Figurine of a Naked Woman with a Baldric
Unknown · Middle Elamite period, c. 1400-1100 BC
Standing on a small pedestal, this naked woman holds her hands clasped together rather than at her breasts. Her diadem is braided, she wears a necklace and bracelets, and a baldric crosses her torso from one shoulder to the opposite hip. The figure is complete, fifteen centimetres tall, and moulded in terracotta with relief sharp enough to read every strand of the headband.
The clasped hands change the meaning of the image. Where the breast-cupping women speak of fertility, this pose is the gesture of prayer used by worshippers across Mesopotamia and Elam, so the figure may show a devotee rather than a goddess. She dates to the Middle Elamite period, roughly the fourteenth to twelfth century BC, and was excavated at Susa by the French mission, entering the Louvre through the division of finds. Two more figurines from the same family of moulds stand beside her, a useful reminder that these were mass-produced objects, not one-off sculptures.
Did You Know? The pedestal under her feet suggests the figurine was meant to stand upright on a shelf or altar in a home.
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