Ancient terra cotta figure first recorded in Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger’s book Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God.
William G. Dever suggests that this could be a Late Bronze Age depiction of the Canaanite-Hebrew mother goddess Asherah, and if so it is one of the earliest depictions of her. But Dever says we should also consider some more thoughts.
Canaanite portrayals of the goddess are typically in the fashion of lascivious courtesan of the gods while ancient Israelite ones are more chaste (the image above could be the latter because nothing promiscuous is being depicted. Simply one revealing their vulva and nursing wasn’t necessarily promiscuous in those days). The figure could have also been a talisman used in fertility magic or invocations to the fertility goddess, in this case Asherah. The figure could represent Asherah, or a woman praying to a deity, or a votive offering symbolizing the worshiper’s prayers and vows.
William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdsman Publishing Co., 2005), 187-188.
~Hasmonean