Seated Statue of Gudea, called the Small Seated Gudea
Unknown · Neo-Sumerian period, c. 2120 BC
A compact figure in dark polished stone sits on a low stool with his hands clasped at his chest, the classic gesture of prayer. He wears a round brimmed cap covered in tight curls and a long fringed robe that leaves the right shoulder bare. The face is calm and rounded, with large eyes and a smooth chin. He is Gudea, ruler of the city-state of Lagash in southern Mesopotamia, and the cuneiform on his garment identifies the statue as an offering to the god Ningishzida, his personal protector. At under half a metre tall, it is one of the smaller Gudea statues in the Louvre.
The statue was found in two parts at Tello, the ancient city of Girsu, in the Lagash state. The head was recovered by Ernest de Sarzec, the French consul whose digs in the eighteen seventies and eighties first revealed Sumerian civilisation, and the body was found a few metres away by his successor Gaston Cros. Reunited, the pieces came to the museum in 1901. Gudea commissioned dozens of such images to stand in the temples he rebuilt, and the black stone he chose was a costly import from the Gulf region.
Did You Know? The head and the body were dug up decades apart by two different excavators before being fitted back together.
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