In the world of the ancient Near East, figures and beings combining human and animal elements were thought to possess supernatural powers. In fact, one crucial aspect of the representation of divinity in the Oxus region is the way in which animal and human characteristics are combined to create various supernatural creatures.

This small yet potent figure is an exceptional testimony of this enormously important religious phenomenon, combing in its iconography human and animal elements in the form of a human face and snake-scaled body. The supernaturally-charged theme of this artefact clearly denotes its ritual function: a creature, enlivened and charged with divine powers.

The ritual connotation of this figure is remarkably strengthened by a the prominent scar across its face and the two holes pierced into its upper and lower lips. The curators of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), have noted how the scar may indicate that the figure was defaced, and the holes suggest that the lips may have been sealed, quite literally. Taken together, the scar and the sealed lips imply the silencing and annihilation of being whose power is no longer functional. Having served its ritual purpose, this mystical figure may have been ritually muted and defaced.

The iconography is striking, as it is the exceptional care with which this figure was rendered: the hair is represented as strands departing radially from the top of the head, gathered by a band still bearing faint traces of its original decoration and falling over the back. The ears are prominently rendered as two semi-circles separated by a carving. The eyes are large, almond-shaped, and heavily lidded. They were originally inlaid with stone. Only one eye is preserved, the empty cavity reveals the inlay technique of these early artists and at the same time adds to the beauty and enigmatic character of the figure. The mouth is fleshy and skilfully rendered, with the two holes above and under the lips inlaid with minute stones. The beard is full and rendered with a pattern of chevrons.

The body is covered in scaled and the hands do not look human with their elongated shape. Under the right arm the figure holds a vessel. A skirt is render in jasper or limestone over the scaled legs.

The unusual form of composite construction used to create the figure, achieved by using tangs to join together three sections of differing materials and colours, further enhance its powerful effect.

This piece pertains to an ancient culture referred to both as the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) or as the Oxus Civilisation. The Bactria-Margiana culture spread across an area encompassing the modern nations of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Northern Afghanistan. Flourishing between about 2100 BC and 1700 BC, it was contemporary with the European Bronze Age, and was characterised by monumental architecture, social complexity and extremely distinctive cultural artefacts that vanish from the record a few centuries after they first appear. Pictographs on seals have been argued to indicate an independently-developed writing system.

It was one of many economic and social entities in the vicinity, and was a powerful country due to the exceptional fertility and wealth of its agricultural lands. This in turn gave rise to a complex and multifaceted set of societies with specialist craftsmen who produced luxury materials such as this for the ruling and aristocratic elites. Trade appears to have been important, as Bactrian artefacts appear all over the Persian Gulf as well as in the Iranian Plateau and the Indus Valley. For this reason, the area was fought over from deep prehistory until the Mediaeval period, by the armies of Asia Minor, Greece (Macedonia), India and the Arab States, amongst others.

References: this figure finds comparable examples in Paris (Musée du Louvre AO 21104) and in New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art 2010.166).