The Amman Theater Statue in its Iron Age Contexts

by Joel S. Burnett

A colossal basalt statue was uncovered through rescue excavation in downtown Amman, Jordan in 2010. Despite the statue’s Roman period find context, its form and motifs show it to be an Iron Age sculpture, and geoscientific testing indicates a regional quarry source. Comparison with an established corpus of Iron Age stone sculpture from Amman shows the Amman Theater Statue shares the distinct iconography of a series of Amman male statues portraying deities and human rulers. Broader art-historical comparisons from Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia indicate that the statue dates ca. 850-825 B.C.E., that it belonged to an Ammonite royal ancestor cult, and that in that setting it portrayed a deified, deceased Ammonite king. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence accompanying those broader Near Eastern comparisons, especially those from Syro-Anatolian political capitals from Iron Age II, and archaeological evidence from Amman indicate that the Amman Theater Statue was incorporated into an architectural structure, either a building façade or monumental gate, on the Amman Citadel (Jabal al-Qal’a), along its southern ascent, or just beyond its southern slope.

With contributions by Romel Gharib and Don F. Parker.

Annual of ASOR, Volume 75, Series Editor William Caraher, December 2023, 220 pages, 15 b/w illustrations, 41 color illustrations, 6 tables. ISBN 9780897571197, $85.95.