Here is an impressive statuette from Ur (now in Iraq), 45cm tall, 2600–2400 BC. More explanation from the British Museum below.
The 'Ram in a Thicket'
This is one of an almost identical pair discovered by Leonard Woolley in the 'Great Death Pit'. The other is now in the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia.
Woolley, who liked biblical allusions, named the animal after the Old Testament passage when God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, but at the last moment 'Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son' (Genesis 22:13). However, the animal is more accurately described as a goat, reaching up for the tastiest branches in a pose often adopted by goats.
When found, the figure had been crushed flat by the weight of the soil and the wooden core had perished. Wax was used to keep the pieces together as it was lifted from the ground, and it was then pressed back into shape. The animal's head and legs are covered in gold leaf, its ears are copper (now green), its twisted horns and the fleece on its shoulders are of lapis lazuli and its body fleece is made of shell. Its genitals are gold. The tree is covered in gold leaf, with golden flowers, the whole supported on a small rectangular base decorated with a mosaic of shell, red limestone and lapis lazuli. The tube rising from the goat's shoulders suggests it was used to support something, most likely a bowl.
