TWO MESOPOTAMIAN LIMESTONE INLAYS

SYRIA, EARLY BRONZE AGE, CIRCA 2350-2250 B.C.

Details

TWO MESOPOTAMIAN LIMESTONE INLAYS
SYRIA, EARLY BRONZE AGE, CIRCA 2350-2250 B.C.
Each thin plaque with the details incised, one preserving the upper portion of a soldier in profile to the left, his bent left arm supporting a pole resting on his left shoulder, a pennant with fringes or perhaps a folded battle net hanging from its end, with a large pointed nose, frontal eye and bulbous ear, his hair rendered by hatches; and one preserving the lower portion of a soldier in profile to the left, wearing a tufted knee-length skirt, a shield(?) before him
Each: 3 in. (7.6 cm.) high (2)

Provenance

Dr. Elie Borowski.
The current owner's father received as a gift in 1965.

Lot Essay

For more complete examples from Mardikh on which similar soldiers carry either severed heads or a vanquished enemy upside down by the leg see nos. 115d-e, pp. 175-176 in Aruz, ed., Art of the First Cities, The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus.

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