Figurine of a Naked Woman with a Baldric
Unknown · Middle Elamite period, c. 1400-1100 BC
The tallest of the three clasped-hand women, at just over seventeen centimetres, this figure shows the type at its clearest. The braided diadem sits low on the forehead, the necklace lies flat on the chest, the baldric runs diagonally across the torso and the bracelets ring both wrists. The hands meet at the waist, and the feet rest on a low pedestal. The moulded clay is intact.
Figurines like this one were made in Susa during the Middle Elamite period, roughly the fourteenth to the twelfth century BC, when the city was a capital of the Elamite kings. A potter pressed clay into a fired mould, let it dry, trimmed the edges and fired it, a process so quick that identical images could be sold or offered by the dozen. The gesture of joined hands is the standard posture of prayer in the ancient Near East. The figurine came to the Louvre through the division of finds from the French excavations at Susa.
Did You Know? Three women from the same design stand in this room, letting you compare how mould-made images differ in small details.
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