Image Details

Scala/Art Resource, NY

A much more diverse assortment of artifacts was discovered by archaeologists from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, when they resumed excavations of Nippur in the 1940s. The copper statuette seen here, perhaps representing the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (c. 2212–2095), was found by the Chicago team underneath the foundations of Nippur’s Temple of Inanna (compare with photo of terracotta statue of an unknown god).