Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This female orant wears a low, curved, and uncovered headdress that seems to be made of three plain bands (1). The back of the headdress is featureless and slightly concave. Her brow is quite prominent below the front of the headdress. Her facial features are molded and very large, particularly the eyes and jutting nose. Her chin is small and curved. There is a prominence on each side of the head that may indicate ears or part of the decorations on the headdress. She wears a long form-fitting dress with short sleeves. Either the dress has a decorative collar, or the statuette wears a necklace. The back of the dress has a crisscross decoration that might be a rendering of the same circular, looped band worn by 1933.134. Bracelets or cuffs are modeled above the elbows and indicated by incision at the wrists. The dress narrows somewhat at the waist, flaring out slightly down to the ankles and leaving the feet uncovered. A slight train covers her heels. Her arms are extremely long and thin; they are completely separate from the upper body, bending at the elbows with both hands held palm downward on her chest. Separate fingers are slightly indicated with incision. Her feet are large and block-like, with a groove on the top and bottom to indicate their separation.
Thousands of small, anthropomorphic copper alloy statuettes and anatomical votives have been recovered from remote sanctuary sites in south-central Spain, particularly Collado de los Jardines and Castellar de Santisteban, but it is not certain to which god or gods they were dedicated (2). Many of the statuettes depict individuals, some of whom are represented in poses of prayer or offering (3). Some are very abstract and schematically rendered, while others wear identifiable contemporary clothing (4). In spite of the similarity of the votives, there is nothing to indicate that the intention behind each offering was the same. This example is most likely from the cave sanctuary of Collado de los Jardines near Santa Elena, Jaén. It was given to Harvard in 1933 by the Republic of Spain in exchange for the cover of the eleventh-century sarcophagus of Alfonso Ansúrez from Sahagún, León, which was then in the collection of the Fogg Art Museum (5).
NOTES:
1. Compare L. Prados Torreira, Exvotos ibericos de bronce del Museo Arqueologico Nacional (Madrid, 1992) 220, nos. 579-80, particularly the position of the elbows. Compare the figure’s stance and overall form to R. Lantier, Bronzes votifs ibériques (Paris, 1935) no. 226, pl. 18.
2. See F. Álvarez-Ossorio, Bronces ibéricos o hispánicos del Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Madrid, 1935) 20-27; id., Catálogo de los exvotos de bronce ibéricos (Madrid, 1941); L. Prados Torreira, “Los exvotos anatomicos del santuario iberico de Collado de los Jardines (Sta. Elena, Jaén),” Trabajos de prehistoria 48 (1991): 313-32; ead. 1992 (supra 1); ead., “Los santuarios ibéricos: Apuntes para el desarrollo de una arqueología del culto,” Trabajos de prehistoria 51.1 (1994): 127-40; and G. Nicolini et al., El santuario ibérico de Castellar, Jaén: Intervenciones arqueológicas 1966-1991 (Seville, 2004) 160-64.
3. For discussions of the statuettes’ poses and gestures, see G. Nicolini, “Gestes et attitudes cultuels des figurines de bronze ibériques,” Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez 4 (1968): 27-50; and C. Rueda Galán, “La mujer sacralizada: La presencia de las mujeres en los santuarios (lectura desde los exvotos de bronce iberos),” Complutum 18 (2007): 227-35.
4. See, for example, 1933.134.
5. See “Collections and Critiques,” The Harvard Crimson, Dec. 12, 1935; and Á. Franco, “Arte medieval leonés fuera de España,” in La dispersión de objetos de arte fuera de España en los siglos XIX y XX, eds. F. Pérez Mulet and I. Socias Batet (Barcelona, 2011) 93-132, esp. 113-16.
Lisa M. Anderson
