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Document Details :

Title: Novelty and tradition in Achaemenid Syria
Subtitle: The case of the clay 'Astarte plaques'
Author(s): MOOREY, P.R.S.
Journal: Iranica Antiqua
Volume: 37    Date: 2002   
Pages: 203-218
DOI: 10.2143/IA.37.0.123

Abstract :
Recent publication of the mouldmade terracotta plaques from the Japanese excavations at Tell Mastuma in Syria, west of Aleppo, found in level ‘O’ of the Achaemenid Persian period (c.550-330 B.C.), has provided very useful new evidence, carefully reported, for the final stage in the long history of perhaps the best known ancient Near Eastern terracottas, the so-called ‘Astarte plaques’. Low relief baked clay images of nude females made in one-piece open moulds first appeared in Babylonia towards the end of the Akkadian Period (c.2334-2154 B.C.) and enjoyed great popularity amongst an exceptionally varied repertory of such moulded relief plaques there in the next few centuries.

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