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Phoenician art is varied in terms of supports and representations: decorated ivories, engraved metal jars, clay figurines, reliefs, stelae or glaze paste objects. All of them were decorated with different motifs, geometrical, anthropomorphic or vegetal, and shows how eclectic and heterogeneous is Phoenician art. Indeed, Phoenician artists were famous in Antiquity for their skills in metalworking and it is attested that some artisans lived and worked in foreign cities and colonies due to the appreciation of their talent.

This communication focuses on a specific type of representation: bottle-shaped figurines found on different supports that resemble human bodies. They have been identified carved on funerary stelae, and on jewels. In addition, some terracotta figurines are labelled as “bottle-shaped” because of their appearance and because they were modelled using the standard technique to make bottles, but they were turned into anthropomorphic figurines by the addition of arms, genitalia and breasts and also by transforming the necks of the “bottles” into faces. It is my intention to offer a contextual analysis of these images in order to explore the implications that they have in creating a specific way of perceiving social relations. Furthermore, I will argue to what extent we can explore issues of corporealities and conceptions of the body from such material culture.


Author(s): López-Bertran, Mireia (Universitat de Valencia)