Seated Man at the MFA

Seated man,
Northwest Syria or southeastern Turkey, Neo-Hittite or Aramaean,
Andesite (gray basalt), mid 9th-mid-8th centuries B.C.E.
H x W x D: 49.4 x 23 x 23 cm (19 7/16 x 9 1/16 x 9 1/16 in.)
"This statue undoubtedly came from one of the Neo-Hittite or Aramaean city-states that flourished on the western periphery of the Assyrian empire just prior to Assyria's conquest of the region about 740 B.C.E. The ruins of these cities are now scattered on either side of the Turkish-Syrian border. At Tell Halaf, in Syria, several statues of this type were found in tomb chapels associated with the burials of high-ranking individuals. Funerary reliefs depicting people seated in the same posture and holding food dishes have been excavated at Marash in southeastern Turkey [(...)]. The statue would have insured that the individual represented never go hungry in the afterlife." (From the info card.)
Florence and Horace L. Mayer Fun, Marilyn Simpson Fund, and Joh H. and Ernestine A. Payne Fund, 1996; MFA #1996.336