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Statuette of Gudea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

Three years ago the native Arabs of Tello discovered a group of remarkably fine statuettes in low ground on the western side of Tablet Hill, mound V on the plan of de Sarzec, where Captain Cros found a small headless statuette of Gudea in 1903. The head, however, had been previously found by de Sarzec, and was joined to the torso by Leon Heuzey. A photograph of this statuette is published on plate I of the Revue d'Assyriologie, vol. vi. The monuments recovered by the Arabs from the temple of the god Ningishzida in the Tablet Hill are curiously enough all statuettes. All, with the exception of one, which is published in this communication, were illegally transported out of Iraq, and fortunately one was secured by the Louvre, where it rightfully joined the magnificent group of Gudea statues in the national museum of France. This is a fine alabaster statuette of Ur-Ningirsu, son of Gudea, 46 centimetres high, in standing position, and headless. It is reproduced in Monuments et Memoires publié par L' Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, tome xxvii, Statuettes de Tello, par F. Thureau-Dangin, plate ix; the circular base is sculptured in relief with two files of four figures each, which meet just below the feet of the patesi of Lagash.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1927

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References

page 765 note 1 Revue d' Assyriologie, vi, 9 and 18. Statue I in Thureau-Dangin, , Altsumerische und Akkadische Königsinschriften, p. 86Google Scholar. See Cambridge Ancient History, vol. i, pp. 431–2, where the location of the temple of Ningishzida was erroneously located at Girsu and not in mound V.

page 765 note 2 See Tammuz and Ishtar, 7, n. 2; 36, n. 2; 117–19; 122; also Boissier, Documents Assyriens relatifs aux présages, 122, 8 = Fossey, , Babyloniaca, v, 16, 144Google Scholar, where Ningishzida is associated with Gilgamish.

page 767 note 1 Alam, statue = ṣalmu, is probably from an original al + an, i.e. a noun, formation from al. Note that the sign ALAM is glossed al in RA. 11, 146, 41, and of. gurun > gurum, BE. xxix, 2, 15 = Reisner, SBH. 123, Obv. 18; also gin > gim, shekel; šukun > suhum, values of ; nugig > mugig, and § 42 of the writer's Sumerian Grammar. Delitzsch, , Sumerisches Glossary p. 206Google Scholar, states forcible arguments for reading nun-na = ṣalmu, since ALAM interchanges with nad, na, nu = ṣalālu, to repose, in Zimmern, , Kultlieder 26 Rev. ii, 2541Google Scholar; cf. my Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, 336, 12–15 It is also possible that alam-dím-mu-u, Bezold Catalogue, 2140b.; Babyloniaca, iii, 299, 30; KAR. 44 Obv. 6, is to be read nudimmû, on analogy of the title of the god d.Nu-dim-mud, where nudim clearly means nabnîtu, bunnānu, creation, form, figure. Delitzsch also notes that (nu) is a common word for ṣalmu image. Thureau-Dangin, Statuettes de Telle, now renders na by the word abnu, stone, i.e. “his statue of stone,” which is not probable. Cf. sag-alan-na-bi, Genouillac, Textes Économiques, 4042 Rev. i 6. For the root al, v. Thureau-Dangin, URUK, 101 Rev. 6, al = allu, Syn. amēlu, man, and al = ṣtrum, high, eminent, CT. 12, 48b, 26.

page 768 note 2 Cf. Urukagina, Cone B, 9, 11 + 16; Gudea, Cyl. A, 5, 5.

page 768 note 3 Thureau-Dangin, Statuettes de Tello, 8, n. 2, questions the value tur for REC. 145, in these passages. After passages like Samsuiluna, year date 6, alam … Ebarrai-ni-in-tu-ri, it is natural to suppose that REC. 145 is for 146, tur = erēbu. It will be noted that the sign on the Baghdad statue is EEC. 56, which has certainly the value tur, Myhrman, BE. iii, 64, 6; RA. x, 208, BM. 103435, 4; CT. x, 16, ii, 31, etc. The reading tur seems to be demanded by all the information at our disposal. But the solution is probably solved by SAK. 2 a, ii, 7, a-mu-na-a-ru (REG. 56) = išruk, variant of the ordinary a-ru = šarāḳu, and for TU(ru), v. Schroeder, KAH. 84, 107 a, e-ru-ub. This value ru is supposed to belong to the sign REC. 220, value gur, kur, uru, ru. In any case TV in CT. XI, 3, iii, 27, ku-u ǵu-u, ǵu-du-uš, is REC. 147 = tud, create, beget, as the early list of Syl. A, CT. 5, 9, Obv. iv, 8 proves. See the sign name ḫu-du-uš in CT. xi, 21, 34912, Obv. 5.