Sumerian figurine

This figurine is a very special one. It is a stone statue from the Sumerian period. Unfortunately, this guy’s head was broken off at some point in its history. However, many of these figurines are known. They represent praying people and were deposited in temples as gifts to the gods. Especially famous is the so-called ‘Tell Asmar hoard’, a collection of a dozen of these figurines unearthed in Tell Asmar in 1933, currently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (fig. 1). There is also a beautiful example in the collection of the Leiden museum of antiquities, bought for the museum by professor Böhl, actually (fig. 2)!