Four-faced God

1800 BC - 1600 BC
Bronze
Original Site Unknown
17.3 cm x 5.0 cm x 9.0 cm
A7119

Oriental Institute Museum

Artifact Description

Four-faced God

This bronze statuette was purchased in 1930 from a dealer in Baghdad by Henri Frankfort, Field Director of the Oriental Institute's Iraq Expedition. It was dug up illegally, together with a hoard of tools, weapons, beads, and cylinders. This statuette was created using metallurgical techniques invented by the ancient Mesopotamians. It is the only representation of a four-faced god known from this period. The god, who wears a flat round cap with a pair of horns over each face, stands on a reclining ram and holds a long-handled weapon with a curved blade, known as a scimitar. His pose is a traditional one for a victorious warrior.

Collected by

Henri Frankfort, Field Director of the Iraq Expedition
Purchased 1930

Multimedia

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Web Links

Highlights from the collection of the Oriental Institute Museum; Four-faced God

Suggested Readings

Black, Jeremy and Anthony Green. Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992.

Frankfort, H. and H.A., John A. Wilson, and Thorkild Jacobsen. Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1946.

Roaf, Michael. Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East. New York: Facts on File, 1990.

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