Urartian figure from Toprakkale

Lead figure with glass and ivory inlays, 8th–7th century BC. It was found at Toprakkale (now in eastern Turkey), in the territory of the Kingdom of Urartu, and is now kept in the British Museum.

Urartu was an ancient state in Western Asia, on the Armenian Highlands. In the first quarter of the 1st millennium BC it held a dominant position among the states of the region. In the Behistun inscription of Darius I, Urartu is a synonym for Armenia.

The figure’s face and hands are light in colour; the body is made of small square cells, some of which still hold inlays with rosettes. There are bracelets on the wrists.