South Arabian Alabaster Seated Figure of the Sun Goddess

With bulbous coiffure, long nose, incised arched brows and large inlaid white stone pupils remaining, her arms bent at the elbows and held out in front, one hand clenched and pierced vertically for an attachment, the other held open, the square pedestalwith finely incised three line Old South Arabian dedicatory inscription reading “Am’al Kalan Barntum, and Haywu and Safliyan have dedicated (this monument) to Dha t’Adihanum, as all his dedicator’s due”.

The deity is a rare form of the sun-goddess in Qataban, known from a text excavated at Tamna. This inscription is a dedication to the goddess, to settle the dedicators account with the deity; it may be a fulfilment of a promise made to the deity, if sheherself fulfilled a request made by Am’al and his followers (brothers or sons).

Ex-European private collection, collected in the late 1970’s.