More on the "Ur-Nammu" stela.

• Author: Canby, Jeanny Vorys
• Position: Letter to the Editor

It was gratifying to see a review of my work on a famous Mesopotamian monument of the late third millennium B.C. in a journal usually concerned with ancient Mesopotamian written documents. (1) Irene Winter's skepticism about my reconstruction of what has been known as the "Ur-Nammu" stela for seventy-five years, however, was wide-ranging and calls for a reply. Apparently she only skimmed the book. Otherwise she would have learned that most of the broken stela was found in pieces near its base in the Dublalmakh court, (2) that the block with two entwined wrestlers (who cannot be one figure bathing (3)) was found in the Kassite Ningal temple on the ziggurat terrace, (4) that the intentionally ambiguous terms "good" and "poor" face describe the present condition of the fragments, a condition due to the original character of the stone, (5) not to weathering.

The "scenes" on the Gudea stelae Winter refers to were not used for comparison because they are not ancient. Those in the top registers in the Istanbul and Berlin museums are, like the old "Ur-Nammu" stela, combinations of fragments put together in the early twentieth century. Fuller reconstructions on paper by later scholars are pure speculation. The latter, done without consideration of the stone beneath the relief surface can result in serious errors such as both faces of the top register of the "Ur-Nammu" stela appearing on one face in a much-used handbook on ancient Near Eastern art. (6) There is, unfortunately, no room on the stone of the "Ur-Nammu" stela to fit an introduction scene (7) or the wrestlers whose place is ensured by the edge of the inscription below them, (8) nor is there enough evidence to put the elaborate new chariot (9) where Winter suggests.

It would be a pity for such unwarranted skepticism to discourage cuneiform scholars from studying the forty-five feet of narrative relief on the two faces of the "Ur-Nammu" stela, especially those who have used earlier versions. The unique iconographical importance of the stela is that long scenes are preserved and that we know their order. As is explained in perhaps tedious detail in my section on reconstruction, no fragment was included unless its position was absolutely sure. This explains why two-thirds of the fragments, including...