Fig. 12.—Limestone panel sculptured in relief, with a scene representing Gudea being led by Ningishzida and another god into the presence of a deity who is seated on a throne.—In the Berlin Museum; cf. Sum. und Sem., Taf. VII.
By a similar examination of the gods of the Sumerians, as they are represented on the monuments, Professor Meyer has sought to show that the Semites were not only in Babylonia at the date of the earliest Sumerian sculptures that have been recovered, but also that they were in occupation of the country before the Sumerians. The type of the Sumerian gods at the later period is well illustrated by a limestone panel of Gudea, which is preserved in the Berlin Museum. The sculptured scene is one that is often met with on cylinder-seals of the period, representing a suppliant being led by lesser deities into the presence of a greater god. In this instance Gudea is being led by his patron deity Ningishzida and another god into the presence of a deity who was seated on a throne and held a vase from which two streams of water flow. The right half of the panel is broken, but the figure of the seated god may be in part restored from the similar scene upon Gudea's cylinder-seal. There, however, the symbol of the spouting vase is multiplied, for not only does the god hold one in each hand, but three others are below his feet, and into them the water falls and spouts again. Professor Meyer would identify the god of the waters with Anu, though there is more to be said for M. Heuzey's view that he is Enki, the god of the deep. We are not here concerned, however, with the identity of the deities, but with the racial type they represent. It will be seen that they all have hair and beards and wear the Semitic plaid, and form a striking contrast to Gudea with his shaven head and face, and his fringed Sumerian mantle.[44]
Fig. 13. Figure of the seated god on the cylinder-seal of Gudea.—Déc., p 293.
A very similar contrast is represented by the Sumerian and his gods in the earlier historical periods. Upon the Stele of the Vultures, for instance, the god Ningirsu is represented with abundant hair, and although his lips and cheeks are shaved a long beard falls from below his chin.[45] He is girt around the waist with a plain garment, which is not of the later Semitic type, but the treatment of the hair and beard is obviously not Sumerian. The same bearded type of god is found upon early votive tablets from Nippur,[46] and also on a fragment of an archaic Sumerian relief from Tello, which, from the rudimentary character of the work and the style of the composition, has been regarded as the most ancient example of Sumerian sculpture known. The contours of the figures are vaguely indicated in low relief upon a flat plaque, and the interior details are indicated only by the point. The scene is evidently of a mythological character, for the seated figure may be recognized as a goddess by the horned crown she wears. Beside her stands a god who turns to smite a bound captive with a heavy club or mace. While the captive has the shaven head and face of a Sumerian, the god has abundant hair and a long beard.[47]
