Page 163 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART TWO:
the peripheral regions
sheUs and at least one of the heads resembles in its general proportions and
tiat of plate 137. It seems reasonable to appearance
connect these prepared skulls with a cult of
ancestors.
To the earliest metal-age belong the remains of a mural painting found a little to the
Zt"’ ", a GhafuL I'“c!uded a IarSc eight-pointcd Lr, and traces of the
figures of gazelles, birds, and possibly human beings.
In the plain of Antioch, on a small bill called Tell Jedeideh, six bronze statuettes, three
male and three female, were found m layers contemporary with the first half of the
liariy Dynastic Period in Mesopotamia (Plate 135).? In these layers Mesopotamian cylin­
der seals and their imitations have been found, and one assumes that the technique of
casting with wasted wax (a cire perdue) was derived from Sumer. It is possible that the
very function which the statues served agrees with Sumerian usage. In the temple of
Tell Agrab three copper figures were found, one of a woman entirely naked, and two of
naked men wearing belts. The same absence of clothing marks the Syrian figurines. In
I Tell Jedeideh. It is possible, therefore, that the bronze statuettes represent worshippers
Sumer worshippers appeared naked before the gods, and a Sumerian temple (if we judge
by the objects found dicre) stood at Tell Brak in Protoliterate times, 250 miles east of

placed in effigy before the gods. But the figures are clearly Syrian. The men wear the
broad metallic belt later used by Hittites and Cretans as well as Syrians; and the man’s
silver ‘helmet’ probably represents the tall conical felt hats worn to this day in north
Syria and Jebel Sinjar, and depicted on Syrian monuments of all periods. The men,
moreover, wear their hair short and shave their moustaches, while the Sumerian either
shaved the face and head completely, or wore hair and beard both long. The gesture of
the women, holding their breasts, is found in Mesopotamian clay figurines or plaques,
but here again we do not know whether these represent goddesses or votaries. The same
doubt exists, of course, in connexion with the bronze figurines from Tell Jedeideh. But
it is perhaps significant that the hands of the men are pierced; they grasped objects now
lost, perhaps because they were of silver which has corroded. One thinks of die axe
which is the regular attribute of the weather gods who dominate the Syrian pantheon in
later times.5
The effect of the male figure in our plate is impaired by the displacement of the silver
headgear which was pressed crookedly over the face during the 5,000 years in which it
lay buried in the soil. There are also shortcomings which obscure the real qualities of
these figures. The woman’s face is spoiled by the clumsy placing of each pupil in the
middle of the eyeball, without consideration of their combined effect. In the male figure
the upper part of the body has been negligently shaped. But the legs are well-forme ,
sinewy limbs, and the carriage of the head is free and natural. The face is well propor­
tioned but for the exaggerated eyes, and the tight-lipped mouth is excellently rendered.
These are details, but the general impression is positive rather than negative; the pnmi-

134