Other early specimens of Babylonian sculpture are to be found in the various statues of Manishtusu discovered during the course of the excavations carried on by the French Mission to Susa, one of which is reproduced in Fig. 34, B. Manishtusu was a Semitic king of Kish and probably reigned about 2700 B.C.; the statue here shown is consequently one of the earliest examples of Semitic sculpture in the round as yet known, and according to De Morgan[98] is the most ancient work of art as yet discovered on the old Persian sites. Even at this early date we see traces of that Semitic conventionalism so prevalent in the later Assyrian era. The square face, the large eyes, the coiffure and the long symmetrically arranged beard here seen, all being prominent features in Assyrian representations of kings and potentates. The pupils of the eyes were black and were fixed in their sockets by means of bitumen, as was frequently the case in these early sculptures. The statue is made of alabaster, and the inscription on the back is written in archaic line characters.
This age was followed by a period during which the sculptor’s art gradually made itself master of the means at its disposal. This transition period is well illustrated by an alabaster statuette of a seated woman reproduced in Fig. 34, C. The advance which the configuration of her face shows on the archaic head in Fig. 34, A, is at once obvious: the stereotyped eyes have become less exaggerated and more natural, the lips are more womanly, the nose less obtrusive. Her long hair hangs naturally and loosely down her back, while a thick fillet encircles her head. Her long robe covers the whole of her body from neck to ankle, and she holds in her hands a round-shaped vase which probably contains a libation for the gods. This little statuette is just over seven inches high.
But it was not till the middle of the third millennium B.C. i.e. the age of Gudea, patesi of Lagash, that sculpture in the round assumed a prominent part in the artistic life of the people, and it was not till then that the sculptor seems to have regularly aspired to reproducing human figures at quasi-life size, fashioning them at the same time out of the hardest volcanic rocks. In Pl. XXIII, A, B we have reproductions of two of the decapitated statues found by De Sarzec at Tellô. Eight of these statues, some of which are in a standing posture, while others are seated, bear inscriptions of Gudea, patesi of Lagash; one of the remaining two being inscribed with the name of his predecessor, Ur-Bau. The majority of these statues are under life-size, but the dimensions of one of them at least considerably exceed those of an ordinary man. The statue here represented (Pl. XXIII, A) is the most artistically conceived of the series; it possesses both grace and force, and shows very little trace of the conventionalism so noticeable in later Assyrian sculptures, the feet being the only inanimate and truly conventional part of the production. The arms are strong and sinewy, but the muscles are perfectly naturally executed, and contrast very favourably with the exaggerated muscles of the royal statues of Assyria. The hands are folded in token of submission to the goddess Nin-harsag, to whom this statue was seemingly dedicated. Among the epithets applied to this goddess here, are “Lady of the Mountains,” “protectress of the town and mother of its inhabitants,” and lastly, “mother of the gods.” This statue is made of green diorite and is just over four feet high.