From Neolithic to Iron Age: The Ancient Gesture of Fertility in Stone

by Mary Harrsch © 2026

This limestone female figurine from the Amuq Valley, surprisingly dated ca. 900–550 BCE that I photographed at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures at the University of Chicago, is much more stylized when compared to the naturalistic human figures of Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs produced at roughly the same time. My research revealed the difference lies in the function of the object and the visual language in which it operates.

Limestone female fertility figurine from the Amuq Valley, dated ca. 900–550 BCE, represents a sylistic representation introduced in the Neolithic period and handed down millenia to the Iron Age of Anatolia. Photographed at the Institute of the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago, by Mary Harrsch.

Following the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1200 BCE, a series of Neo-Hittite (Syro-Anatolian) kingdoms emerged across southeastern Anatolia and northern Syria, including Carchemish, Malatya, Zincirli (Samʾal), and regions adjacent to the Amuq Valley. These polities preserved Hittite religious concepts while incorporating Syrian, Mesopotamian, and local Anatolian elements. Within this cultural milieu, fertility goddesses were not singular or uniform, but manifestations of a broader maternal divine principle. Rather than being sharply individualized deities, they often functioned as local “Great Mothers”, whose identities could overlap with Syrian goddesses such as Kubaba, as well as older Hittite and Anatolian female divinities.

The gesture of the hands supporting or presenting the breasts is among the most enduring motifs in Near Eastern religious imagery, emphasizing fertility, nourishment, and protective female power. This gesture is attested from the Neolithic onward and remains meaningful across Anatolia and northern Syria for millennia. Its authority derives not from innovation but from continuity: by the Iron Age, this iconography had been meaningful for thousands of years.

Pre-pottery Neolithic B figurine from Fakhariyah dated between 9000-7000 BCE in a similar pose that I photographed at the Institute for the Study of Ancient cultures, University of Chicago.

The choice of limestone for this particular figure, however, is significant. Unlike terracotta, which dominates most small fertility figurines, limestone requires greater labor and conveys durability and permanence. In Neo-Hittite and Syro-Anatolian contexts, limestone was commonly used for cult sculpture and architectural reliefs, signaling ritual seriousness and long-term devotional use. Its presence here suggests that this figure was intended to endure—perhaps as part of a household shrine or local cult—rather than serving as a disposable votive.

The contrast with Assyrian art is instructive rather than evaluative. Neo-Assyrian reliefs were state-sponsored, narrative, and political, created to glorify kings and empire. This figurine belongs to a different sphere: intimate, ritual, and devotional. Its abstraction prioritizes symbolic clarity and continuity over individual likeness.

Visual forms like the mother goddeess persisted for thousands of years. It represents the enduring power of belief, material choice, and iconographic tradition, a continuity that connects Neolithic Anatolia to the Iron Age and, ultimately, to later mother-goddess cults such as Phrygian Cybele. For readers interested in exploring the deep continuity of Anatolian mother-goddess traditions, see M. J. Mellink, “Anatolian Mother Goddess Figurines,” which situates Iron Age figurines within a millennia-long religious and iconographic tradition.

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