CIRCA 8TH-7TH CENTURY B.C.

This bronze tripod stand takes the form of an elongated goddess wearing an Egyptianizing echeloned wig surmounted by a polos. She is depicted nude but for a beaded broad collar and cups her breasts with her hands. The figure is attached to a base in the form of three leonine paws interspersed with palmettes. While the precise function of these tripod stands is unknown, P.R.S. Moorey (“Some Syro-Phoenician Bronze Caryatid Stands,” Levant V, p. 86) contends that the protuberance present on the head suggests that a dish or vessel was set directly on top of it, possibly for incense or another ritualistic purpose.

Iconographically, these figures share similarities with the widely-produced terracotta “Astarte” plaques from the Orontes region of Syria. Specifically the Egyptianizing features on both “represent a common aspect of cultural osmosis accompanying Egyptian diplomatic and commercial relations with the Levant” (op. cit., pp. 83-90).

For a related figure in the Louvre but with small knobs under the zoomorphic tripod legs, see no. 134 in É. Fontan and H. Le Meaux, La Méditerranée des Phéniciens de Tyr à Carthage. For another example with similar legs, now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, see pl. XXVI, nos. d-e, in Moorey, op. cit.