Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

1
386 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
breast and loosely thrown over the left arm are equally
characteristic of the statue of Nippur and of those from
Tello. But on the other hand the torso under consideration
presents distinctive features of its own. It has a long
and flowing beard already curled and twisted in that conventional
style with which we are familiar from the Assyrian
monuments of Nineveh and Khorsabad. 1
A richly embroidered
band, one inch and a third wide, passes over the left
shoulder, and seems to be fastened to the shawl, which it
holds in place. Each wrist is encircled with a bracelet of
precious stones, and the neck is adorned with a necklace
of large beads strung on a skein of finely spun wool, and
in its whole appearance not unlike the l ugal with which the
modern Arab shaikhs of Babylonia fasten their silken headdress
(keffiye). A short legend with the names of Bel and
the donor of the monument was originally engraved on the
back of the statue between its two shoulders. But the barbarous
and revengeful Elamites who broke so many fine
votive gifts of the temple at Nippur cut the inscription away
with the exception of the last line, " he made it." In all
probability the statue was erected by one of the kings of the
dynasty of Ur (between 2700 and 2600 b. c).
The storage room where all the antiquities referred to had
originally been kept was discovered by Havnes in
his excavations
along the southeast wall of the fortified enclosure.
It was a well-planned cellar, 36 feet long, 1
1/ 2 feet wide,
and %
/ x 2 feet deep, built entirely into this wall, evidently by
Ur-Gur himself. 2 Descending as far down as the level of
the pavement of Naram-Sin, it had, some two and a half
feet above the floor of stamped earth, a ledge of crude bricks
1
y 2 feet wide, which was capped by a layer of baked bricks
1
Comp. the terra-cotta head from Nippur published bv me in " The Bab.
Exp. of the U. of Pa.," series A, vol. ix, pi. xii, no. 22.
2
Comp. my treatment of the whole question in " The Bab. Exp. of the
U. of Pa.," vol. i, series A, part 1, pp. 28, seqq.