44 i Flora Unveiled
onagers (wild asses).^27 Because Khiamian villagers hunted mainly herbivores of the steppe
regions and rarely hunted aurochs (doubtless because of their ferocity), the use of auroch
skulls in their houses cannot be viewed as mere hunting magic. Rather, the incorporation of
auroch skulls into Khiamian houses suggests a “spiritual dimension” of some kind.^28
The Sultanians continued the Khiamian tradition and carried it still further. Most of the
figurines, constructed of either baked clay or limestone, are either clearly females or sexually
ambiguous (Figure 3.5C). There are no obvious male figurines among them, although one
or two limestone phalli have been found dating from this period. Mortars and pestles have
also been cited as possible sexual symbols.^29 Assuming women were primarily responsible
for food preparation, they would have been the ones using such sexual symbols.
Like the Khiamians, the Sultanians incorporated auroch bones into the walls of their
houses. According to Cauvin, there is a transition in iconography from zoomorphic repre-
sentations to two major symbols, the woman and the bull, just at the time when the transi-
tion from foraging to agriculture is taking place.^30 This specification of gender, not evident
among the Natufian figurines, is commonly interpreted as a reflection of the emerging role
of women in a society increasingly dependent on agriculture.^31
Another striking example of a Neolithic site with abundant female figurines is the
ancient settlement of Sha’ar Hagolan, located in the Jordan Valley near the southern shore
of Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) on the north bank of the Yarmuk River.^32 First excavated
by archaeologist Moshe Stekelis of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1949– 52, the
site, which is situated within Kibbutz Sha’ar Hagolan, revealed the remains of a unique
Late Neolithic culture (8,400– 7,800 years ago) that came to be called the Yarmukian
culture.
Over the years, scores of artifacts have been uncovered, and the Sha’ar Hagolan Museum
now houses one of the most impressive collections of prehistoric art in Israel. Of the
298 “figurative objects” collected as of 2011, 115 depict seated, steatopygous women with
narrow, slitted eyes (Figure 3.6).^33 Although the peculiar slitted eyes, common in figurines
throughout the ancient Mediterranean region, are often referred to as “coffee- bean eyes,” it
seems more likely that they were patterned on cereal grains and are therefore emblematic
of agriculture. The original excavators of Sha’ar Hagolan, concluded that distinctive female
figurines, which are quite similar in appearance, represented “fertility of the soil and its
fruits” and may also have been used as “amulets for fertility, protection against evil, relief in
childbearing, and the cult of the dead.”^34
According to Yosef Garfinkel, the recent excavator of Sha’ar Hagolan, the uniformity of
design and the contexts in which they were found suggest that the Sha’ar Hagolan female
figurines represent a “goddess” worshipped within households by the nuclear or extended
family:
[A] ll depict seated women according to a fixed formula. ... This is a canonical figure
in which certain features always appear, a rigid code that is typical of the religious
sphere in contrast to art for its own sake or children’s toys. Consequently the female
figurines should be seen as representing a Yarmukian goddess who was worshipped
by the ancient inhabitants of Sha’ar Hagolan. Since the figurines were found in resi-
dential courtyard houses, they must have belonged to a household cult that was con-
ducted by the nuclear or extended family.^35