Page 79 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
of kneeling figures bearing offerings." The king is clean-shaven and wears a woollen
cap; but m another work13 he is heavily bearded and his head covered by a low conical
cap, or possibly natural curls. This odd appearance remains without parallel. The figures
ot private people found at Lagash have all shaven polls and arc beardless, perhaps because
they represent priests (Plate 50A). Female figures arc rare (Plate sob). The high quality of
the workmanship equals that of the royal statues. The metal work of the period is mostly
lost to us. Inscribed bronze pegs were driven into the foundations of buildings, and these
were sometimes held by a divinity (Plate 51 a). Sometimes the upper part of the pegs
rendered die ruler, in a conventional way, in the act of carrying on his head the basket
of clay used for the moulding of the first brick of the new temple (cf. Plate 33B).14
Sometimes the peg was topped by the figure of a bull; these were significantly used for
the temple of Inanna-Ishtar.

The Third Dynasty of Ur

The peace and prosperity of Lagash, during the upheaval of foreign rule, mark the city
as a backwater. History passed Lagash by. When the South rose and drove the Guti back
to their mountains, it was under the leadership of Erech and Ur. Lagash became a de­
pendency when Urnammu of Ur established a united realm which lasted for over a cen­
tury (the Third Dynasty of Ur). Although its scribes used Sumerian in most official
documents, the dynasty did not abolish the Akkadian language, and in the very concep­
tion of kingship over the land it accepted the political innovation of Sargon. The notion
found theological expression in the theory that ‘kingship had descended from Heaven*
and was bestowed upon one city at the time, but only for a limited period. Then the
gods, at their pleasure, granted kingship over the land to another city. The local rulers
became vassals, or even mere officials, under the king of Ur.
The art of this phase of Sumerian revival is not well known; it resembles that of
Gudea rather than that of Akkad. The contrast is most striking in the seal designs. The
almost inexhaustible variety of Akkadian times has vanished, and in practice a single
theme holds the field, the so-called presentation scene, which shows either the king be­
fore a god, or, as in plate 54A, an official before the king of Ur. The subject was rare in
Akkadian times, but it became common at Lagash under Gudea.
The period of the Third Dynasty of Ur was one of great achievement, not only in the
economic sphere, but in every field. Many of the greatest works of Mesopotamian litera­ i
ture were now either composed or for the first time written down. But only a few works
of art survive, and those are too fragmentary to give a fair impression of their original
character. Moreover, there are no criteria for separating sculpture of the Third Dynasty
of Ur from that of the succeeding Isin-Larsa Period.
The sadly damaged head of plate 54» is almost the only certam example of sculpture
in the round belonging to this period. It shows perhaps an excessive delight in plastic
1 - The head of the god in baked clay (Plate 54c) represents a somewhat coarser type.
The'first king of the Dynasty, Urnammu, erected a stele at Ur of which fragments
SU^e Se original was ten fet high and five feet wide (Plate 53). At the top the king

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