Inlay: dancing man

This curved plaque cut from a piece of shell is decorated with the incised image of a bare chested dancing man, wearing a short belted skirt with a tufted fringe. He raises his hands with elbows bent, and his legs are deeply bent, suggesting lively motion. The man’s head and beard are shaved, suggesting that he is participating in a religious ceremony which required ritual purification of the body. The man’s face appears in profile, with a prominent nose, sloping forehead, foreshortened ear, and an eye emphasized by a drilled pupil. The plaque was probably set in bitumen (a tar-like substance used as an adhesive) with pieces of shell and stone to create a composition in contrasting colors, a characteristic technique of the late Early Dynastic period exemplified by the well-known Standard of Ur, now in the British Museum.

Nippur, the great holy city of southern Mesopotamia, was the home of the chief deity Enlil and housed temples to Enlil and many other gods. Excavations in the temple of the goddess Inanna have revealed that the sanctuary was first built in the Early Dynastic I period and continually rebuilt on the same site until the Parthian period, some three thousand years later. Hundreds of objects were discovered in the temple: statues, stone bowls and plaques, inlays, furniture attachments, and other fragmentary items, found either in hoards or scattered throughout the building.