Native American, Northwest Alaska, Brevig Mission, Thule culture, ca. 1200 to 1700 CE. An incredibly rare hand-carved wooden effigy idol figurine of a miniature size long preserved in the frozen earth of northern Alaska. The figure has a simplified body with separated legs, a delineated navel, and angular shoulders with no arms, and a minimalist visage of slit-form eyes presented on a spherical head. The wonderful state of preservation of this figure is accentuated by the smooth patina which covers the exterior. Size: 0.375" W x 1.8" H (1 cm x 4.6 cm); 3.6" H (9.1 cm) on included custom stand.
The Thule people were the ancestors of modern Inuit whose advanced culture and technology made them a part of the global economy during what we in the west call the medieval period. This figure was carved during a dynamic time in Thule history; recent research indicates that sometime after ca. 1200 CE, perhaps in a span of just a few years, the Thule people spread from their Bering Strait homeland all the way to Greenland, likely driven by the search for iron, both from meteoric deposits they may have heard about from the Dorset people to their east and from trade. They traded with the Chinese to their west - metal beads and a belt buckle of Chinese manufacture and dating to 1100 to 1300 CE have been found in in the Seward Peninsula - and interacted with the Vikings to their east, who describe them in the Vinland Saga as the Skraelings.
Provenance: private Newport Beach, California, USA collection; found by an elderly Inuit woman digging in the village of Brevig Mission, Alaska, USA
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#145256
Condition
Minor nicks to legs, body, and head, with a couple of stable fissures, otherwise intact and very good. Light earthen deposits and nice patina throughout.