A limestone head said to depict the Canaanite goddess Anat, has recently been found by a farmer in the Gaza Strip (Yolande Knell, '
Gaza farmer finds 4,500-year-old statue of Canaanite goddess' BBC News
26 April 2022)
Palestinian archaeologists say that the head of the Canaanite deity, Anat, dates back 4,500 years to the late Bronze Age.
The discovery was made by a farmer digging his land in Khan Younis, in the south of the strip.
[...]
The 22cm-high (8.7 in) carving clearly shows the face of the goddess wearing a serpent crown.
"We found it by chance. It was muddy and we washed it with water," said farmer Nidal Abu Eid, who came across the head while cultivating his field.
"We realised that it was a precious thing, but we didn't know it was of such great archaeological value," he told the BBC.
"We thank God, and we are proud that it stayed in our land, in Palestine, since the Canaanite times."
The head is currently on display in Qasr al-Basha, a historic building that serves as one of Gaza's few museums.
Unveiling the artefact at a press conference on Tuesday, Jamal Abu Rida of the Hamas-run Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said the statue was "resistant against time" and had been carefully examined by experts.
He said that it made a political point.
"Such discoveries prove that Palestine has civilisation and history, and no-one can deny or falsify this history," he said. "This is the Palestinian people and their ancient Canaanite civilisation."
It's not clear why this is dated to the 25th century BC (Early Bronze Age). I think the photos show that parts of the crown and the right ear were cut with a tool like modern carbide cutting discs. But this object has been ill-served by its photographers, who use the wrong lenses and lighting... It does seem however that the neck is cut off flat - and so the head is not broken from a larger deity figure. It does not look particularly like any excavated Canaanite sculptures, but a vague resemblance in a funny kind of way to those "smiting god" figures that turn up loose on the um-er "dodgier" side of the antiquities market. I think this is a patriotic farmer's fake.
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