Bull Guardian of the Gate from the Temple of Ishtar at Arslan Tash
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, reign of Tiglath-pileser III, 744-727 BC
A massive bull of black basalt, over two metres long, stands with its head turned to face you and its body in profile. Count its legs: there are five. Seen from the front the animal stands still on two legs; seen from the side it walks on four, and the sculptor gave it an extra leg so that both views would read correctly. That trick is the same one used for the great human-headed bulls of the Assyrian palaces. The surface is complete, the horns and the rolls of the neck carved in strong simple masses, and a cuneiform inscription in Neo-Assyrian runs across the body.
The bull stood at the west side of the entrance to the temple of Ishtar at Arslan Tash, ancient Hadatu, the Assyrian provincial residence in northern Syria built under Tiglath-pileser the Third in the mid eighth century before our era. Gate guardians of this kind protected the threshold from evil and impressed visitors with the power of the king. The black volcanic stone is local to the region. It was excavated in 1928 by François Thureau-Dangin's mission and came to the Louvre in the partage of 1929.
Did You Know? The bull has five legs, so that it appears standing when seen from the front and walking when seen from the side.
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