[Illustration: FIG. 38.—A, C (cf. Cat., p. 295). Musée du Louvre. B (cf. _Déc. en Chald._, Pl. 2 tert., No. 3).]
So too Ur-Ninâ employed copper extensively as the material for his votive statuettes. A number of these statuettes were found at Tellô by De Sarzec; they all exhibit much the same characteristics as the earlier figures referred to above, and represent a woman whose hands are clasped across her breast, and whose hair hangs down her back in strongly marked perpendicular streaks, while the body similarly finds its termination in a nail-point destined to be stuck in the ground (cf. Fig. 38, A). But the chief point which distinguishes Ur-Ninâ’s statuettes from those belonging to the earlier period lies in the additional rôle which they were expected to play; not only were they protective amulets, but they were also required to carry stone tablets on their heads. To enable them to bear their burden the more easily, they were fixed into a kind of flat ring, the end of which was made to resemble the tail of a bird, which thus assisted the head in its otherwise arduous task (cf. Fig. 38, B). Five of these little figures still carried on their heads a thick tablet of greyish stone, convex on the uppermost side, like the bricks of this same king. They were generally found buried in hollows about twenty-eight inches in breadth, length, and height, and walled in with bricks and bitumen. Later on in the dynasty the practice of providing these statuettes with bird-tailed rings to assist in supporting the inscribed stone tablet appears to have fallen into disuse; at all events the statuettes of Entemena, the fourth successor of Ur-Ninâ, show no such rings; the alabaster tablets are simply bored with holes, into which the head of the statuette was firmly inserted.
Another class of copper statuettes of somewhat later date is that comprising the so-called “Kanephores” or basket-carriers. The oldest of these likewise come from Tellô: they are sometimes male, sometimes female figures, but they all carry baskets on their heads. One of them is seen in Fig. 39, B. In this case the garment is arranged in such a manner as to show the formation of the legs. The inscription informs us that this statuette was dedicated by Gudea to Nin-girsu. Regarding the assumed contents of the baskets it is impossible to dogmatize: possibly they are supposed to contain offerings, but De Sarzec regarded these figures as representations of the patesi himself, conveying clay in the sacred basket for the construction of the temple.