Meant to Move. Kinetic expression in figurines from ancient Western Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean

Figurines — made of clay, stone, wood, or other materials throughout the ancient world — capture postures, gestures, and movements that serve as visualized expressions of action, practice, and cognitive frameworks within their respective cultural contexts. While static, they encapsulate sequences of motion with deliberately chosen gestures that reflect everyday and ritualistic practices. By focusing on bodily forms and attributes, this workshop examines how figurines function as markers of action and experience and, thus, as entry points for associative thinking within distinct cognitive realms or performative settings. Exploring figurines as representations and active participants in social life, we consider their cognitive function — mnemonic devices, behavior models, or gesture guides? — and their potential to stimulate embodied responses and performative engagement.

Inspired by insights from gesture studies, cognitive science, and performance studies, the workshop, hosted by the Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology at Freie Universität Berlin and supported by the Excellence Cluster 2020 “Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective”, Einstein Center Chronoi, and hosted by BerGSAS, will open a dialogue on figurine agency through cognitive stimulation with specialists in different figurine traditions of Western Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean during the second and first millennium BCE. Combining scholarly papers and respondent-led discussions will stimulate active exchange between theoretical reasoning and artifact-oriented, comparative analyses.

Organizing committee:

Elisa Roßberger & Marina Weiss (Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie, Freie Universität Berlin)
Stephanie Langin-Hooper (Southern Methodist University, Dallas)
Régine Hunziker-Rodewald (Université de Strasbourg & Freie Universität Berlin)
Enrica Inversi (The British Museum & Freie Universität Berlin

Program:

Thursday, 22 May 2025

14:00 Welcome and introduction

14:15 Sarah Graff (Met Museum, New York): Far Away, So Close: Connections in Clay between Old Babylonian Girsu and Ur

15:00 Enrica Inversi (British Museum, London): Embodied Practices: Stillness and Movement in Ur Figurines

16:00 Elisa Roßberger (FU Berlin): Arrest and Movement: The Aesthetics of Transgression in Old Babylonian Terracotta Plaques

16:45 Anastasia Tchaplyghine (British Museum, London): Enigmatic Movement: Terracotta Animal Figurines in Early First Millennium BCE Mesopotamia

18:00 Goce Naumov (Einstein Center - Chronoi): Figurine Fragmentation as the Embodiment of Motion

Friday, 23 May 2025

9:00 Régine Hunziker-Rodewald (Universität Straßburg): Camel Figurines in Arabian Trade: A Semiotic–Network Approach

9:45 Maria-Gabriella Micale (British Museum, London): The Terracotta Figurines from the Persian Settlement at Tell Mardikh (Syria): Who Goes and Who Stays?

11:00 Elisabeth Katzy (Pilecki-Institut Berlin): Can movement suggest a reinterpretation? A case study on female terracotta figurines from the Hellenistic period at Tell Halaf

11:45 Stephanie Langin-Hooper (SMU Dallas): To Love and To Protect: Movement, Sound, and Smell as Forms
of Divine   Protection in the Eros Harpocrates Terracottas of Hellenistic Babylonia

13:30 Alexander Pruß (JGU Mainz): Mourning figurines and string puppets from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant

14:15 Marina Weiss (FU Berlin): In Motion: Ring Dance Figurines from Iron Age Cyprus

14:45 Andrei Aioanei (Universität Straßburg): Embodied Semiotic Agents: Territorialization and Ideological Formation Through Female Figurines in Iron Age Tel Rehov