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

Beginning in the early Neolithic period,
representations of human figures in
terracotta, stone, or bone were made all
over the Near East. We cannot often tell
whether the figures represent deities or
humans, or if indeed such distinctions
were intended. But by the late fourth and
early third millennia B.C., background scenery
or physical attributes and activities
were included that can sometimes help
us to distinguish gods from men. It is
difficult, however, to tell an ordinary
citizen-a priest or a worshiper, for
example-from a ruler.
In the course of the third millennium
B.C. various Near Eastern states were
engaged in organized trade and imperial
conquest, and then, politically and economically
secure, their rulers began to
have themselves portrayed unambiguously
and sometimes with inscriptions.
They were depicted performing secular,
military, and religious functions, and the
forms employed were statuary in the
round or carvings on cylinder seals and
reliefs, usually in stone.
The figures reproduced here are clearly
rulers, identified as such either by inscriptions
or their regal characteristics. Possibly
the earliest is the heavy, almost
solid-cast head (fig. 1), masterfully and
subtly executed to indicate calm dignity
and inherent power. The heavy-lidded
eyes, the prominent but not overlarge
nose, the full-lipped mouth, and the intricately
coiffed beard are all so carefully
and skillfully modeled that the head may
well be a portrait, almost certainly of a
ruler. If this is a portrait, then the head is
unique among Near Eastern artifacts.
Some scholars date it to the second
millennium B.C., others to the late third
millennium B.C., which, considering the
style, seems more likely. The maker and
the date of the piece remain unknown, as
does the identity of this king, whose
representation, mute and nameless, nevertheless
remains one of the great works
of ancient art.
The seated stone figure (fig. 2) represents
Gudea (2144-2124 B.C.), the ensi,
or governor, of the ancient Sumerian
state of Lagash, whose name and title
are included in the long inscription. A
number of stone statues of Gudea, seated
or standing, were excavated at Tello
(ancient Girsu), in southern Mesopotamia,
while others, presumably from Tello, surfaced
on the art market; many from both
sources are fragmented, lacking heads
or bodies. The Museum's Gudea is complete
and depicts the ruler characteristically
dressed in a brimmed hat decorated
with hairlike spirals and a long garment
2
that leaves one shoulder bare. His hands
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