Research Information System
Near Eastern Archaeology, vol.85, no.1, pp.44-53, 2022 (AHCI)
© 2022, University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved.Originally from a sanctuary that remains unexcavated, a corpus of Hellenistic terracotta bovines from Nigde Kinik Höyük washed down onto a plaza among architectural debris and alluvial soil. To date, the corpus consists of bovine figures ranging from small protomes to medium-sized bull statues to close-to-life-size hoofs and chests. Our ongoing work endeavors to combine data collected through excavation, scientific analysis, conservation, and museum practices to understand this unique body of material and effectively present it to academic and museum audiences. Here we highlight the most complete bovine figure reconstructed to date (cat. no. KIN18E2779f53) in order to introduce the project and illustrate the different skill sets required to address successfully the challenges that each phase of the project entailed. This humped bull is presented from the analysis of the archeological evidence surrounding its discovery, through the conservation treatment that transformed more than twenty ceramic fragments into a coherent figure, to the role the figure played in the redesign of a vitrine at the local Nigde Archaeological Museum.