Ain Ghazal, eastern Amman, Jordan
Ain Ghazal statues
Two caches, uncalibrated charcoal near 6750 and 6570 BC (ancestors, or figures made to be buried)
In 1983, and again in 1985, pits at Ain Ghazal gave up lime-plaster statues built on reeds. Some are busts with two heads. They were buried in good condition, in a material that does not love the weather.
Why this is extraordinary
Ain Ghazal, on the edge of Amman, gave up two pits of plaster statues, one in 1983 and one in 1985. They are built on reeds and cord, coated in lime plaster, and finished at the eyes with bitumen. They are flat, about 10 centimetres through, tall enough to stand in front of you and not tall enough to be mistaken for a person in the room. The face is where the work went. The body is only a summary of a person, and genitals are not modelled.
The first cache held full figures and one-headed busts. Charcoal with them is published as 6750 ± 80 and 6710 ± 80 BC, and the report says uncalibrated. The second cache, buried after charcoal dated 6570 ± 110 BC uncalibrated, held two standing figures, three busts with two heads each, and two more heads. A stylistic study puts the largest full figures of the first cache near 84 centimetres and the second cache’s standing figures near a metre, with the tallest at 104 centimetres against a little over 90 in the first. The one-headed busts are about 35 centimetres. The two-headed ones reach about 88. The smallest piece in the second cache is taller than the largest in the first. Uncalibrated means the calendar year is not the number on the page. The order is the part that stands without a curve. The second pit is later.
Two heads are the part a single portrait does not explain. Nothing from the village says whether that is a pair of people, a role, or a being. The burial is the other open fact. The plaster would have done badly in the rain, and the statues were interred while they were still sound, which is also how this period buried its dead. Plastered human skulls, with the face modelled on bone, are the nearest habit. One reading makes the statue an ancestor you could visit, and then a funeral. The other makes the pit the reason the statue existed. Crushing in the earth has spoiled the test, because wear and damage now look alike.
No sky reading belongs to these pits in the sources used here. They are not aligned, and they do not carry a star or a sun.
If the statues stood in houses and were then buried like people, Ain Ghazal was keeping a visible dead, and the two-headed busts are a later turn in that practice. If they were made for the grave, the labour in the eyes was for a rite that ended in the pit, and a portrait life is not required. Both of those lives fit the pits we have.
Why it matters
If they are ancestors, this village around the middle of the seventh millennium was keeping the dead in a form you could stand in a room, and then buried the form as you buried a person. If they were made for the pit, the statue is a rite of burial, not a portrait that wore out.
The figures are plaster over a bundle of reeds and cord. They are flat, about 10 centimetres thick, and meant to be seen from the front. The face is the careful part. Eyes are large, the iris set off with bitumen. Bodies are barely sexed. No genitals are modelled. A few torsos suggest breasts or a belly.
Photo tour
1 photograph, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.
- A clear, openly licensed photograph of a two-headed bust was not found for this room. The head shown is one face.
What is still unexplained
These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.
Location and dating
- Location
- Ain Ghazal, on the eastern edge of Amman. The pin is the site. The statues are now divided among the Jordan Museum, the citadel museum in Amman, the Louvre, the British Museum, and Louvre Abu Dhabi.
- Period label
- Current consensus — open to revision Pre-Pottery Neolithic. The uncalibrated charcoal is 6750 ± 80 and 6710 ± 80 BC for the first cache, and 6570 ± 110 BC as a limit after which the second cache was buried.
- How this dating was done
- Radiocarbon on charcoal in and under the pits, published uncalibrated. The order of the two caches is the part that does not depend on the calibration curve.
- What could change it
- A calibrated republication of the same charcoal samples, and a record of wear on a surface that was not crushed in the pit.
What is actually there
- Two pits, found in 1983 and 1985.
- Reed and cord armature, lime plaster, bitumen in the eyes.
- Cache 2 includes three two-headed busts, about 88 centimetres high.
- Standing figures up to 104 centimetres in the second cache.
- About 10 centimetres thick, made to be seen from the front.
- Buried in sound condition.
Open questions
| Question | Status |
|---|---|
| Are the two heads two people, or one figure that was never a portrait? | Open. No text from the makers exists. The second cache is the one that doubles the head. |
| Were they displayed and then buried, or made for the grave? | Open. The fresh burial fits both a short life indoors and no life indoors at all. |
The current narrative
Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.
The current narrative — open to revision
Ancestors, kin to the plastered skulls
The statues are the dead, or a class of person, modelled so the living could face them, then buried with something of the care given to a body. The two-headed busts are a later, larger version of the same idea.
What supports this
- Plastered human skulls of this period show the same attention to the face, and the pits resemble the pits used for people.
- The eyes are the worked part, which is what a figure you meet would need.
- The second cache is larger and, in the busts, two-headed, so the form was still being changed two centuries on, not copied once and forgotten.
What pushes back
- Two heads are a poor fit for one buried person, and no skeleton was paired with a statue in these pits.
- They were buried sound, in a plaster that fails outdoors, which a disposable ritual object also explains.
- The uncalibrated dates are not yet a calendar. The gap between the caches is real. The century label is not finished.
What would settle it
It is the centre because the plastered skulls are the nearest practice, and the statues continue a care for the face. It moves if the two heads and the fresh burial are shown to belong to a rite that never treated the statue as a person.
Emerging narratives
Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.
An emerging narrative
Figures made for the pit
The statues were built to be buried. They were not house portraits that died. The pit is the purpose, and the two heads are a form that never had to survive as a single face in a room.
What supports this
- They went into the ground in good condition.
- The plaster and the reed core are a poor material for a long display.
- A two-headed bust does not need a biography as one ancestor.
What pushes back
- The labour in the eyes is odd if nobody was meant to see them except at the moment of burial.
- The likeness to plastered skulls and to human graves is then a coincidence of material, lime and pits, which that period used for many jobs.
- Crushing in the ground has removed the wear that would have tested the claim.
What would settle it
It stays because the condition of the caches is a fact and the display life is an inference. It is not the centre while the skulls offer a nearer comparison that does include a life before burial.
Should the current view be reevaluated?
Open to revision
The statues, the two caches and the uncalibrated order are secure. What they were for is not. Open keeps the ancestor and the purpose-built burial side by side.
What drives this
- Two-headed busts only in the later cache, at about 88 centimetres.
- Burial in sound condition, in a fragile plaster.
- Uncalibrated charcoal, 6750 ± 80 and 6570 ± 110 BC, with the calibration still to be applied in this room’s sources.
This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.
Weigh it yourself
Anonymous. Nothing here is stored except on this browser. Your lean does not change the assessment beside it.
Visitor lean so far — not evidence. On this browser only; a shared tally is not collected.
If the contested reading is right
What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.
They were made only to be buried
The statues would come out of the story of images that lived in houses and into a story of figures whose whole life was the funeral. The two heads would not have to be two ancestors who once sat in a room.
Why it is still worth a test
A surface study that separates burial crushing from wear, and a calibrated date on the same charcoal.
Sources
- Neolithic statues from Ain Ghazal, construction and form Smithsonian Institution repository
- Ain Ghazal monumental figures, a stylistic analysis Research pages hosted at the University of Texas
- Ain Ghazal statues, conservation history Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute
Image credits
- A restored head from Ain Ghazal. The plaster is cracked. The eyes are outlined in a dark line with dark pupils. The face is the worked part. The neck and shoulders are plain. . ALFGRN, CC BY-SA 2.0. Shown unedited.