Votive Figures

The votive figures are limestone statues.  They date to around 2900-2600 BCE. The figures are images of worshipers themselves and they would set them up in a shrine before an image of a god.  In this way a piece of them would always be in reverent prayer.  The worshipper would be “locked in eye-contact with the god, caught perpetually in the act of worship”. This gives us insight into Sumerian religious practices and artifacts that accompanied them.

The sculptures are very stylized.  They are basically cylindrical shapes of both men and women, and each is in a praying pose. The clothing even emphasizes the cylindrical shapes. The genders are distinguished with men in skirts and women in longer skirts. Their eyes are enlarged in order to symbolize devotion and prayer to a god, specifically the moon goddess.  Arched brows were inlaid with dark shell or stone at one time and helped to emphasize the eyes.  Today these figures seem very cartoon-like, but were obviously very important in ancient Sumerian culture.  They help us understand religious practices and stylistic approaches used in creating human-like images.