An Unidentified Sculpture from Iraq

Abstract

In 1942 the Ashmolean Museum acquired, by gift of the National Art Collections Fund, the small head of a young bull carved in stone, of which five views are given in Plate III. This object is numbered 1942.167 in the Accession Book of the Department of Antiquities, and it is exhibited in the Near Eastern Gallery. The head has been commonly described as “Sumerian”; but no one, as far as I know, has attempted to refine on that description or even to prove that it is correct. In fact, the more carefully the object has been examined in recent years the more doubts have arisen about its identification. I am grateful, therefore, to the Editor of Iraq for printing a description of this little enigma detailed enough, I hope, to enable some perspicacious reader to suggest its proper interpretation. Three questions present themselves: where was the head made; when was it made; and what was it made for? Its known history does not take us far. The head was first seen in 1942 in the hands of a Baghdad antiquities dealer, who told the Director of Antiquities1 that it had been found “in a tomb not far from Ur”. This was a stereotyped formula from which nothing could be inferred except that the object probably did come from Iraq, otherwise the owner would gladly have said that it was an import.