Household Flame Idol, Fired Clay with Copper Wash ("The Ashfield Figure")

The Ashfield Figure belongs to a well-attested typological class of small-format Kethari devotional objects conventionally designated 'domestic flame mediators' in the literature (cf. Sorven & Pelathi, *Third Symposium on Dominion Material Culture*, pp. 112–119), distinguished from temple-grade votive figures by their ash-tempered clay bodies, schematic facial treatment, and the consistent absence of logographic inscription. This last characteristic is diagnostically significant: temple-grade figures of comparable date invariably carry at minimum a single dedicatory logogram incised on the base, while domestic examples across excavated household assemblages from the mid-Dominion period are overwhelmingly uninscribed, suggesting that literacy-mediated ritual was a priestly prerogative and that household devotion operated through a parallel, non-textual ceremonial register. Thermoluminescence dating of the clay matrix places firing between -1680 and -1560, consistent with the stratigraphic context of its recovery from a domestic refuse deposit. This places the Ashfield Figure within the Middle Dominion florescence, predating the administrative consolidation of the Seven Temples and the probable codification of the flame-star determinative system in formal writing. The seven-spine crown is notable in this regard: it appears in domestic idol production well before its standardization as a logographic determinative marking divine-category logograms, lending some support to the argument (Thureval, *Flame and Sign*, -2003 revised edition, pp. 44–52) that the determinative system was itself abstracted from pre-existing iconic traditions in popular religion rather than invented wholesale by a scribal class. The copper wash treatment merits comment. Analysis by portable X-ray fluorescence conducted in 2023 confirms a tin-poor copper consistent with native Kethari smelting traditions rather than the tin-bronze alloys introduced through Vorrashi trade contact networks from approximately -1500 onward. This corroborates the thermoluminescence date and is consistent with a pre-Vorrashi-absorption origin, placing the figure in a period before Kethari craft workshops began incorporating Vorrashi metallurgical influences. The use of copper wash on clay rather than solid copper casting reflects the resource constraints of ordinary households; full copper domestic idols are attested but rare and are generally associated with merchant-class assemblages. The sooty base residue has been sampled and subjected to gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis; preliminary results suggest a fatty-acid signature compatible with rendered animal fat or plant oil combustion, consistent with the hypothesis that small oil lamps or wicked dishes were placed beneath or beside such figures during acts of domestic propitiation. This practice finds an echo in the sample phrase *nim-ka keth-an* ('little spark of the flame'), which, while attested as a term of endearment for children, may also carry liturgical valence in a household context — the idol as the 'small flame' of the family's spiritual continuity. The right-arm-extended posture is shared by approximately 60% of catalogued domestic flame figures in current collections (Sorven corpus, n=83), and its meaning remains contested. Interpretations range from an apotropaic warding gesture to an offering-receipt posture. The flat palm facing outward recalls descriptions in partially deciphered administrative texts of priestly intermediaries 'receiving the breath' of supplicants, and it is possible that the domestic idol was understood as a miniaturized priestly surrogate, allowing householders to perform an attenuated version of temple rites without clerical participation.