Ellen Belcher | John Jay College of Criminal Justice (original) (raw)

Current Project by Ellen Belcher

Anthropomorphic figurines known from Halaf sites, northern Mesopotamia. Data collected from study... more Anthropomorphic figurines known from Halaf sites, northern Mesopotamia. Data collected from studying objects in museums, site depots and publications.

This data was collected as part of a doctoral study (Belcher 2014) which cataloged and analyzed a corpus of anthropomorphic figurines from archaeological sites dating to the Halaf period (Sixth Millennium cal BCE) known from excavations in Turkey and Syria. The dissertation presented a detailed catalog of 197 figurine examples, both whole and fragmented, and their excavated contexts from seven Halaf sites in Turkey and nine Halaf sites in Syria. This project will eventually publish all of this data as well as newly found and studied Halaf figurine assemblages.

Citation: Ellen Belcher. "Halaf Figurines Project: A Catalog of Figurines Excavated from Sixth Millennium Northern Mesopotamian Sites in Syria and Turkey". (2016) Ellen Belcher (Ed.) . Released: 2016-08-18. Open Context. <http://opencontext.org/projects/6eebf118-1c43-409e-8a47-307380d5d261> doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.6078/M7736NTG

From a restriction in movement, a string is broken, a fastening is pulled and an ornament is lost... more From a restriction in movement, a string is broken, a fastening is pulled and an ornament is lost. This is a walking and biking archaeological survey of the context of tiny lost ornaments in the big city. Objects are collected and recorded by survey team members [join us!]. Collection cataloged and described by project director, Dr. Ellen Belcher, John Jay College. Objects and project are cataloged and described at http://lostornaments.tumblr.com/

The 2015 season lasted through May and April.

Dissertation by Ellen Belcher

This dissertation answers the question, “What are Halaf figurines?” In response to that question... more This dissertation answers the question, “What are Halaf figurines?” In response to that question, this study examines a corpus of anthropomorphic figurines from archaeological sites dating to the Halaf period (Sixth Millennium cal BCE) known from excavations in Turkey and Syria. Included in this dissertation is a detailed catalog of 197 figurine examples, both whole and fragmented, and analysis of their excavated contexts from seven Halaf sites in Turkey and nine sites in Syria.
The study also reviews and discusses existing literature on Halaf and figurine studies and examines and critiques modern biases, assumptions, and influences, especially as related to the interpretive concepts mother goddess and steatopygous. It proposes a different methodological approach to prehistoric figurines based upon morphology and typology rather than interpretation. It argues that this methodology of recording and analyzing figurine morphology, typology, and archaeological context brings the field closer to four points of human interaction in the object biographies of figurines including: conceptualization, making, use, and discard. This approach to the evidence, the dissertation suggests, can support theoretical ideas about how the lived body was conceptualized and adorned in the Halaf and allows consideration of ways that these embodied ideas and imagery were shared across settlements. A constructed typology consists of five overall types further divided by subtype and Halaf phase, based upon pose, technology, and morphology. Two appendices present the data associated with each figurine in catalog form. A final appendix presents the data condensed to 12 comparable elements.
The results of this research are that the typology of Syrian and Anatolian Halaf figurine assemblages are quite different. While the well-known seated clay figurines are indeed most plentiful, they come from only a very tight geographic area in northeast Syria and only from late Halaf contexts. Standing figurines, by contrast, are known from all areas and phases but occur in lesser numbers and in great variety. Analysis of the archaeological contexts reveals that nearly all the figurines in the corpus were isolated finds amidst unremarkable fill contexts. Therefore, it can be concluded that, when Halaf figurines were no longer needed or wanted by the community, they were discarded without special circumstances amongst regular domestic refuse.

Journal Articles by Ellen Belcher

This article considers ways that representations of anthropomorphic imagery in the form of figuri... more This article considers ways that representations of anthropomorphic imagery in the form of figurines from prehistoric village communities have been interpreted and provides a new framework for analyzing figurines. It has been long suggested that prehistoric figurines should be interpreted as representations of female gendered qualities related to ritual, fertility, and motherhood combined into a concept called Bmother goddess.^The impetus for the adoption of this interpretation and evidential association with prehistoric figurine assemblages and bound to binary gender is briefly critiqued. The methodology for studying figurine assemblages presented here utilizes typological, archaeological, and comparative analysis and is cognizant of inherent ambiguities in the object biographies of the full assemblage. This study applies this methodology to a corpus of figurines excavated from sixth millennium settlements associated with the Halaf material culture. This approach is then operationalized with case studies of figurines excavated from Domuztepe (Turkey) and Chagar Bazar (Syria) as examples of engagement with those who conceived, made, used, and discarded them. The Halaf figurine corpus is shown as nuanced, displaying sexual difference and humanness on a spectrum from overt to ambiguous. Considered as a whole, the Halaf corpus is shown to have had mundane and mutable use lives related to embodied identities entangled with culture and community, unconnected to gender binaries, ritual, fertility, or motherhood.

Oclc Systems & Services, 2008

... The Authors. Ellen Belcher, Lloyd Sealy Library, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, ... more ... The Authors. Ellen Belcher, Lloyd Sealy Library, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, New York, USA. Ellen Sexton, Lloyd Sealy Library, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, New York, USA. Acknowledgements. ...

Book Chapters by Ellen Belcher

Chapter 19 in, R. Özbal, M. Erdalkıran and Y. Tonoike (eds.) Neolithic Pottery from the Near East: Production, Distribution and Use. Istanbul: Koc University Press, pp. 257-272., 2021

This paper considers the phenomena of anthropomorphic vessels from Neolithic settlements in the N... more This paper considers the phenomena of anthropomorphic vessels from Neolithic settlements in the Near East from sixth millennium contexts at sites in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Anatolia (Turkey). A survey is presented of examples, archaeological context, settlements and regions in which anthropomorphic vessels have so far been reported. Analysis of these examples is made to suggest belonging and connections to and between social networks of figurine or ceramic users and makers. Finally, interpretation and meanings are posited through analogy to ethnographic studies of anthropomorphic vessels in sub-Saharan Africa.

Chapter 20 in, Insoll, T (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2017

This chapter addresses the figurines from prehistoric Anatolia, a region which broadly spans mode... more This chapter addresses the figurines from prehistoric Anatolia, a region which broadly spans modern Central and Southeast Turkey (Figure 20.1). The figurine data presented encompass a range of styles and emphasize varying degrees of naturalistic and stylis¬tic features, including examples of painted and incised decoration. These are hand- held items, rarely over 10 cm in height; a majority are crafted out of clay, although many are cut from stone or occasionally bone.

These figurines date .to the beginning of a long tradition of anthropomorphic imagery in Anatolia. This chapter focuses on the human figurines from the Pre- Pottery Neolithic and Pottery Neolithic periods, spanning c.10,000 to c.5200 bc cal.

This paper examines exchange imagery and ideology of the human body manifested through figurines ... more This paper examines exchange imagery and ideology of the human body manifested through figurines from prehistoric (7 th –6 th millennia BC) Anatolian contexts. These figurines document local, regional and interregional communication of identity, use of materials, ideologies and skills. Taking a new approach to understanding the assemblages, this paper suggests four key themes of analysis: materials and materiality; fractured bodies; gender spectrum; and ambiguities and relationships.

E. Healey, S. Campbell and O. Maeda (eds), The State of the Stone: Terminologies, Continuities and Contexts in Near Eastern Lithics. Studies in Early Near Eastern Production, Subsistence, and Environment 13 (2011): 135–143. Berlin: ex oriente.

Almost a thousand beads, pendants and seals have been excavated from the site of Domuztepe over ... more Almost a thousand beads, pendants and seals have been excavated from the site of Domuztepe
over the past decade. This paper is based on an examination of the general typology and technology
of this assemblage. Manufacturing systems based upon social networks of decentralised
organisation of small production ‘workshops’ are explored. It is suggested that these networks
shared a system of sequenced actions according to raw material and finished products. A group
of unfinished beads in the preliminary phase of production suggests evidence of batched reduction
and finishing strategies that balanced breakage risk with a high level of proficiency.
At Domuztepe the reduction sequences proposed here would have required tools for pecking,
cutting, snapping, perforating, grinding and polishing of stones to create beads, pendants and
seals of great quantity and variety. This paper is intended to open a dialogue between small finds
and lithic specialists about the technological processes and tools used to create stone ornaments
in the Neolithic Near East.

Papers by Ellen Belcher

In conjunction with the exhibition The Fertile Goddess, scholars Ellen Belcher and Diana Craig Pa... more In conjunction with the exhibition The Fertile Goddess, scholars Ellen Belcher and Diana Craig Patch discuss early female figurines of the Neolithic Period from ancient Mesopotamia and of the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods from ancient Egypt. Moderated by exhibition curator Madeleine Cody, the panel investigates issues of interpretation, function, and provenance that have influenced how herstory is uncovered. The panel was held at the Brooklyn Museum on March 14, 2009.

This paper examines exchange imagery and ideology of the human body manifested through figurines ... more This paper examines exchange imagery and ideology of the human body manifested through figurines from prehistoric (seventh – sixth millennia BC) Anatolian contexts. These figurines document local, regional and inter-regional communication of identity, materials, ideologies and skills. Taking a new approach to understanding the assemblages, this paper suggests four key themes of analysis: materials and materiality; fractured bodies; gender spectrum; and ambiguities and relationships.

Conference Sessions by Ellen Belcher

The residues of practices relating to dress and adornment are present in many ways in the archaeo... more The residues of practices relating to dress and adornment are present in many ways in the archaeological and visual records of the ancient world, from the physical traces of dressed bodies, to images depicting them, to texts describing textile production and sumptuary customs. Previous scholarship has provided useful typological frameworks, but has often viewed these objects as static trappings of status and gender. The goal of this session is to illuminate the dynamic role of dress in the performance and construction of aspects of individual and social identity, and to encourage collaborative dialogue within the study of the archaeology of dress and the body in antiquity, from the Neolithic era through the Roman Empire.

The 2015 season lasted through May and April.

Oclc Systems & Services, 2008

Chapter 19 in, R. Özbal, M. Erdalkıran and Y. Tonoike (eds.) Neolithic Pottery from the Near East: Production, Distribution and Use. Istanbul: Koc University Press, pp. 257-272., 2021

Chapter 20 in, Insoll, T (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2017

This paper examines exchange imagery and ideology of the human body manifested through figurines ... more This paper examines exchange imagery and ideology of the human body manifested through figurines from prehistoric (seventh – sixth millennia BC) Anatolian contexts. These figurines document local, regional and inter-regional communication of identity, materials, ideologies and skills. Taking a new approach to understanding the assemblages, this paper suggests four key themes of analysis: materials and materiality; fractured bodies; gender spectrum; and ambiguities and relationships.