YM 16658
Antonini de Maigret 2014: 237, fig. 3a
DEPOSIT INFORMATION
| Deposit | Ṣanʿāʾ, The National Museum, 16658 |
SUPPORT INFORMATION
| Support type | Artefact » Stela » Stela with figure in relief | ||||||||||||||
| Subject | Mythological figure | ||||||||||||||
| Material | Alabaster | ||||||||||||||
| Decoration |
| ||||||||||||||
| Chronology |
| ||||||||||||||
| Notes on support and decorations | Upper half of a votive stela representing a winged human figure in profile, with long curly hair on his shoulders. The figure, wearing a pleated skirt, holds in the right hand an unidentified object, constituted by an linear element ending in a ring. This object, showing regular notches, could be interpreted as a rope ending in a noose. A quiver is hanging below the left arm. The figure, identified by the inscription, represents the goddess Shams, in her aspect of protective deity (as shown by the wings) and without sex’s connotations. She is inserted by Robin among the minor deities, definable as Fortuna (Robin 2012 a: 72-73). This sacred figure, represented according to the hunting iconography, can be interpreted as Shams in the role of "hunters' guardian-angel" (Antonini de Maigret 2014: 240). The stela is perfectly comparable to MṢM 213. |
ORIGIN AND PROVENANCE
| Modern site | Unknown |
| Ancient site | Unknown |
| Country | Yemen |
| Notes | The provenance of the stela is unknown, the comparable stela MṢM 213 was found in Maʾrib. |
| Link to site record |
EPIGRAPHS
| Title | YM 16658 |
| Language | Ancient South Arabian » Sabaic » Central Middle Sabaic |
| Link to epigraph record |
BIBLIOGRAPHY
| Robin 2012 a: 75, fig. 9 | Robin, Christian J. 2012. Matériaux pour une typologie des divinités arabiques et de leurs représentations.. Pages 7-118 in Isabelle Sachet (ed.). Dieux et déesses d'Arabie. Images et représentations. Actes de la table ronde tenue au Collège de France (Paris) les 1er et 2 octobre 2007. Paris: De Boccard. [en collaboration avec Christian Julien Robin] |
| Antonini de Maigret 2014: 237, fig. 3/a | Antonini de Maigret, Sabina 2014. A winged deity in southern Arabia. Pages 234-243 in Alexander V. Sedov (ed.). Arabian and Islamic studies. A collection of papers in honour of Mikhail Borishovich Piotrovskij on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Moskow. |