Lime plaster statues from Ain Ghazal

These extraordinary statues are the earliest large-scale representations of the human form. They were found as part of a cache of up to 25 statues buried in a pit under the floor of an abandoned house. All have naturalistically rendered heads and faces. The larger figures have realistically represented bodies, when the smaller ones are more schematised. Many are decorated with paint or shallow incisions to indicate hair, items of clothing, and to highlight facial features.