Composite Female Figurines and the Religion of Place: Figurines as Evidence of Commonality or Singularity in Iron IIB-C Southern Levantine Religion?

Much attention has been paid to female, pillar-based figurines from Iron II Judah, and the veneration of a major goddess in that territory. Similarly, female figurines throughout the Levant have largely been treated as evidence of goddess-worship, writ large. While the focus on goddesses and fertility has been critiqued by contemporary scholarship, the prevalence of female terracotta figurines remains a productive ground for critical inquiry. There is still no consensus explaining the dissemination of female figurines throughout Levantine states during the Iron IIB-C and how to interpret the similarities and differences among these corpora. Do the similarities that distinguish the Levantine figurines from those of other regions indicate a widespread diffusion of similar praxis across Levantine religion? Do the unique features of figurine design, technology, and deposition that demarcate the corpora of one Levantine state from another provide evidence for a “religion of place” on a more local scale? How should scholars approach iconographic similarities when interpreting the use and function of figurines in different locales? In an attempt to address these questions, this paper uses Levantine composite female terracotta figurines as a test case to explore the way archaeological data both support and impede a geographically contextualized approach to religious praxis.