Men of Mystery

In the Brooklyn Museum stands a splendid statuette of almost solid copper, silently questioning knowledgeable visitors. The questions: "Do I represent a hero, a king, a priest, a demon, a god, or some ancient's idea of a joke? Was I molded and cast by a Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Kassite, Hurrian, Hyksos, Elamite, or by some barbaric genius of the Caucasus? Was my native city Eridu, perhaps, or Susa. Persepolis, Nineveh, Larsa, Lagash, Umma, Ur, Alalakh, or Hattusas? Am I 5,000 years old, or closer to a mere 3,000?"

An almost identical (though slightly damaged) statuette at Buffalo's Albright Gallery asks the same questions of the world's experts. Both first came to light when they turned up in the hands of a Baghdad dealer four years ago. Spectrographic analysis suggests that they are very old indeed. Stylistic analysis places them anywhere and everywhere in the Middle East. So far, no archaeologist has claimed to know of anything quite like them. The statuettes remain as baffling as the day they first came out of the earth.

Brooklyn's example (at right) is mysterious from head to toes. The helmet is adorned not with the familiar bull's horns of Mesopotamian moon gods, but with those of an ibex. The broad-cheeked face is Caucasian; the inlaid eyes date back to Sumeria. The staff in the hand is a later addition; no one knows whether the figure actually carried a staff, an offering, or a weapon. The pack on the back resembles the wings and tail of a great bird, and the pointed beard can be taken for a beak. The girdle is an ancient Middle Eastern symbol of power, worn by lion-strangling heroes in the bloody days of Assurnasirpal. The powerfully striding thighs are molded with an easy naturalism virtually unknown until the time of the Greeks, yet the cylindrical form and spellbound air of the entire figure are pre-Grecian. The boots are even odder than the horned helmet they counterpoint. Hittite sculptures sometimes have upturned toes, but never so exaggerated. A few experts guess that the boots are a sort of combination ski and snowshoe, pointing to a mountain origin, yet most of the body is naked to the cold.

The science of archaeology is advancing into the past almost as rapidly as physics and electronics are hastening the future. In the Middle East, archaeologists turn up something new almost every week. But not until their digging provides some fresh clues are the questions put by Brooklyn's and Buffalo's statuettes likely to be answered.

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