Fragment of a Votive Statue Dedicated by the Scribe Shu-ashtakkal
Unknown · Akkadian period, reign of Naram-Sin, c. 2250 BC
Only the torso of a standing figure survives, with the hands clasped in prayer against the chest and a fringed robe draped so that the right shoulder stays bare. The head, the legs and much of the arms are lost, but the polish of the dark diorite and the careful carving of the folds show a first-class workshop. Turn to the back: a cuneiform inscription in Old Akkadian tells who the statue was for. In translation it reads: to the god Erra, for the life of Naram-Sin the mighty, his companion, king of the four regions, Shu-ashtakkal the scribe and majordomo has dedicated his statue.
So the man represented is not the king but a high official of his household, who placed his own image before the god of plague and war to pray for the ruler's life. Naram-Sin was Sargon's grandson and the first Mesopotamian king to be worshipped as a god in his lifetime. The statue was made in Babylonia, but it was found on the acropolis of Susa in Iran, where Elamite raiders had taken it as war booty in the twelfth century before our era. It came to the Louvre through the French excavations at Susa.
Did You Know? The dedicant Shu-ashtakkal held two jobs at once, scribe and majordomo, and made sure both titles were carved on the back of his statue.
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