A MESOPOTAMIAN STONE RECUMBENT RAM, LATE URUK - JEMDET NASR PERIOD, CIRCA 3300-2900 B.C.

拍品描述

A MESOPOTAMIAN STONE RECUMBENT RAM, LATE URUK - JEMDET NASR PERIOD, CIRCA 3300-2900 B.C. Carved from a dark, densely speckled stone, the ram is shown recumbent with legs folded beneath the body, the planes of the flanks left smooth and the silhouette reduced to essentials. The head is turned forward, the muzzle squared off, with curving horns rendered as a ribbed band sweeping back over the crown and terminating beside the ear. A line of incised hatching across the shoulder and down the chest indicates the heavy fleece, contrasting with the polished surface of the body. The eye is reserved as a flat almond against the cheek, and the underside is dressed flat to allow the figure to sit stably. The recumbent posture, summary musculature and reliance on a few descriptive incisions for fleece and horn place the carving within the visual language of the Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr workshops of southern Mesopotamia, where small stone figures of sheep, bulls and rams were produced in considerable numbers. Such figures were typically pierced or left solid for placement in temple precincts, where they functioned as votive offerings, as weights, or as amuletic substitutes for the live animal in cultic contexts. The ram in particular carried associations with fertility, herd wealth and the divine pastoral, and was among the animals most frequently presented in stone to the gods of the early Sumerian city-states. The choice of a hard, dark stone, worked with abrasives rather than struck, is itself significant. Suitable stone was not native to the alluvial plain of southern Mesopotamia and had to be imported, most often from the Iranian plateau or from the highlands to the north and east. The labour required to shape and polish such a material with the tools available in the late fourth millennium meant that even small figures of this kind represented a considerable expenditure, and their deposition in temples should be understood as an act of substantial devotional investment. The reductive style, in which the animal is reduced to its most legible features, is a hallmark of the period: the carver works with the block rather than against it, allowing the mass of the stone to read as the mass of the animal. This figure exemplifies the economy of form that defines Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr animal sculpture, in which observation of the living beast is translated into a compact, architectural silhouette suited to the resistance of hard stone. The ram stands within the earliest sustained tradition of three-dimensional animal carving in Mesopotamia, at the moment when temple economies, herding wealth and the imported-stone trade converged in the votive workshop. Length: 8cm

图片