Ancient Near East

Sumerian Statuettes

Ancient Sumer was made up of several different city-states.  Each one was thought to be under the protection of a different Mesopotamian God.  Sumerian rulers were the gods' representatives on earth.  These statues come from the Temple of Ishtar at Mari.  These statues are thought to be votive statues used for worship.  With their hands clasped in prayer, and their eyes wide open, they are obedient and religious.  They range in size from well under a foot to about thirty inches tall.  The different heights of the men and women represented may correspond to their relative importance in the community.  All of the figures represent mortals, rather than deities and some hold small beakers used in religious rites.  Their bodies are simple in form, primarily cones and cylinders for the figures and don't really bear distinguishing physical features.  Most have over sized eyes and tiny hands.  Their main purpose was to show that they were offering constant prayers to the gods on their donors' behalf- the open-eyed stares most likely symbolizing the eternal wakefulness necessary to fulfill their duty. 

The Akkadians introduced a new concept of royal power based on unswerving loyalty to the king rather than to the city state.  The victory stele of Naram-Sin commemorates his defeat of the Lullbi people.  The sculptor adhered to older conventions by portraying the King and his soldiers in composite views like the Egyptians.  This work is shows daring innovation in that the figures are shown on successive tiers within the landscape instead of the standard horizontal registers.  The human body is sized according to the importance of the individual.  The king is by far the largest as he tramples the smaller Lullbi people wearing the frontally viewed bull-horn crown showing his divinity.  

Under Babylon's most powerful king, Hammurabi, a centralized government was established.  In the Law Code of Hammurabi Stele, the sculptor depicted Shamash in the familiar convention of combined front and side views, but with two important exceptions.  His headdress with its four pairt of horns is in true profile so that unlike the victory stele of Naram Sin, only four instead of eight of the horns are showing.  The artist seemed to be exploring with foreshortening and the god's beard is a series of diagonal rather than horizontal lines suggesting depth.  Once again the king is shown as sort of a divinity as the God bestows power upon him to rule.