Week #3 - Ancient Near Eastern Art

Votive Figures
From the Square Temple, Eshnunna c. 2900-2600 BCE.
Limestone, alabaster, and gypsum; largest is 30".

Twelve fairly small statues are displayed together, showing a collection of Sumerian votive figures intended to be used as dedications to the gods.  These sculptures evoke veneration, peace and worship.  Each figure is unique and that gives a sense that they were probably carved by different artists.  The stylized features of these statues is conventional of Sumerian carvers and suggests these people had fairly strict standards for their offering statue carvers.

These sculptures are carved in the round and the artist(s) chose to have negative space between the elbows when carving the arms which are all in a praying gesture.  These statues weren't necessarily meant to be viewed by people, but meant to be offered to the gods as a way for the god(s) to bestow favor upon the person pictured.  When viewed out of context (i.e. in a Sumerian temple at an offering table), these statues, individually, would invoke the same sense of veneration, peace and prayer that they do together because of their calm facial arrangement and the arrangements of their hands and arms.



All figures have an "attentive gaze" (p. 31, Stokstad & Cothren) which makes the viewer feel stared at, worshiped and suggests the Sumerians used these statues "as a stand-in for the donor, locked in eye-contact with the god, caught perpetually in the act of worship."  In order to feel "locked in" by the eyes of the statues, the artist accentuated the eyes and eyebrows into wide open gazes.  These gazes are actually unsettling because they don't let you out of the stare, they always win the staring contest.  Even though the eyes are unsettling, they are also constant, which gives the viewer a sense of steadiness and peace.

Both men and women are wearing the same mode of dress, except the men have beards and are bare chested, whereas the women wear similar clothes, but have a covering.  Giving the persons depicted the same type of clothing depicts a particular style of dress when worshiping.

In making these figures out of stone, the artist and donor, as they are referred to in the book, wanted these to last their entire life.  They are given a sense of permanence because of the rock they are made out of and therefore seem more solid, and permanent fixtures.

Although the bodies are not exactly realistically carved, they are all carved in the same basic cylindrical shape, giving a sense of uniformity through the pieces.  This shows an adherence to traditional practices and a respect of that tradition.  Most of the figures are standing on a platform, and those platforms often have an inscription, which can talk up the donor's conquests on behalf of the god, or can talk about how devoted the donor is to the god in other ways (p. 31, Stokstad & Cothren).

Seeing how many of these statues there seem to be, and assuming that many more were destroyed since their creation, it would seem the Sumerians worshiped often and had strong religious beliefs.