One of the World’s First Diplomats Goes Home
On Tuesday, September 7, the United States returned to Iraq hundreds of historic objects that had found their way over here during the past decade. Among them was a stone statue of a Mesopotamian king, thirty inches tall, three hundred pounds and missing its head. It had been looted from a museum in Baghdad in 2003, returned to the Iraqi ambassador in 2006, and it has now been delivered home. Appropriately enough, the man who commissioned it, 4,400 years ago, was himself a diplomat who cared about international relations and who helped create the idea of alliances between states.
The statue is of Enmetena (also written Entemena), a king who ruled the city-state of Lagash in what is now southern Iraq, two thousand years before the classical age of the Greeks. It is one of the earliest free-standing statues of a king and it was carved out of diorite, a hard black stone. Diorite was not found near Lagash, or anywhere else in Mesopotamia. Enmetena probably acquired this stone from what is now Oman, ancient Magan, about eight hundred miles to the south of his kingdom. Mesopotamian kings obtained copper from there as well. Although it is just possible that a Mesopotamian raid in the area brought the block of diorite to Lagash, it is more likely that the king of Lagash traded for it, with both lands benefiting. The Mesopotamians traded widely, even at this early date, getting semi-precious stones, gold, silver, pearls and other luxury goods from as far away as Iran, Afghanistan, and the Indus Valley. So the first stage in the statue’s life probably involved a peaceful transaction between Lagash and Magan.
Next, the statue of the king was carved; he was depicted standing, wearing a flounced skirt, with his hands folded in prayer. Then an inscription was incised in cuneiform. A royal statue in ancient Mesopotamia was not just a depiction of the king; it was seen as an embodiment of him, standing in for the king almost like a living entity. The inscription on the statue made this clear. It ended by describing the creation of the statue itself: “At that time, Enmetena fashioned his statue, named it ‘Enmetena whom Enlil loves’ and set it up before Enlil in the temple. Enmetena … may his personal god Shulutul forever pray to Enlil for the life of Enmetena.” The statue would, he thought, stand forever in a temple in Lagash, right in front of the statue of the god Enlil (which was an embodiment of the god), praying for Enmetena’s life.
Throughout Mesopotamian history, kings created statues of themselves and placed them in temples around their kingdoms for this very reason. Sometimes when they conquered foreign lands they placed their statues in temples in those lands. The statues then, they thought, prayed constantly to the foreign gods for their support (while reminding the foreign rulers of who was now in charge).
Presumably Enmetena’s statue, once finished, was placed in the temple to the god Enlil, in his own city of Lagash. But it did not stay there. At some point during or soon after Enmetena’s reign the statue was moved to the city of Ur, south of Lagash, and its head was knocked off. There are two ways that the statue might have ended up there. Perhaps Enmetena conquered Ur and sent his statue there to stand in for himself. If so, the head might have been broken off at a time when Lagash no longer controlled Ur and retribution was called for. (One can think of many times in world history when statues of discredited or deposed leaders have been vandalized.) Or perhaps the reverse happened, and the king of Ur conquered Lagash. In this case he may have broken the head off Enmetena’s statue to symbolize the defeat of Lagash, and taken the mutilated statue back to Ur with him as booty. Either way, the statue’s transfer to another city took place because of a war.
Enmetena was not only known as a fighter, however. The inscription on his statue is notable for its lack of references to warfare. He mentioned instead the temples that he had built during his reign. He also was one of the first kings in the world to have referred to diplomacy in his royal inscriptions. He used the Sumerian term nam-shesh, “brotherhood,” in reference to his relationship with a king of another city-state. They had agreed to a peaceful coexistence and to regard one another as brothers and equals. For over a thousand years after this, brotherhood (alliance) was a goal of Mesopotamian kings, achieved through negotiations, the exchange of ambassadors and letters, and the creation of peace treaties.
In any event, the next, and longest, stage in the life of Enmetena’s now headless statue was when it was abandoned, covered in debris, and lost under later levels of the temple complex at Ur. Early in the twentieth century it was rediscovered during excavations there and recognized as one of the finest sculptures yet known for such an early period. The statue was moved to the museum in Baghdad where it remained until 2003, when looters dislodged it, rolled it down the stairs (destroying the staircase in the process), and spirited it away. Eventually it was recovered at Kennedy Airport in New York.
No doubt Enmetena would have been astonished to learn that his statue made a journey so far away (to him the world did not extend far beyond distant Magan). The statue’s return to Iraq, and the good will implied by that gesture, might, however, have pleased him. He was, after all, a man who traded with foreign lands and prided himself on his diplomatic relations with his neighbors. His statue can be seen as a symbol of nam-shesh, brotherhood, between two states.