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An Alabaster Head from Timna‘, South Arabia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

M. E. L. Mallowan
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Extract

It is appropriate to dedicate this article to Sidney Smith, on the occasion of his seventy-seventh birthday, for like many scholars primarily concerned with the ancient history and archaeology of Western Asia, his interests were frequently drawn to the distant field of South Arabia where so much enigmatic material reminiscent of the northern, urban monuments of Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia has been found.

The boldly carved, large alabaster head here illustrated on Plates XXIV–XXV is as good a specimen of its kind as I have ever seen, and can be confidently authenticated, not only because of its assured style and antique condition, but also on account of the circumstances of discovery.

This head, which is at present privately owned, was found by a young officer, in 1962, when his regiment was stationed in Aden. On a long distance patrol he visited the ancient city of Timna‘ which he noted as situated on the Yemen-Aden Protectorate border, about two days drive by armoured car, west of ‘Ataq. He described the site as ‘ now reduced by nature to cover a square mile of rubble, often covered with high sand-dunes. There is no water now and only a few Beduin live there’. He also observed that this appeared to be the site of an ancient capital city, that broken pillars and other architectural remains were lying around and that walls and gates could still be traced.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1966 , pp. 96 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1966

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References

1 For example see his article entitled ‘Two Luristan Bronzes from Southern Arabia’. In Archaeologica Orientalia in Memoriam Ernst Herzfeld, ed. Miles, George C., New York (1952), T. T. Augustin, pp 203–207 and figs 1, 2Google Scholar. It may now be doubted if these are authentic Luristan bronzes, but they may have been imported from Babylonia or from Elam in the course of the first millennium B.C., a period to which they were correctly assigned by Sidney Smith.

2 Phillips, Wendell, Qataban and Sheba, 1955Google Scholar: and Cleveland, Ray L., An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, Objects from the Second Campaign (1951) in the Timna‘ Cemetery, (1965)Google Scholar.

3 Ray L. Cleveland op. cit, p., 173.

4 Professor A. H. Honeyman who excavated at Timna‘ suggests that the finder must have come across the head either on the steep north slope of Hajar Kohlan, or else among the spill deposited at various points on the south side. He has also drawn my attention to the pioneering expedition of Wyman Bury whose photographs of the South Gate appear in Vienna Sitzungsberichte and in the Handbuch.

5 Cleveland, op. cit., plate 22, TC 2184 and p. 9.

6 Cleveland op. cit., plate 23, TC 2259, a female head, p. 9.

7 Op. cit. p. 5 and p. 173–175 and Plans, 1, 2.

8 Op. cit., Plan 1 opp. p. 174.

9 Op. cit., Plan 2 opp. p. 175.

10 I.L.N. 10 7 1933 p. 536fGoogle Scholar.

11 Cleveland op. cit., plate 118, also Phillips, Wendell, Qatabân and Sheba, p. 117Google Scholar.

12 Fakhry, A.. An Archaeological Journey to Yemen 03-May 1947 Part III, plates XL–XLII, (Service des Antiquitiés de l'Egypte, Government Press, Cairo 1951)Google Scholar. I owe this reference to the kindness of Dr. R. D. Barnett.

13 Cleveland op. cit., plates 24, 28, 44, 45 illustrate two types of mortuary sculpture. In the one the neck stands directly on the plinth, in the other we see a summarily carved three-quarter length figure with the arms held across the waist, the finger tips touching.

14 Iraq IX (1947), Pl. 1 and catalogue on p. 91Google Scholar.

15 Rathjens, Carl, Sabaeica Teil II, Photos 247–250 on p. 220 and discussed in the text on pp. 80–82Google Scholar.

16 Op. cit., Photo 250.

17 Op. cit., Photos 245–248.

18 Mlle Dr. J. Pirenne who kindly read this article in typescript and made a number of valuable comments has however remarked in a lettei dated 4 August 1966: ‘Votre idée centrale me parait très intéressante (c.à.d. une technique de sculpture sur bois ayant précédé la sculpture sur l'albâtre qui en conserve les traits). Je suis prête à l'accepter car il me semble très possible, en effet, que la sculpture sur bois ait précédé, bien que les exemples qui nous restent ne paraissent pas du stade graphique le plus ancien.’ Palaeographically the inscriptions to which I have referred above in Rathjen's work (photos 245, 246, 248) belong to stage C…..‘les autres ont trop peu de lettres pour être classés avec sûreté, mais pourraient être plus anciennes. En tout cas, le bois étant un matériel périssable, il serait normal que les témoins plus anciens nous manquent presque complètement.’ Pirenne places stage C in the second half of the 4th century B.C. Stelat with faces in relief, and ‘Eye-stelai’ occur also in stages A and B, but not with faces in the round which begin only in D.

19 C. Rathjens, op. cit., Photos 137–366 of which 230 is clearly a reflection of Greek dress-making. The date of the latter type of costume has been discussed by Jacqueline Pirenne in her magisterial work: Le Royaume Sud-Arabe de Qatabân et sa datation, (1961). It is worn by one of the Kings of ’Awsân—pl. XI.C. named Yasdouq’il Sarhat, son of Ma‘ad’il Salhân. These kings are not likely to have flourished before the end of the first century B.C. at the earliest. See particularly Pirenne, J. in Syria XXXVIII (1961) Fasc. 3–4, ‘Notes d'Archéologie Sud Arabe’, pp. 284–310 and pl. XVCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Mallowan, M. E. L., ‘Tell Chuera in Nordost Syrien’, Iraq XXVIII (1966), pp. 89–95 with illustrationsCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 SirWheeler, Mortimer, Civilizations of the Indus Valley and Beyond (1966)—cover illustration and 47–51Google Scholar.

22 B.A.S.O.R. 172 (1963), p. 55f and pp. 1–5Google Scholar.

23 B.A.S.O.R. 172 (1963), pp. 55ff and fig. 1–15Google Scholar.

24 R. D. Barnett, The Nimrud Ivories in the British Museum, S.6 on plate XXI; Mallowan, M. E. L., Nimrud and Its Remains, Pl. 525 opp. p. 572, Pl. 477 opp. p. 546, Pl. 428 opp. p. 522Google Scholar.

25 H. Th. Bossert, Altsyrien Nr 1286. Mlle J. Pirenne writes: ‘J'approuve … les réserves que vous faites à propos des ‘cherubs and tree of life de Timna‘ ’et du lion ailé de Bossert … J’ai préparé un article où je m’apprête à montrer que le lion ailé est de l'époque sassanide et les ‘cherubs’ comparables à ceux des inscriptions de bronze CIH 73 (l'arbre se retrouvant aussi sur CIH 72), dont la graphie est relativement tardive et dont les ‘cherubs’ sont analogues à des exemples palmyréniens.’

26 J. Pirenne, Qatabân op. cit., pp. 1–8 who argues cogently against the higher dating proposed first by Glaser, subsequently by W. F. Albright. Mlle. Pirenne's chronological scheme which on present evidence seems more soundly based than that of any of her predecessors is sketched in a table, op. cit. p. 8.

27 Pirenne, Jacqueline, in Syria XXXVIII (1961) 3–4, ‘Notes Archéologiques Sud-Arabe’, p. 296Google Scholar.

28 Rathjens, op. cit., p. 223 & photos 260, 261.

29 See J. Pirenne, La Grèce et Saba, passim.

30 There are however some inscribed seals with S. Arabian legends which may be attributed to the eighth to seventh centuries B.C., cf. Pirenne, J., Grèce et Saba, p. 42 and note 2Google Scholar; cf. Erlenmeyer, M.-L. and Erlenmeyer, H. “Fruhiranische Stempelsiegel, II” Iranica Antiqua, Vol. V (1965), Taf. XI, Nos. 65–65Google Scholar illustrating seals which are probably Syrian and Babylonian respectively of the 8th–7th centuries B.C.; it is remarkable that they are inscribed with characters in an early form of North Arabic script which the authors describe as Thamudic, op. cit., pp. 15–16.

31 Legrain, L. in A.J.A. XXXVIII (1954), pp. 329–37Google Scholar as quoted by Rathjens, C., in Sabaeica, p. 45Google Scholar.

32 C. Rathjens, op. cit., figs 134, 135 on p. 41, photos 79–80 on p. 195 and comment by Leonard Woolley on p. 60.