Image Details

Matthew Bogdanos

Colonel Bogdanos stands next to a black-basalt stele that depicts a king as a lion-hunter. The stele, dating to about 3000 B.C., is one of the oldest known carvings of its size and is also one of the first attempts to represent perspective in a work of art. Happily, the stele, originally from Uruk, remained untouched during the looting of the Iraq Museum.