STELE OF THE VULTURES
The subject of my interest is the so-called Stele of the Vultures - a freestanding relief executed by
king Eannatum during the Early Dynastic Period III, around 2460 BCE. It was raised to
memorialize a victory of the city-state of Lagash over its rival Umma, thus revealing much about
their long-lasting dispute over the fertile region of Gu'eden and a water source between the two
southern Mesopotamian city-states. Unfortunately, only a few fractions have been preserved therefore,
we face a problematic task of resolving the whole nature of this object in its primarily
intended form. Six fragments were excavated in the 1880s by the French archaeologist Ernest de
Sarzec at the archaeological site of ancient Girsu (modern Tello), a satellite town of Lagash. In
1898, the British Museum acquired a seventh fragment, which was later given to the Louvre
Museum, where it is currently exposed.
The object presents itself as a large rectangular plaque of white limestone with a rounded top,
carved in high relief on both sides, inscribed with text filling the negative space, measured 1.80
meters in height, 1.30 meters in width, and 0.11 meters in thickness. Based on the relief carvings
depicted and the different pictorial modes used on either side, the obverse represents the
mythological or iconic and the reverse historical or narrative face of the stele. The obverse side is
divided into two registers and depicts the action of the deities after the conflict. Represented is, for
example, a giant male figure of a god with a large net packed with several naked captives, a head of
female divinity, or a lion-headed bird-like creature. The reverse side is divided into four registers
and shows us scenes from the battle and probably also the king Eannatum himself. In the second
register from the bottom appears a libation process, and in the upper right corner is a flock of
vultures having heads of enemies in their beaks, which gave the stele its name.
Numerous studies, considering both visual and textual evidence, have been carried out on the
reconstruction and possible interpretation of the Stele of the Vultures, describing the iconography
and the narrative style in the context of Sumerian art and the political significance of this ancient
artifact being the earliest known war monument (Bahrani 2008, p. 147). Such interpretations, in
some cases differing, were proposed, for instance, by Marie-Thérèse Barrelet (1970), Irene J.
Winter (1985), Bendt Alster (2004), and Licia Romano (2007). A study from 2014 by Davide
Nadali applies to the analysis of the arrangement of the mass of soldiers recorded in the first and
second register on the reverse side while clarifying the composition employed by the Sumerian
artists. Another recent study from 2016 by Daniel Lau examines the functions as a visualization of
the generalized communication medium of power, which perpetuates the political system of Lagash.
The third study I mention here is from 2017 and was conducted by Renate Marian van DijkCoombes,
focusing on the obverse side, particularly on the identification of an emblem, a lion
heading towards the left on the far right of the lower register.
As part of my work, I aim to determine the characteristics of pictorial narrativity at its birth, taking
into account imagery, text, and the relationship between the obverse and reverse. For that purpose, I
investigate the possible interpretations of the stele. As the second part of my work, I intend to focus
on the evolution of king representation using the comparison between the Stele of the Vultures and
another stele from a more recent period - the Stele of Sargon of Akkad (SB 2), considering political
agenda within the historical context. To conclude, I want to point out the significance of the Stele of
the Vultures, standing at the beginning of storytelling through imagery and representing an ancient
battle on a monumental scale, therefore falling within my area of interest.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Marie-Thérèse Barrelet, “Peut-on remettre en question la ‘restitution matérielle de la stèle des
vautours’?“ in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, James F. Osborne ed., Chicago 1970, pp. 233-258,
http://www.jstor.com/stable/543336
Irene J. Winter, “After The Battle Is Over: The ‘Stele of the Vultures ’and the Beginning of
Historical Narrative in the Ancient Near East” in Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity to the Middle
Ages, H. Kessler and M. S. Simpson eds., Washington, D.C. l985, pp. 11-32.
Irene J. Winter, “Eannatum and the ‘King of Kish’? - Another Look at the Stele of the Vultures and
‘Cartouches ’in Early Sumerian Art” in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, Berlin 1986, pp. 205-212.
Lorenzo Nigro, “The Two Steles of Sargon: Iconology and Visual Propaganda at the Beginning of
Royal Akkadian Relief” in Iraq, London 1998.
David Nelson Gimbel, The Evolution of Visual Representation, University of Oxford 2002.
Alster Bendt, “Images and Text on the Stele of the Vultures” in Archiv für Orientforschung, Wien
2003, pp. 1-10, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41668611
Licia Romano, “LA STELE DEGLI AVVOLTOI: UNA RILETTURA CRITICA” in Vicino
Oriente XIII, Rome 2007, pp. 3-23.
Douglas Ralph Frayne, The royal inscriptions of Mesopotamia. Early periods, Vol. 1. Presargonic
Period (2700-2350), Toronto 2008, pp. 125-140.
Nicole Brisch, Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond, Chicago
2008.
Jerrold S. Cooper, Royal Statuary of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, Winona Lake 2011.
Davide Nadali, “HOW MANY SOLDIERS ON THE "STELE OF THE VULTURES"? A
HYPOTHETICAL RECONSTRUCTION” in Iraq, London 2014, pp. 141-148,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43307192
Daniel Lau, “Die ‘Geierstele ’als luhmannsches Medium zur Legitimation des königlichen
Herrschaftsanspruchs” in Materiality of Writing in Early Mesopotamia (Materiale Textkulturen),
Thomas E. Balke and Christina Tsouparopoulou eds., Berlin and Boston 2016, pp. 241-255.
Renate Marian van Dijk-Coombes, “Lions and winged things: A proposed reconstruction of the
object on the right of the lower register of the mythological side of Eannatum's Stele of the
Vultures” in Die Welt des Orients, Göttingen 2017, pp. 198-215,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26384833
Cavigneaux, Antoine, et al., Text and Image: Orbis Biblicus Et Orientalis - Series Archaeologica,
Leuven 2018.
Fig. 2. Stele of the Vultures (reverse), RMN-Grand Palais (musée du
Louvre) / Hervé Lewandowski
Fig. 1. Stele of the Vultures (obverse), RMN-Grand Palais (musée du
Louvre) / Hervé Lewandowski
Fig. 3. Stele of the Vultures (reverse, 2nd register from the bottom), RMN-Grand Palais
(musée du Louvre) / Hervé Lewandowski