Finding collections relating to d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse people

One of the aims of our project is to make collections relating to d/Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people more visible – and to share some of the objects our Fellows and Trainees are discovering.

Some will have quite obvious connections to disabled people’s lives – a walking stick, some braille or images of disabled people. But we will also be exploring less obvious connections too. Sometimes the significance of an object is its owner; its part in a bigger story, or the way someone with lived experience of disability has responded to it. In this way we hope to broaden the ways that d/Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent stories are told.

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EYE-IDOL FIGURINE (Figurine)

Northern Uruk Period (4000 - 3600 BCE)

AN1990.47

This miniature figurine made of calcite is one of thousands which were found deposited in the Eye Temple of Tell Brak (ancient Nagar), so called due to the large eyes on these otherwise abstract figurines, believed to represent (and have been made by) devotees. It is part of the free Ashmolean Museum display "Fashioning Bodies...

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Rights information: Copyright: Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Description

This miniature figurine made of calcite is one of thousands which were found deposited in the Eye Temple of Tell Brak (ancient Nagar), so called due to the large eyes on these otherwise abstract figurines, believed to represent (and have been made by) devotees. It is part of the free Ashmolean Museum display "Fashioning Bodies in the Ancient World", curated by Kyle Lewis Jordan (Curating for Change Fellow, Ashmolean Museum and Pitt Rivers Museum), running from 10th November 2023 - 8th May 2024.

The worship of the Temple's goddess, known as Belet Nagar (lit. "Lady of Nagar") or the Eye Goddess, remains a bit of a mystery. Do the wide eyes of these votives represent attentiveness, or an "all-seeing" nature of the goddess? One other theory is that they express a desire to avert blindness, which could possibly be due to the fact that Tell Brak was one of the earliest industrialised sites in Upper Mesopotamia, meaning that early occupants of the city would have been exposed to hazardous byproducts and materials which could have caused deteriorating vision.

Meet our Fellows and Trainees

The Curating for Change project is running eight Fellowships over 18 months and eight Traineeships over 40 days based across 20 partner museums. Learn more about our Fellows and Trainees here.

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