Meet the JPFs

Judean Pillar Figurines are a popular topic in biblical studies that have also captured the popular imagination. Given the Second Commandment that prohibits the creation of images, it is surprising to find over 1,000 (and counting!) of these miniature feminized art pieces in ancient Judah. Scholars are not sure who or what they represent. Various interpretations have been offered, which sometimes overlap:

  • God’s wife
  • Another goddess
  • Fertility figures
  • Idols
  • Low gods (like angels)
  • Toys
  • Human worshipers

Neither are scholars sure how these figurines were used. They are usually found broken, leading many to assume ritual “deactivation” once a figurine filled its intended purpose(s). Others take breakage as evidence of iconoclasm in ancient Judah, as biblical texts of religious reform might lead one to expect (e.g., 2 Kings 18:4). Yet others conclude that JPFs are broken in structurally weak places, meaning that their breakage is not intentional or meaningful. In fact JPFs were excavated in all manner of places in Judean cities and towns: as fill under floors or in walls, in tombs (usually unbroken in those spaces), in streets and alleys, in public buildings, but most of all in and around people’s homes. The domestic context opens conversations about JPFs as part of traditional and “unofficial” religion, the kind the Bible reports little about.

Cutting across the majority of interpretations about JPF identity and use is the sense that JPFs were positive figures meant to bring blessing. Virtually all interpreters agree on that much, due to elements like the beneficent posture with hands-at-breasts and the slight smile that can be seen on many JPF faces.

Keep navigating this site to see more of the JPFs.

Go Further:

Ben-Shlomo, David and Lauren K. McCormick. “Judean Pillar Figurines and ‘Bed Models’ from Tell en Nasbeh.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 386 (2021): 23-46.

Briffa, Josef Mario. “Through a Glass Darkly: Figurines as a Window on the Past” in The Last Century in the History of Judah: The Seventh Century BCE in Archaeological, Historical, and Biblical Perspectives, ed. by Filip Čapek and Oded Lipschits. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2019.

Darby, Erin. Interpreting Judean Pillar Figurines: Gender and Empire in Judean Apotropaic Ritual. Forschungen Zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 69. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.

———. “Living and Dying with Judean Pillar Figurines” in Feminizing the Landscape: The Female Form in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, and the Islamic World. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Charles K. Wilkinson Lecture Series, 2024.

Kletter, Raz. The Judean Pillar-Figurines and the Archaeology of Asherah. BAR International Series. Oxford: Tempus Reparatum, 1996.

McCormick, Lauren K. “To See and Be Seen: Looking as Central yet Underappreciated Aspect of the Judean Pillar Figurine” in Women and Gender Performance in the World of the Hebrew Bible: New Perspectives, Future Possibilities. Badè Museum YouTube Lecture Series, 2023.

Meyers, Carol. “Terracottas Without Texts: Judean Pillar Figurines in Anthropological Perspective” in To Break Every Yoke: Essays in Honor of Marvin L. Chaney, edited by Robert B. Coote, Norman K. Gottwald, and Marvin L. Chaney, 115–30. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007.