from the house. The contexts in which we found the figurines suggest that they were removed upon abandonment, perhaps in order to embed them within the immediate domestic context to keep them in close proximity to the family’s home. Indeed, many of the figurines were located on the top surface of the street, suggesting that they were deposited there at the same time as this house and Area 1 in general were abandoned. It is also possible that other individuals removed these figurines from an already-abandoned house, viewing them as symbols of a past pagan religion.59 Alternatively, the inherent cultural meaning that archaeologists impose upon “figurines” may not be appropriate. These figurines may have had short use-lives within everyday practice rather than a purely ritualized function.60 For example, the roughly molded figurine (Inv. 11920) was found in the courtyard near an ephemeral hearth, perhaps signifying its discard after it was employed for magical practices. The ancient life cycle of these figurines, much as the house itself, had come to an end within the Roman Period.↩#p1844
Conclusion
Figurines shift meanings throughout their life cycle. Their role in daily life, households, identity, and memory seem likely, yet archaeologists have rarely explored the myriad roles that they take on. The preceding argument contends that we can gain a greater sense of these roles if we document all fragments, include all depositional contexts, consider the materiality of the figurine, and also explore its life cycle. The present study suggests that figurines performed a significant role within local craft production and domestic life. During later phases of usage, any sense of the “sacred” evaporated with the end of their active Romano-Egyptian life cycle. At that stage, individuals removed these objects, no longer considering them valuable performers in daily life. At this stage of research at Amheida it is difficult to say much about meanings for the specific forms that figurines take on. As a result, the present study merely asks questions to extend our horizons for viewing this enigmatic category of material culture.↩#p1845
Catalogue of Figurines
Figure 10.1: Head of a female figure (11627).
Catalogue Number: 10.1 (Head of a Female Figure) pl. 10.1, 11627; fig. 10.1↩#p1846
Description: Complete head of a terracotta figurine, nose chipped. The head is hollow inside and was probably made in two-piece mold. Head oriented slightly to the right. The hair is painted black and pulled back from the face. It seems to have been formed into a knot at the back of the head. No traces of black paint remain on the knot of hair at the back of the head or the neck below. Lack of pigment may have extended over the shoulders (now missing). Perhaps this represents a white hair covering (polos) as found in Stevens 2002:cat no.1, plate 1, although it seems more likely that this lack of pigment is due to erosion. The face shows a thin white gypsum layer that covers the surface followed by a thin beige slip. The details of the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth are outlined in black paint. The paint appears quite thick around her left eye. Found with Inv. 11633.↩#p1855
Description: Two joining fragments of a terracotta figurine that is hollow inside. A thin layer of white gypsum covers the surface. Probably made in two-piece mold. It represents the lower part of the legs and feet of a seated woman who appears to be wearing a long, beige dress with a black fringe. The legs and feet are placed wide apart from one another and the feet appear disproportionately large in comparison to the legs. The legs and feet are painted white. It probably once had additional surface details painted in but these are now lost. The figurine may be linked to Isis or fertility (see parallels).↩#p1866
Parallels: The feet and legs are similar to Metropolitan Museum of Art Accession Number 25.10.20.51, from the Kharga Oasis (4th–7th century), although the MMA figure is standing. Priestesses were clothed in the so-called Isis robe with the typical fringed hem and a knot between the breasts (Török 1995:nos 148-149). Women in a seated position with wide spread legs often indicates fertility (cf. Bayer-Niemeier 1988:nos 3131-3133; Dunand 1990:no. 569). See also Ewigleben and von Grumbkow 1991:nos 112, 114-115, for seated clothed women.↩#p1867
Catalogue Number: 10.3 (Fragment of a Terracotta Figure)↩#p1868
Description: Fragment of a terracotta figurine. The inner surface is concave, while the external surface is convex and covered by a thin layer of white gypsum painted black and some possible traces of beige. One facet is flatter and may represent the underside of a body of an animal (?) or the base of a cockerel (?).↩#p1876
Parallels: For the “flattened end,” see Stevens 2002:cat no. 37.↩#p1877
Catalogue Number: 10.4 (Fragmentary Body of a Terracotta Figure) pl. 10.2, 11915↩#p1878
Description: Fragment of the body of a terracotta figurine, hollow inside. The external surface is covered by a thin gypsum layer decorated with dots and lines painted in red and black. The black and red lines form a box crossed through with some of the black paint overlays the red. There is some black ”fringe” similar to Inv. 11628. The orientation of “fringe” suggests that it is a garment (dress?) or edge of a saddle (?) from a horse and rider figurine. Fringed hems can be linked to the so-called Isis robe (Török 1995:nos 148-149).↩#p1886
Catalogue Number: 10.5 (Fragment of a Terracotta Figure)↩#p1887
Description: Fragment of a terracotta figurine, hollow inside. The decorated exterior surface is convex. The base color is thin white gypsum and there are traces of yellow painting. On top of this base layer are three parallel black lines and one red line perpendicular to the black lines; one red dot next to the perpendicular red line. There are traces of yellow around the red coloring. It may represent a saddle from the back of a horse and rider figurine or the body of an anthropomorphic figurine. The fragmentary nature of the piece makes it impossible to identify it more securely. This fragment was found with Inv. 11914.↩#p1895
Catalogue Number: 10.6 (Fragment of the Body of a Terracotta Figure) pl. 10.2, 11914↩#p1896
Description: Fragment of the body of an animal figurine, probably a horse but possibly a donkey or even a camel. It is broken at the neck, legs, and tail. The remains of a rectangular protrusion (with a rounded protrusion inside of it) are located inside the span of the animal’s back. These protrusions appear to represent a saddle. Various deities can be represented riding horses, donkeys, and even roosters, including Harpocrates, Harpocrates-Heron, Horus, and Bes. Figures of mortals on horseback also occur (Bayer-Niemeier 1985). Usually the join between the rider and the horse is clear, but in some cases the figurine is seated further back upon the animal’s back and therefore no join is visible (Stevens 2002). It is possible that this figure once carried a rider. The fragment is weathered and no traces of surface treatment remain.↩#p1903
Horse figurines can be found in many regions (Greece, Persia, Israel, Egypt). Naukratis, primarily a foundation of the Ionian cities, has provided a class of crudely worked limestone figurines of riders that were found in houses dated by Petrie to the 6th through 4th centuries BCE (Eaverly 1995:13). If this terracotta is a horse and rider figure, it may reference Harpocrates since he is often represented as a rider of various animals (horse, duck, donkey) (Török 1995:cat no. 84-91). Harpocrates was the most popular domestic image in Roman Egypt. In Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, the traditional Egyptian god Horus was transformed into Harpocrates, the child form of Horus who personifies the newborn sun each day and also strength of early vegetation. Harpocrates is represented at Amheida through the presence of a figurine that was found when the DOP conducted their survey at the site (Stevens 2002:cat no. 2). Unfortunately, this figure has no contextual information and was found on the site surface. Allen suggests that figurines of domestic animals carry contemporaneous currency because they relate to the domestic component of families and may even carry apotropaic functions (Allen 1978).↩#p1904
Parallels: Amheida Inv. 11479, which also derives from Area 1, and is better preserved; Kellis Dunand 1990:cat nos. 843; Fischer 1994:cat nos. 1101-1014; Stevens 2002:cat nos. 20-29, 33. For additional parallels, see Stevens 2002:cat nos. 20, 30.↩#p1905
Figure 10.2: Complete head of a statuette roughly modeled (11920).
Catalogue Number: 10.7 (Complete Head of a Statuette Roughly Modeled) pl. 10.1, 11920; fig. 10.2↩#p1906
Description: Fragment of head, handmade. The features are roughly executed and therefore somewhat indistinct, but the figure can be identified as female. The eyes appear to have been pushed in and the slender nose pulled out in modeling the figure. The eyes are quite large for the face. The mouth is slightly pushed in. The hair appears to have been pulled back from the face with a knot at the back of the head (at about eye-level). The hair above the eyes forms a slight ridge or frame around the face. On top of the head, slightly over the left eye, rather than at the center, there is a small circular indentation. This indentation may have been intended for the placement of an ornament, candle, or oil. It may be incidental. No obvious traces of decoration remain.↩#p1915
Parallels: Handmade figurines such as this one occur at many sites and during many time periods so parallels are not necessarily meaningful. Karanis, one of our closest site parallels, has several handmade figurines, but they are not at all like our handmade since ours is significantly more schematic than the ones found there. For example, compare to Gazda and Hessenbruch 1978b:66, Orant no. 67, figure no. 69-70.↩#p1916
Figure 10.3: Body of a naked male statuette (11509).
Catalogue Number: 10.8 (Body of a Naked Male Statuette) pl. 10.1, 11509; fig. 10.3↩#p1917
Description: Fragment of a statuette in the shape of a naked male body. The head, part of the arms, and part of the legs are missing. The surface is smoothed and polished. The piece came from a finely carved, smaller-than-life statuette. The anatomy of the torso and buttocks are subtly rendered, if somewhat bulky in proportion. The torso appears too wide for the figure’s stature. No external detail is preserved to indicate its nature. The fragment is too worn for certain identification and dating, although the more naturalistic rendering of the body suggests a Greek influence. No evidence of reuse is visible. It is a possible Priapus Herm, which had been popular during the Hellenistic era, but it is missing all attributes of Priapus (cornucopia, oil jug, leafy staff, phallus), which would render this comparison viable.↩#p1926
Parallels: Compare to possible Priapus Herm from Karanis in terms of nudity and rough surfaces (Gazda and Hessenbruch 1978b:36, cat no. 27). The Karanis Priapus is H: 17.5 cm, W: 10.5 cm, D 6.5 cm.↩#p1927
Figure 10.4: Fragment of a hybrid animal sandstone figurine (3516).
Catalogue Number: 10.9 (Fragment of a Hybrid Animal Sandstone Figurine) pl. 10.2, 3516; fig. 10.4↩#p1928
Description: This figurine almost certainly represents an animal, given the presence of two eyeholes drilled in front with a possible beak between these eyeholes. It also has two front legs or paws and a possible tail on the back. It seems to represent an unknown hybrid creature.↩#p1937
Parallels: Little published comparative material for this figurine is available. Kom Rabi’a had twenty-seven such figures distributed among its New Kingdom and post-New Kingdom layers, but none is similar to this one, see Giddy 1999:307. The eyes in the face share some similarities with a marl clay figurine, identified as a possible baboon, but the other features are entirely different (Giddy 1999:inv. 1808, pl. 70).↩#p1938
Catalogue Number: 10.10 (Fragment of a molded limb) pl. 10.1, 3519↩#p1939
Description: possibly a molded limb, such as a hand and arm raised in an orans gesture. This gesture is common on contemporary Romano-Egyptian figurines (see the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Berkeley, Inv. 6-20323). It is fragmentary on all but two sides. The condition impedes further identification.↩#p1948
1 For example, figurines are largely ignored in the University of Michigan’s original excavation reports at Karanis and Soknopaiou Nesos (Boak and Peterson 1931, Boak 1933, Husselman 1979, Boak, Peterson and Haatveldt 1935). Allen’s subsequent PhD on the Karanis terracottas provides a preliminary catalogue of this material, but does not attempt to interpret the finds more fully (1985).
4 Giddens makes a distinction between practical and discursive consciousness, that is, between practices that are routine and involve unanalyzed activity and practices that are actively considered and performed (1984:181-183, 200).
7 Gazda and Hessenbruch 1978a:12. Recent re-examinations of figurines at the Neolithic site, Çatalhöyük, also found the majority of figurines in secondary depositions (Meskell, Nakamura, King and Farid 2008).
24 A1a is an iron-rich clay with considerable amounts of sand, scatter of small calcareous inclusions, occasional black particles and dark red particles. Forms typically include small bowls/lids, cooking and storage jars, and jars. This fabric occurs throughout the Roman Period in the Dakhla Oasis. Jars and bowls may be decorated with cream bands on the rim as well as a red rim tick.
29 Molding figures typically involved at least two molds made out of gypsum plaster (unlike faience molds, which were clay): an obverse and a reverse for each figurine, although the use of two molds was not essential (Dorman 2002:18). While the two molded halves were still damp, the craftsman would press them together and then smooth over the crack between them. For more elaborate figures, craftsmen applied additional elements (arms, legs, etc) that they molded separately and then attached to the figurine’s body by smearing the clay together or even through using tenons (ibid.:19).
31 Valbelle 1997:46. There are some specializations among potters depending upon type of clay that they worked with and so on (Bourriau, Nicholson and Rose 2000:122).
38 On mimesis in magical practice, see Mauss 2001:127
39 Pinch 1994:90, 94. Mold-made ceramics could also be used for magic, as a gruesome figurine (Louvre Inv. E. 27145) in the Louvre Museum, Paris, indicates (du Bourguet 1975).
50 Nachtergael 1995:223. Terracottas have been excavated in tomb and settlement sites but not from temple sites, and so it seems likely that these figurines related to everyday use rather than as ex-votos for ritual temple purpose. It is likely that individuals deposited them in burials as items of personal property. Some terracottas with religious themes may have been objects of personal piety that individuals used in the service of a private cult (Dorman 2002:19).
53 Many Egyptian terracottas have a small hole in the back, which may have been used to hold the figurine in position (Hornbostel and Laubscher 1986:42, Nachtergael 1995:25, Szymańska 2005:50 n.24).
54 Dunand and Zivie-Coche 2004:30, Frankfurter 1998:132-134.
