An early Bronze Age carved male bust of elongated proportions with lentoid eyes, the lids partly closed, a long triangular nose, a shallow slit mouth and scrolled c-shaped ears; mounted on a custom-made stand.

PROVENANCE:
Property of a European gentleman living in London; acquired in the UK before 1980.

FOOTNOTES:
Anatolia was among the first areas of the Old World in which bronze-working developed, around the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. The indigenous Hurrian chalcolithic (copper-using) civilisation has been detected in the region from the 6th millennium BC onwards. The Hurrians established a trading centre at Hattush (later Hattusha, now Boğazköy, Turkey) at which commercial dealings with the Sumerians took place. With the development of bronze technology and development of tin imports, Hurrian contacts expanded in the eastern Mediterranean as far as Minoan Crete. The Hurrians came under the influence of the Akkadian Empire in the 24th century BC under King Sargon I and later the Assyrians. In the early 2nd millennium BC, the Anatolian region was dominated by the Hittites who adopted and expanded the palace of Hattusha for their political centre.