Undoubtedly the most famous discovery from the Diyala was the group of twelve statues uncovered by Henri Frankfort at Tell Asmar. Every book on art history has a picture of them. Known in ancient times as Eshnunna, Tell Asmar is located 12 miles further up the Diyala valley from Khafajah. Excavations at the two sites were conducted simultaneously by the Oriental Institute. Frankfort found the statues at Tell Asmar carefully stacked in a pit beneath the floor of the “Abu Temple.” Frankfort named the temple after a Sumerian storm and fertility god, Abu, whose name was found inscribed on numerous seals, tablets, and figurines recovered from the temple precincts.

Like at Khafajah, the Abu Temple is actually a series of temples which extend as far back as the Jemdet Nasr period. The statues were found in one of these levels, beneath the floor of the “Square Temple,” which was dated by Frankfort to the Early Dynastic II period. The name is somewhat misleading since the temple is actually three “broadroom” temples arranged around a central courtyard, thus forming a square.¹Frankfort 1939, 3

Henri Frankfort described the cache of statues at Tell Asmar as the earliest example of monumental stone sculpture in Mesopotamia.²Frankfort 1939, 18 Although earlier examples of stone carving are known, such as the Warka Vase and the Mask of Inanna, these were carved in-relief instead of in-the-round, like the Tell Asmar statues.

The male statues wear kilts shaped like a cone; their upper bodies are shaped like a triangle, and their head is an inverted cone. “The human body” writes Frankfort, “is ruthlessly reduced to abstract plastic forms.”³Frankfort 1939, 20 Indeed, the statues of the men are uncannily similar to modern art sculptures. In contrast, the women are nondescript, their bodies being wrapped in a single woven mantle. Presumably they wear their hair in coils of braids although these are not shown in detail. The male figures sport long, square beards and long hair parted down the middle. But of all their features, none is more striking than their large staring eyes.

The meaning of these statues has generated considerable debate. It is generally agreed that most of the statues are worshippers and that they were placed on benches which lined the walls of the shrine. Thus the statues were able to continually beseech the god of the shrine on behalf of their owners. This custom is well known from later periods, when kings had a statue of themselves placed in a temple that was inscribed with a prayer or sometimes with just the single line, “It offers prayers.” Although this privilege was reserved for kings during later periods (Lagash II and Ur III), it seems that at Khafajah and Tell Asmar during the first half of the Early Dynastic period, people of lower status were also permitted to place statues of themselves inside the temple. It is noteworthy, however, that none of these statues make any attempt at personalization. Their features are uniformly abstract.

No statues of the deity have so far been recovered from Mesopotamia with the possible exception of two, recovered from the cache at Tell Asmar, which Frankfort thought worthy of particular attention. Male and female, they are larger, of finer craftsmanship, and their eyes are even larger than the others if that is possible. The base of the male statue was carved with a representation of Imdugud, the attack animal of the storm god. Imdugud took the form of a lion-headed eagle grasping a stag in each claw. Due to their unique characteristics, and the image of Imdugud on the base of the male statue, Frankfort argued that the two largest statues were representations of gods and not men. Otherwise we would have the improbable situation of a worshipper standing on the image of the god —Imdugud—an unthinkable transgression according to the rules of composition which prevailed at that time. If Frankfort is correct, then the male statue probably represents Abu, a storm and fertility god, and Imdugud, whose wings carry the storm. Pierre Amiet disagreed with Frankfort’s assessment, arguing that all of the statues found at Asmar were images of worshippers and not of deities.⁴Amiet 1980

Frankfort, Sculpture of the Third Millennium B.C. from Tell Asmar and Khafajah, Plate VI A. Link

Later Sculpture

Frankfort assigned the cache of statues from Tell Asmar to the earliest phase of the Square Temple, whose construction marks the beginning of the Early Dynastic II period.⁵Frankfort 1939, 17 The Square Temple was replaced by another temple, known as the “Single Shrine,” which dates to the Early Dynastic III. Figurines recovered from the Single Shrine at Tell Asmar display a more natural and expressive style compared to the earlier statues. It would be difficult, I think, to fall in love with the faces of the more archaic statues but the figurines from later periods sometimes manage to capture the individual.

Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg)/Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg)/Wikimedia Commons

Chronology and Culture

The craftsmen who produced the Tell Asmar statues utilized the same severe geometric style as the vase painters from the Iranian Highlands and the seal cutters who produced the Piedmont seals. It may be wondered, therefore, if the Tell Asmar statues were not the product of the same highland culture? According to the Sumerian King List, Sumer was dominated for brief periods by the Awan and Hamazi dynasties, both originating from somewhere in the Iranian highlands. In light of the close proximity of Tell Asmar to ancient Elam and the historically close ties between them, the statues reflect influence from the Iranian highlands. Their style contrasts with the naturalism characteristic of Sumerian productions. It seems that these distinctions are not the product of a developing style, but of a different culture.

Left: Adapted from Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg)/Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0