tour 18 of 26
Agatha Christie and archaeology
Alabaster 'Eye Idols'
The Eye Temple was one of Mallowan's
most important discoveries, so named because of the thousands of
'Eye Idols', small alabaster figures with very
large eyes, found in the foundations of the temple
platform.
The figures may
represent worshippers, placed in the temple as offerings. They have
been grouped into five types. Some have a single pair of eyes, with
or without decoration; some have three, four or six eyes; some have
small, 'child' eye figures carved on their front
(like here) and on others the eyes have been drilled
through.
The Eye Temple
rested on a platform 6 metres deeep, which incorporated the remains
of at least three earlier buildings. The latest, below the
surviving temple, was named the White Eye Temple, because of the
white gypsum plaster floor. The foundations of the Grey Eye Temple,
so named after the grey bricks of the walls, contained rich
deposits of amulets, Eye Idols and hundreds of thousands of
beads.
In more recent
excavations, Eye Idols have been found in the context of house
deposits of the middle of the fourth millenium BC, thus dating the
Grey Eye Temple to approximately the same time, earlier than
Mallowan had suspected.