Though it may not capture the most adorable qualities of man’s best friend, this 2,500-year-old depiction of a seated canine was nonetheless a cherished symbol within Babylonian society. Standing only 6 inches tall, the clay figurine, which shows the head, torso and front paws of a ferocious, wide-eyed hound baring its teeth, likely adorned a larger statue of Gula, the Mesopotamian goddess of medicine and healing whose divine symbol was the dog. Babylonian seals and boundary stelae often show a dog seated beside the enthroned goddess.
While it is unknown exactly why the dog became associated with healing in Mesopotamian lore, the connection dates back to at least the early second millennium B.C.E., when dog figurines were deposited in the main temple to Gula at Isin in southern Babylonia. More than a thousand years later, Babylonian history recorded that Nebuchadnezzar II, who destroyed Jerusalem and took Judah’s population into exile in 586 B.C.E., dedicated dog statues made of gold, silver and bronze to the goddess and placed them in the gates of her temple. Some have suggested that such canine imagery intended to guard against rabies, which was apparently rampant in second- and first-millennium B.C.E. Mesopotamia.
Though it may not capture the most adorable qualities of man’s best friend, this 2,500-year-old depiction of a seated canine was nonetheless a cherished symbol within Babylonian society. Standing only 6 inches tall, the clay figurine, which shows the head, torso and front paws of a ferocious, wide-eyed hound baring its teeth, likely adorned a larger statue of Gula, the Mesopotamian goddess of medicine and healing whose divine symbol was the dog. Babylonian seals and boundary stelae often show a dog seated beside the enthroned goddess. While it is unknown exactly why the dog became associated with healing in […]
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