II. Ancient Mesopotamia
The Cradle of Civilization
Part I
DU1701 Periods of Art History I: from Prehistory to Trajan
Adrien Palladino, M.A., Ph.D.
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, c. 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, 2,600–
2,370 BCE / National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad
Gebel el-Arak knife,
hippopotamus ivory, silex,
Egypt, Naqada II d period,
c. 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, c. 700 BCE / Musée
du Louvre, Paris
Eye idols, gypsum alabaster, Syria, 6,5 x 4,2 x 0,6 cm, c. 3,700–
3,500 BCE /Metropolitan Museum, New York
Standing male worshiper, Mesopotamia, Eshnunna (Tell
Asmar), gypsum alabaster, shell, black limestone, bitumen,
29.5 x 12.9 x 10 cm, c. 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, c. 2,900–2,600 BCE / 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, c. 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 c. 2,450 BCE / Musée du Louvre, Paris
“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, c. 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, c. 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