Priest-King or Deity (c. 1600 BCE): Art, History and Details

Priest-King or Deity (c. 1600 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The Hittites migrated into Anatolia in the 3rd millennium BCE and spoke an Indo-European language, a group that includes Greek, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit, English, and most modern European languages. They were the first ancient people to use iron for weapons. From about 1600–1200 BCE their empire was at its peak, extending from central Anatolia to Syria, and south along the eastern Mediterranean. Their vast empire and interest in commerce enabled the Hittites to spread Mesopotamian ideas and culture throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. This large basalt sculpture is exceptionally rare in depicting a Hittite god or priest-king wearing a horned conical crown, false beard, and long robe. He holds a bowl in his right hand and once held something in his left, perhaps a staff or sword.

Object facts

• Title: Priest-King or Deity
• Date: c. 1600 BCE
• Culture: Hittite, North Syria
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: basalt with bone eyes (left, ancient; right, restored)
• Dimensions: Overall: 87.6 cm (34 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Near Eastern Art
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1971.45

A detail from the museum

The left eye of the sculpture is the original bone inlay while the right eye is a modern restoration done after the piece was damaged.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kozloff, Arielle P. "A Hittite Priest-King Figure." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 59, no. 2 (1972): 56-62.
• Gazette Des Beaux Arts vol. 79, no. 227 (February 1972).
• Spaeth, Eloise. American Art Museums: An Introduction to Looking. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.