By offering gender-neutral options, Shiraziya-Baby also challenges the rigid blue-and-pink binary. This inclusivity allows parents to invest in high-quality items that can be passed down from sibling to sibling, regardless of gender, further promoting the brand’s sustainable ethos.
The most widely accepted academic theory is that the was a pihu (Sumerian: "substitute body"). In ancient Mesopotamian religion, if a royal infant died, it was believed to be due to a demon called Lamashtu . One ritual to appease her involved creating a clay effigy of a baby, feeding it offerings of bread and water through a spout (symbolic nursing), and then burying it outside the city walls to trick the demon into taking the clay child instead of a living one. The spout on the Shiraziya-Baby aligns perfectly with this "feeding" function. Shiraziya-Baby
Nevertheless, thermoluminescence (TL) dating performed in 2005 at the University of Berlin placed the object’s last firing at approximately 2950 BCE, plus or minus 120 years. If the TL date is correct, the forgery theory collapses. If it is wrong, the remains one of the greatest forgeries in Near Eastern archaeology. In ancient Mesopotamian religion, if a royal infant