Ain Ghazal · on the edge of Amman

Nine thousand years.
And a question still open.

Here, some of the earliest known large-scale human statues were made. The bodies remained. Their makers’ explanation did not. The question outlived them.

Continue

Why does this matter?

Before Petra.
Before the Nabataeans.
Before the pyramids of Giza.

An early human presence

Among the earliest known large-scale representations of the human body.

Material

Plaster shaped by hand over bundles of reeds; the eyes were defined with bitumen.

Scale

The two-headed figure at Louvre Abu Dhabi stands 88 cm high: a presence, not a small amulet.

The open question

Their exact purpose is unresolved. Ritual and social interpretations remain possibilities, not final answers.

Why did Hazem call them important?

“They document the beginnings of human settlement and the release of imagination toward embodiment and invention.”

Hazem Al-Zubi · published statement, 2019

Nearly nine thousand years later, they did not give us an answer. They left us a question that is still alive.

Official archaeological contextSmithsonian Louvre Abu Dhabi British Museum

Hazem Al-Zubi · the answer

He does not borrow the ancient face.
He continues its question.

For Hazem, Ain Ghazal is not a decorative fragment from the past. It is an early moment in which human presence became a large image standing before a community. He returns to face and body not as an artefact to copy, but as a question about memory, silence and time.

Not copying. Answering.

Two limestone figures side by side with painted eyes. — Not copying. Answering.

Stone: Limestone and basalt, cut away until a face is left. — Hazem Al-Zubi · limestone

Standing limestone figure on a dark plinth in an outdoor courtyard. — Hazem Al-Zubi · limestone

Hazem Al-Zubi · the answers

Plaster, stone, and the drawn eye.

Photographs of works and details from the years he spent answering the figures. The eye is drawn on with a line, as it was at Ain Ghazal, not carved. Every photograph here is of his own work — none is of the archaeological figures.

Select any photograph to see the complete image and open its original file.

Two pale sculpted figures joined side by side, with long necks and outlined eyes. — Two figures. Plaster relief.

Two seated white plaster figures with a small bird held between their hands. — Seated pair, a bird between the hands. Plaster.

Two seated white plaster figures with birds rising from an opening in the chest. — Seated pair with birds. Plaster.

A white plaster figure carrying a wide bowl on its head with both arms raised. — Bowl bearer. Plaster.

A seated white plaster figure with a stylised head and waved hair. — Seated figure. Plaster.

Front view of a pale sculpted face and upper torso with eyes outlined in black. — Face and torso. Eyes drawn in black.

Full view of a tall pale standing figure outdoors, on a dark plinth beside a metal railing. — Standing figure, outdoors.

A pale sculpted head lit by the sun, against a deep blue sky. — Head in sunlight.

Side view of two elongated sculpted heads, one in the foreground and one behind. — Two heads, one behind the other.

Close view of a rounded sculpted head with prominent eyes outlined in black. — Head. A detail of the eyes.

A pale sculpted face tilted upwards, with almond-shaped eyes drawn in black. — Face turned upwards.

Two elongated sculpted heads side by side, their eyes outlined in black. — Two heads, side by side.

Two heads rising from a single upper body, with eyes drawn in black. — Two heads on one body.

A two-headed sculpture on a dark outdoor plinth, with glass buildings behind it. — Two-headed figure, outdoors.

Very close view of a sculpted face, a black drawn eye and part of the nose. — Face and eye. Close detail.

Head in profile, drawn eye.

Head in profile.

A work that carries the name

Ain Ghazal · عين غزال

Bronze, 180 × 70 × 70 cm, 2019. A seated figure beneath two suspended heads. Here the site’s name is not decoration; it becomes the explicit address of the work’s conversation.