This large plaque was made of baked straw-tempered clay, modeled in high relief. The figure of the curvaceous naked woman was originally painted red; note the trace of the red color on her left wrist. She wears the horned headdress characteristic of a Mesopotamian deity and holds a rod and ring of justice, also symbols of her divinity. Her long multi-colored wings hang downwards, indicating that she is a goddess of the Underworld. The background was originally painted black, suggesting that she was associated with the night.
The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar , Mesopotamian goddess of sexual love and war, or Ishtar's sister and rival, the goddess Ereshkigal who ruled over the Underworld, or the demoness Lilitu, known in the Bible as Lilith. The plaque probably stood in a shrine.
Old Babylonian period, 1800-1750 BCE, from southern Iraq (place of excavation is unknown), Mesopotamia. (The British Museum, London).
Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin
Originally published on 18 September 2014 in Ancient History Encyclopedia under the following license: Creative Commons : Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-Alike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms.
