Image Details

Erich Lessing

Jezebel “looked out of the window,” after putting on makeup and doing her hair, to challenge her approaching murderer Jehu, the newly anointed king of Israel. This ivory of a woman gazing out from a recessed window over a row of elaborate columns comes from Arslan Tash, in northern Syria. Similar examples have been found in Samaria, the capital city of Ahab and Jezebel. Scholars believe that this popular motif represents the Phoenician goddess Astarte, and it may have influenced the Biblical author’s description of the Phoenician princess Jezebel’s last moments.