Head of a statue
Basalt
700 BC

This impressive head of a woman, with her horned crown and rosette-embellished diadem, was found in the Temple of Ishtar. The temple was built on the site of Ain Dara by Hittite settlers who came from Anatolia to set up independent kingdoms in northern Syria at the beginning of the first millennium, after the Hittite Empire had fallen to the invading “Sea Peoples” around 1200 BC. The sculpture is an interesting vestige of the Hittite presence in Syria.

Ain Dara
36 x 28 x 56 cm
National Museum, Aleppo
M 11123 AIN DARA Pl. 55-56

_{© Musée de la civilisation, 1999}