SCHWEICH LECTURES ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Idols of the People:
Miniature Images of Clay in the Ancient Near East

Dr Roger Moorey, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

30 November 2001 and 1 December 2001

The beliefs and rituals of ordinary people remain one of the most important unknowns in the religions of the ancient Near East, not least since they fall outside the range of written records event where they have survived. In the material record they are almost exlusively represented by clay figurines (‘terracottas’). Of the various objects from excavations mentioned in Old Testament Studies as having cultic significance they are the most frequently cited. Their primary context, however, was their total social significance, whether or not their may have been a religious aspect to it. As they represented concepts and practices not considered normative by Old Testament authors, they are nowhere explicitly mentioned by them.

Interpretation of their images and functions is consequently elusive; the more so because archaeologists recover them from contexts of disposal rather than of use. They were generally treated like other objects of daily life when no longer required and thrown out, oftern battered and broken, with rubbish. Their place in Old Testament Studies, when not dismissed as children’s playthings, has been narrowly focused both chronologically and typologically. Female images, most notably in recent controversies over ‘Yahweh and his asherah’ in the period of the Divided Monarchy, have been allowed to eclipse almost all others.

These lectures, designed as a three-part series, yet each self-sufficient enough to be understood independently, will argue that:

First. Any agenda for investigating these clay images 'with reference to Biblical Study' (as required by the Schweich Trust) needs now to take account of the claims and methods recently promoted by prehistorians elucidating the roles of terracotta figurines worldwide.

Second. As appreciation of their ancestry, combined with an understanding of contemporary figurine production elsewhere, is a prerequisite for elucidating their special significance, if any, in Canaan, Judah and Israel.

Third. These miniature clay images, in all their variety, when recurrently found together, were part of a single system of symbols. Attempts to assign meaning to any one type or trait in an assemblage to avoid distortion must take them all into account. It is the configurations of traits that are significant.

Lecture 1: In the beginning: origins and originating key questions

The roles of prehistoric terracottas in the Near East will be examined through select assemblages as a 'questioning activity; to generate an appropriate agena for an investigation of the ideological and social relevance of their descendents in historic times.

Lecture 2: Terracottas in Early Complex Societies: Babylonia, Syria, Egypt and Canaan (c. 3000-1200 BC)

The impact of state-sponsored religions on terracotta production; the origins, relatives and legacy of the terracottas of Canaan.

Lecture 3: Terracottas in the Levantine Kingdoms (c. 1200-350 BC)

The repertory of figurines in Israel and Judah, compared to that of their neighbours; their significance and eclipse.

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