II. Ancient Mesopotamia
The Cradle of Civilization
Part I
DU1701 Periods of Art History I
Deed of sale of a slave and a house at Shuruppak, c. 2,500 BCE /
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Part of a clay tablet, neo-Assyrian, ca. 600 BCE, Epic
of Gilgamesh, tablet 11, story of the Flood
British Museum, London
Tablet V, Epic of Gilgamesh, old Babylonian
period, 2,003–1,595 BCE
Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraq
Hero mastering a lion, relief from the facade of
the palace of Sargon II (Assyrian empire) at
Khorsabad (Dur-Sharrukin), 713–706 BCE
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Hero (Gilgamesh?) master of animals, from the Shara temple, Tell
Agrab, Iraq, early Dynastic period, ca. 2,600–2,370 BCE
National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad
Gebel el-Arak knife,
hippopotamus ivory, silex,
Egypt, Naqada II d period,
ca. 3,300–3,200 BCE
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Transport of cedar
timber, north facade of
the main courtyard of the
Dur-Sharrukin Palace
(Iraq), stone, 38 x 49 x 32
cm, ca. 700 BCE
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Eye idols, gypsum alabaster, Syria, 6,5 x 4,2 x
0,6 cm, ca. 3,700–3,500 BCE
Metropolitan Museum, New York
Ashmolean
Standing male worshiper, Mesopotamia, Eshnunna (Tell
Asmar), gypsum alabaster, shell, black limestone, bitumen, 29.5
x 12.9 x 10 cm, ca. 2,900–2,600 BCE
Metropolitan Museum, New York
Standing worshipers, Mesopotamia, Eshnunna (Tell Asmar),
gypsum alabaster, shell, black limestone, bitumen, 29.5 x 12.9 x
10 cm, ca. 2,900–2,600 BCE
National Iraq Museum, Baghdad
White temple in Ancient
Uruk
Standing worshiper, Mesopotamia, Nippur, limestone,
inlaid with shell and lapis lazuli
25.2 x 8.5 x 5.2 cm, ca. 2,600–2,500 BCE
Metropolitan Museum, New York
Ebih-Il, from Mari, temple of Ishtar (Syria), alabaster, lapis lazuli, shells,
bitumen, proto cuneiform inscriptions, 52,5 x 20,6 x 30 cm ca. 2,450 BCE
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Lapis lazuli
“dul, Ebih-il, nu-banda, Ištar Nita, sarig”
“This statue, Ebih-il, the overseer, to Ishtar (?), he dedicated”
Statue of a Ram in a
Thicket, from Ur (Iraq),
gold, silver, lapis lazuli,
shells, 42,5 x 18 x 27 cm
Penn Museum,
Philedalphia
Standard of Ur, Royal Cemetery, Ur, ca. 2,600 BCE, shell, limestone,
lapis lazuli, bitumen, 21,7 x 50,4 x 11,6 (base) – 5,6 (top) cm
British Museum, London
Inlay, box fitting (?), shells, black bitumen paste, from the
Royal Cemetery, Ur (Iraq), 4,4 x 4,4 cm, c. 2,600 BCE /
British Museum, London
Lyre fragments
with bull head and
shell inlay plaques,
Ur (Iraq), Royal
Cemetery, gold,
shell, lapis lazuli,
bitumen
ca. 2,450 BCE
Penn Museum,
Philadelphia
Scorpion-man relief, from
the temple of the storm god
in the citadel of Aleppo
(Syria), c. 2,500 BCE
National Museum, Aleppo
Boundary stone (called Kudurru), limestone, detail of
scorpion-man next to the goddess Guda, from Sippar (Abu
Habba, Iraq), 64 x 21 x 18 cm, 1,125–1,104 BCE
British Museum, London