plaque
- Museum number
- 118561
- Description
-
Wall plaque of white limestone; carved with square peg hole in the centre; the upper register of carving shows a naked priest, followed by three worshippers, pouring an offering in front of a seated god; in the lower register there are again three worshippers, two of whom carry animal offerings, while the priest's libation is poured onto a plant in front of a temple building; two engraved signs on the otherwise blank central register between scenes.
- Production date
- 2500BC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 22.90 centimetres
-
Thickness: 3.20 centimetres
-
Width: 2 centimetres (square peg hole)
-
Width: 26.30 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Square stone plaques with holes through the centre, and carved in relief, are typical objects of the Early Dynastic period in southern Mesopotamia (2900-2300 BC). They were probably dedicated in a temple and fixed to the mud-brick wall of a shrine using a stone or wooden peg driven through the hole. The end of a piece of cord attached to a door was then wound around the end of the peg to tie the door shut.
This object was sent for moulding in the Cast Shop between 22 June and 10 July 1961 (WAA, 'Transfers' book). The cast is listed as available in the British Museum Facsimile Service 'Catalogue of Replicas from British Museum collections' (n.d.), in the series "Monuments of Early Kings".
- Location
- On display (G56/dc4)
- Exhibition history
-
2022-2023 15 Oct - 19 Feb, New York, The Morgan Library and Museum, She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia
2018-2019 22 Nov - 27 Jan, London, BM, G3, 'No man's land'
2013 22 June-5 Oct, London, BM, 'From Boushra Almutawakel to Michael Rakowitz'
2011 28 March-26 June, Abu Dhabi, Manarat Al Saadiyat, 'Splendours of Mesopotamia'
2003 5 May-17 Aug, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Art of the First Cities'
Early Babylonian Room, case C (in 1961).
- Condition
- Fair
- Acquisition date
- 1927
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 118561
- Registration number
- 1927,0527.34
- Additional IDs
-
Excavation/small finds number: U.6831 (excavation number)
