The Strangest Thing I Own

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About 2002, I found this small terra-cotta and glazed "thing" in a thrift store.  It was in the toy section and cost me a dollar and seven cents.  The more I looked at it the more I became convinced it is something special.  Whether it is valuable or not is besides the point.  I even went to the University of Texas at Austin and tried to find someone who could point me in the right direction but that was a waste of time.  There was someone there without a doubt who could have told me exactly what I wanted to know but I could not find them that day.  Here it is-




If this is a toy it is very strange.  This is a two headed horse with grid patterns over its body.  The stylized rider is on a stylized saddle.  The rider reminds me of things I have seen from Ur.  There were no horses in the Meso-American cultures so that rules all those out.  And yes, I know there is a telephone pole sticking out of the head, a compositional sin. 




  Could it be illustrating a saying or a proverb?




This ain't no toy.  What in the hell is it?  The store was heavily donated to by Mexicans and other southerners, perhaps it is something from one of those places.





You can see my point.  Hittite.  Found by T. E. Lawrence.





Third dynasty king and priests, c. 2100 BC.  These must be cheap votive offerings sold to pilgrims or something, the skill level is abysmal.





The goddess Inanna.  3100 BC, Sumeria.





Cypriot.  750-500 BC.  Notice the man has no legs as in my statuette.





Syro-Hittite, 1200 BC, and a real piece of crap it is too.  A none too bright kid made this and some archeologist held this up to the light and shook with excitement.  For God's sake, this was recognized as garbage at the time and then thrown away.  The Venus of Willendorf was carved by some cave dweller and this comes from the most powerful cruel civilization in the world?  Yeah, right!





30,000 BC.  Carved out of oolite and painted red and not made of mud squashed together by some child.  This is not a "goddess" or a "fertility symbol", but more like this-




As usual Robert Crumb cuts to the chase.  "Cave Wimp", 1988.
  I think my horse is Hittite.  But let us be fair.  Here are some artifacts from the Norte-Americano culture c. 1950 RCA:





Hideous.  What kind of humans were these?


Comments

  1. LeoHayestheWriterDecember 30, 2020 at 9:11 PM

    Ah! Not Hittite. Not Mezo-American. It's a glazed terracotta figurine done by a 3rd grader in art class!

    ReplyDelete

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