Iberian Peninsula to the indus

Bibliography:
Karageorghis 1991, 
pp. 73–74, 91, pl. xl:1; Karageorghis 
1998, pp. 59–63, fig. 1; Hadjisawas 
2010, p. 82, cat. 47 (G. Georgiou); 
Karageorghis 2012, p. 49, no. 28.
A significant number of the plank-
shaped figurines are of the two-
headed type. Usually, the two necks 
of these figurines are connected 
at the top. The figure presented 
here has two tall necks and heads, 
independent from one another. The 
facial features of both heads, as well 
as the incisions all over the face and 
neck, are identical. They share a 
rectangular body, which is very richly 
adorned. The hair at the back is 
shown by vertical zig-zag lines; there 
also appears to be a “comb” motif 
hanging between the necks.
These two-headed figures have been 
variously identified as depictions 
of sacred marriage or as a double-
faced Great Goddess or as “magical 
monsters”. Other interpretations 
associate them with devices used in 
sympathetic magic for women wanting 
twins or triplets.
Z.E.

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145
144
ANATOLIA

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147
146
Kilia figure
Western Anatolia
Chalcolithic – Early Bronze Age 
(3300–3000 BC)
Private Collection, UK
(courtesy RWAA)
(cat. 39, detail)
SchemAtic fiGureS
from AnAtoliA
A
natolia had a long tradition of depicting human figures: if the monumental 
stone building of the tenth
millennium recently discovered at Gobekli tepe 
was sculpted with images of wild animals only, in the neolithic instal-
lations of haçilar and catal hüyük dated to the seventh to fifth millennia, narra-
tive paintings and three-dimensional figurines associate a dominant steatopygous 
“lady”, and a few male figures, with felines and birds of prey. By the end of the 
fourth millennium, as in the most of the near east and the mediterranean, drastic 
changes brought the emergence of new social landscapes. new visual perceptions 
took the appearance of abstract shapes for the depiction of the traditional female 
figure. Schematic types appeared all over Anatolia and were distributed from the 
littoral to the hinterland, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of each 
type. the chronological evolution is equally uneasy to follow during the course of 
the third millennium (
cat. 38
). types are conventionally designated by the name of 
the site where they have been first discovered or published. Several cultural areas 
may be recognized: the littoral had close contacts with the eastern islands of the 
mediterranean and the cyclades; the troy, Beycesultan and Kusura types were 
distributed in Western Anatolia; in the hinterland and cappadocia, the Kültepe 
1
Anthr
opomorphic figurine 
Kocumbeli – Ankara 
III millennium BC
METU Archaeological Museum of 
Ankara

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149
148
disk-shaped idols emerged at the end of the third millennium; eastern Anatolia 
was in relation with northern Syria, through the upper valley of the euphrates, 
probably where the “eye idols” originated (ca. 3300 Bc) before migrating through 
mesopotamia and Western iran.
Stone figures were part of a larger production of anthropomorphic images, next to 
numerous terracotta and a few rare metal figures, and should be considered in that 
context. different materials may have been assigned to different forms, within similar 
abstraction processes: taking for instance, the body abbreviated in a semi-circular 
disk, there were variations between the metal pieces (as in the Alaça hüyuk “twin” 
idols) and the clay ones (as in Koçumbeli-Ankara). Another variation is found in the 
formal interplay between the head and the body: both parts are often rendered in a 
similar shape, disk-like or semi-circular, but inverted and in different proportions and 
respective size. in the stone figures, generally left with a plain surface, the play on 
respective proportions of the different parts of the body is important in the balance 
and rhythm of the figure; in the clay pieces, engraved details are often repeated on 
the head and the body, but upside down, in a mirror image and what is the right 
way up is left ambiguous. 
most Anatolian schematic figures are ambiguous as to their sex; even the obvi-
ously sexed females may be bisexual and present phallic elements, a phenomenon 
observed also in cyprus. repair and breakage patterns suggest that the figurines 
were handled, displayed and discarded and that they had a “life” and social status 
before they were deposited, in public or domestic contexts.