"Doll" with Truncated Limbs

The arms of this mold-made statuette are cut off above the elbow, and the legs at mid-thigh. These are not accidental losses, but features integral to the object’s design. Young women may have dedicated such statuettes as votive objects on reaching puberty. The absence of limbs focuses attention on the well-developed trunk of the body itself, where the changing shape of an adolescent woman is most obviously manifested. Placed in a tomb or depicted on a grave stele like that of Melisto to the right, the “doll” emphasized a girl’s premature death and perhaps expressed the hope of her family that she would achieve full womanhood in the afterlife.