Serpentine bowl decorated with recumbent lions

3D Model

BLMJ 04564

Late Uruk - Jemdet Nasr period, ca. 3300-2900 BCE Uruk, Southern Mesopotamia

The bowl is skillfully carved in stylized relief depicting lions and calves crouching before the roof of a reed hut(?) surmounted by a pair of reed poles. Similar depictions of a file of striding lions and bovines appear on seal impressions from the city of Uruk. On the bowl, the poles are topped with a single reed bundle rolled into a volute. This type of cult reed pole is known solely from archaic Uruk, and has been identified as the symbol of An, the Sumerian god of heaven, since it was carved on the blocks of the false door of the cult repository at the foot of the ziggurat of An.