Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...

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Even in the densely populated cities of
the ancient Near East nature was never
far from men's daily lives. This is reflected
in the art, where images of animals
were used from the earliest times.
They were represented as natural forms,
as symbols of abstract concepts, or as
attributes of one of the many Near Eastern
deities. Along with domesticated
sheep, goats, and bovids, images of wild
animals predominate: lions, caprids,
mountain sheep, and wild bulls are especially
important.
As early as the late fourth millennium
B.C., when urban societies were first forming
in the lowlands, the lion was clearly
associated with power, both secular and
divine. The forepart of a lion emerges
from a bronze peg-shaped foundation
figurine (fig. 35). The plate beneath the
lion's extended paws is inscribed with the
name of Tishatal, a king of Urkish, in the
language of the Hurrians, a non-Indo-
European, non-Semitic people who, from
the second half of the third millennium B.C.,
were present in the northern parts of
Mesopotamia and Syria. Stylistic features
suggest that this foundation peg-frightening
enough to scare off evildoers-was
made either by an Akkadian artist or by
one within the Akkadian sphere of
influence.
The yoked pair of long-horned bulls
(fig. 32) served as a decorative finial,
perhaps for a ceremonial standard or
chariot pole. It is reportedly from an Early
Bronze Age royal burial at the site of
Horoztepe in central Anatolia. These bulls
are examples of how important animal
features are often emphasized in ancient
Near Eastern art. Here the horns are
more than one and one-half times the
length of the animal's body, impossible in
nature, but an effective stylistic convention.
The identification of these early bulls
as sacred or divine is based only on an
analogy with Hittite bulls that were associated
with the weather god Teshub a
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