BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

The Woman and the Goose

Artistic depictions in the Natufian Galilee

The Natufian figurine, and artistic reproduction, of a woman and a goose, clay figurine depicting a woman leaning forward and a goose enveloping her. Courtesy Laurent Davin.

Carrying out excavations at a prehistoric village overlooking the Sea of Galilee, archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem uncovered a small clay figurine unlike anything discovered before: a depiction of a woman with a goose draped across her shoulders. Dating to roughly 12,000 years ago—referred to by scholars as the Late Natufian period—the figurine is one of the earliest depictions of animal-human interaction.

Depicting Ancient Myth

At roughly 1.5 inches tall, the small figurine was discovered at Nahal Ein Gev II, within the fill material of a semicircular stone structure that contained both burials and ceremonial deposits. The figurine was crafted from local clay and fired at a very high temperature, suggesting a high level of control over pyrotechnic technologies.

The woman and the goose, and two of the researchers studying it. Courtesy Hadas Goldgeier.

The figurine depicts a crouched, naked woman. Across her shoulders is a goose, positioned to indicate that it was depicted as being alive. Chemical analysis revealed that ocher was used to paint the figurine, and that the use of light and shadow would have given it extra depth, foreshadowing artistic innovations that would flourish in the following Neolithic period (c. 8300–4500 BCE). Microscopic analysis revealed a fingerprint of the sculptor, who was likely a young man or an adult woman.

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Different views of the 12,000-year-old Natufian clay figurine from Nahal Ein Gev II. Courtesy Laurent Davin.

According to the excavators, the figurine was probably imbued with symbolic meaning and could have represented a mythological encounter, connecting to ancient beliefs in the spiritual link between humans and animals. Faunal remains from the site support the importance of geese to the Natufian-period people who lived there, with goose feathers and bones having been used for decorations and ornaments.

“This discovery is extraordinary on multiple levels,” said Laurent Davin, lead author of the study, now published in the journal PNAS. “Not only is this the world’s earliest figurine depicting human-animal interaction, but it’s also the earliest naturalistic representation of a woman found in Southwest Asia.”

Leore Grosman, another of the study’s researchers, added, “The Nahal Ein Gev II figurine captures a transformative moment. It bridges the world of mobile hunter-gatherers and that of the first settled communities, showing how imagination and symbolic thinking began to shape human culture.”

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