Page 86 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

TPIE ISIN—LARS A PERIOD
also ill private houses, and dierc is no doubt that they were placed on the domestic altar.
Some them might be bought by pilgrims or visitors at famous shrines; others were
obtained at the local temple, and represented the deity under whose special protection
the family lived. An example of this popular class of object is plate 58c, which shows
the Mother Goddess as ‘Lady of Births’ (Nintu).26 As the sun-god appears with rays
emanating from his shoulders and Ningizzida with snakes or dragons, so Nmtu shows at
each shoulder a child’s head, while two naked embryonic figures appear on either side,
with the symbol of the goddess above them.
While the majority of these plaques represent deities, there are a number with subjects
more or less difficult to explain. Plate 59A, a bitch and puppies, may stand for the Mother
Goddess in her form as Gula, whose symbol was a dog. But we do not know who was
the destroyer of the fiery cyclops (Plate 5 8b), who the harpist (Plate 59B)> or the man
riding a bull (Plate 59c), or any number of other personages represented in these
plaques. For they were not inscribed; writing being the business of professional scribes,
inscriptions would have been useless to the average householder. Nor were inscriptions
needed. But we who do not share the common knowledge of the time are left in the
dark by these representations. The design of another kind of plaque (Plate 5 8 a) has been
plausibly explained as the face of the monster Humbaba, which was occasionally seen in
the entrails of a sacrificial animal which were inspected to obtain omens. On the plaque
the face is rendered by a single continuous band, to suggest the entrails, in which the face
appeared, no doubt, somewhat more equivocally.
There is no point in showing more examples of this very varied class of popular works,
since they are mostly of indifferent quality. Figurines of clay were also made,27 but these
lack all pretence to art and seem to have been mere tokens for services rendered in the
temple and charged, as it were, with the merit acquired by the act. The majority repre­
sent either men bringing a kid or lamb for sacrifice; or naked women who had offered
themselves in the service of the goddess. There is no reason to see in them representations
of deities, although these do occasionally occur among the figurines. But they are
characterized by the horned crown. The large lions guarding the temple entrances were
sometimes made of clay (Figure 22) instead of bronze.28
Plate 6ib shows a fine rendering in gypsum of the bearer of a victim for sacrifice, fr om
Mari. We cannot be sure that it belongs to the Isin-Larsa
Period; it might be inherited from an earlier age, and the
tasselled robe of our figure would suggest this; but the
shape of the head, the head-dress, and die rendering of
the beard point to the later age, and I have therefore
placed it at the beginning of works of sculpture from the
Isin-Larsa and Hammurabi Periods.29 It emphasizes our
ignorance of the distinctive marks of these periods; the
statue of Ningal, too (Plate 57), could not have been dated
■with any precision if it had not been for its inscription.
The statues of the princes who ruled the various city-
states after the fall of Ur are often inscribed, but their Figure 22. Lion from
the temple at Tell Harmal
ii
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