Head of Gudea

The most important surviving sculpture in later Sumerian art is really all attributable to one individual, a petty dynast named Gudea, who, during the turbulent era following the collapse of the Akkadian empire, ruled the small state of Lagash at the head of the Persian Gulf. Although he assumed no kinfly titles, Gudea did claim the traditional title, ensi, borne by Lagashite rulers, which suggested at once the role of governor and high priest. Guided perhaps as much by vanity as by piety, he seems to have filled the temples of his local gods with votice statues of himself. Life size or miniscule, standing of seated, showing his head capped or shaven and his hands clasped in an attitude of devotion, these statues were generally carved from a hard black diorite, which in his inscriptions Gudea claims to have brought by sea from distant "Magan," a land thought now to be somewhere on the coasts of Arabia. The known statues of Gudea or their fragments number forty-three. Apart from one head excavated at Ur, the remainder seem to have derived from the site of Tello, worked alternately by French archaeologists and clandestine diggers since the 1970s. Although most of the Telly statues belonged to on or two sanctuaries, some were found within the ruins of a Parthian palace built directly over the ancient buildings. These statues had been set up in a courtyard in a kind of open air museum of the second century B.C. Most of the Gudea statues bear the scars of vandalism. Nearly all have had their heads broken off and their noses smashed. Many statues are known that have no heads, and many heads are known for which the bodies have not yet been found. The Boston head, in the latter class, depicts the round-deaded, square-jawed Gudea wearing the woolly crown of later Sumerian and early babylonian kings. The large eyes are given unusually heavy lids, probably because the dramatic effect of the shadows. The eyebrows, which meet at the bridge of the nose, bear a "herring-bone" pattern to indicate the hair. The high polish of this hard stone, typical of the entire group, is most astounding.