All of us were a little sad to see “Bird Lady” go, even if it is only for a brief period of time, but we were able to take this opportunity to conserve another female figurine and introduce her to you.
Like our “Bird Lady,” the “Female Figure with Stump Arms” was also made five and a half thousand years ago, and comes from a nearby tomb in Ma’mariya. Although this female figure is missing her head, she is just as delicate and charming as the better known “Bird Lady.” You may notice that her arms are stubbed rather than upraised. She’s an example of another type of figurine from the site of Ma’mariya that have these particular abbreviated “stub-arms.”
You’ll find her in our Egypt Reborn galleries in May, and she will remain on view with her more complete partner, the “Bird Lady,” when she returns from her venture across the river in August.
Egyptologist Yekaterina Barbash joined the Brooklyn Museum in 2008. A onetime intern in the Museum’s department of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art, Barbash received a Ph.D. in ancient Egyptian history, Art, and Philology from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, where she was also awarded an M.A. She is the recipient of a B.A. from New York University and has studied at the Netherlands Institute of Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Barbash has taught at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, Berkeley College, The College of New Jersey, and Staten Island CUNY. She has been a member of the Johns Hopkins University expedition to the Mut Precinct in Karnak, Egypt, where the Brooklyn Museum also maintains an excavation, and was a researcher at the Walters Art Museum.