Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1(1):131-139
Shorter Notes
A Human-headed Bull Statue from
Tell Brak
David & Joan Oates
A unique human-headed bull statue (Frontispiece & Pis.
1-3) was discovered during the 1990 season of excava-
tions at the site of Tell Brak in north-eastern Syria.
The archaeological deposits at Brak represent
continuous occupation from at least as early as 6000 BC
until c. 1200 BC. The mound alone covers an area of some
43 ha and rises 45 m above the modern plain, twice the
size of the later Assyrian citadel mound at Nineveh, but
half again as high. The site occupied an important road
junction and still dominates the landscape in the south-
ern part of the Khabur basin, that area of Syria bounded
on the west by the River Khabur, a tributary of the Eu-
phrates, to the north by the Turkish mountains, and to
the south by Jebel Sinjar on the Iraqi frontier. Clearly an
important prehistoric site, Brak was one of the most
extensive early urban settlements in northern Mesopo-
tamia (Uruk to Early Dynastic periods, 4th/early 3rd
millennium BC). During the 23rd century BC the city
served as a provincial centre of administration under the
Akkadian kings of southern Mesopotamia, whose mili-
tary campaigns extended as far as the Mediterranean
and southern Turkey. Brak maintained its importance in
the 2nd millennium, when it was a major city of the
Mitanni Empire (c. 1550-1283 BC), and excavations of
remains of this period have revealed much new archaeo-
logical and historical information. But it is Akkadian
Brak that is the present focus of our research.
We know that Naram-Sin of Agade (c. 2254-2218
BC), who styled himself, not without reason, 'Mighty
King, King of the Four Quarters (of the world)', built at
Brak an enormous administrative complex, measuring
95 by 90 m, with outer walls some 9 m thick. This
building was excavated by the late Sir Max Mallowan in
1937-38, and until our recent work at the site it remained
the only monumental Akkadian building to have been
discovered. Relatively little was known of Akkadian
Mesopotamia, a period of considerable historical inter-
est, and Brak offered an obvious opportunity to remedy
this situation, especially since some two-thirds of the
mound area was abandoned not long after the Akkadian
occupation, making levels of this date unusually acces-
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sible. We resumed work at Brak in 1976, and since that
time have excavated Akkadian structures in five differ-
ent parts of the site, largely private houses which have
yielded an invaluable corpus of archaeological materi-
als, as well as rare Old Akkadian tablets dealing with
administration.
At the end of the 1987 season, an unusually well-
preserved building was discovered at the south-west
corner of the city, opposite the Naram-Sin administra-
tive 'palace'. Further investigation in the 1988 and 1990
seasons has revealed here an extraordinary ceremonial
structure, occupying an area of some 10,000 m2, with
walls standing in places to a height of 4-5 m. With the
exception of a typically Mesopotamian bent-axis temple
excavated in 1988 (Fig. 1, rooms 2 & 3), both the overall
plan of the building and its decoration are without
parallel. Throughout the building, wall recesses are sur-
mounted by mud-brick lintels with elaborately rebated
niches above them, while all important external and
internal walls are ornamented with engaged columns or
fluted pilasters in the mud plaster (e.g. Oates & Oates
1989, pis. XXffl-XXIV). That the large south courtyard
was designed for some outdoor ceremonial can be seen
from the massive stone dais set against the wide niche in
its northern facade.
Within the building the objects found on the floors
and in the fill date largely from the Akkadian period,
though some marginally earlier materials are present as
well. No later objects have been recovered. Both the
homogeneous nature of the fill and the deposits of
valuable objects on the floors of the building, and of
goblets and bowls of food on the surface of the fill,
demonstrate that the building was deliberately and
ritually buried, probably some time after its abandon-
ment. This leads us to attribute both the erection of the
complex and its ritual filling to the same, presumably
Akkadian, authority. The construction seems most likely
to have been the work of Naram-Sin, while the ritual
preservation of the building must have been the work of
one of his successors who briefly restored Akkadian
control in the North.
The human-headed bull is one of a number of
valuable objects discovered in the building, though not
in situ. It was found just above the latest floor of the south
courtyard, near the door leading from the courtyard into
room 30. like the building in which it was found, the
statue is unique. It is about 40 cm long, 30 cm high and
 David & Joan Oates

Plates 1 & 2. Front and rear views of the human-headed bull statue from Tell Brak.
Ht. 282 cm
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 A Human-headed Bull Statue from Tell Brak
Plate 3. Detail of top of head.
20 cm wide, and is made of a fine-grained caldte, the
'Mosul marble' of the much later Assyrian reliefs, of
which there is an extensive outcrop to the south of the
site, towards Jebel Sinjar. The piece is beautifully carved
- for example, the delicately smiling mouth, the line of
the chin and the cape-like fold over the back - and makes
a considerable visual impact. From its context, it can be
dated to a time no later than the Akkadian period, while
the style may suggest a slightly earlier origin.
Human-headed bulls are well-attested in the
iconography of late Early Dynastic cylinder seals, and
there are in addition a few small pieces of sculpture
conventionally dated to ED II. There is, however, no
other piece of the size or quality of the Brak statue, which
displays an interesting combination of South Meso-
potamian and North Syrian features. Perhaps the closest
stylistic parallels, in the delicate carving of the mouth
and the outline of the beard, are with Mari (e.g. Strom-
menger 1964, pi. XX), but Mari has no comparable bull-
men. Indeed the treatment of the beard and the shape of
the chin of the Brak statue differ radically from those of
contemporary Mari sculptures. The closest parallels for
the zig-2ag incision on the square-ended beard are to be
found in the Diyala area, in particular in the sculpture
from the Nintu Temple at Khafajah, levels V-VI, again
conventionally dated to ED II (Frankfort 1943, pis. 4,16,
etc.). Similar treatment of the beard is found also, though
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less commonly, in the Shara Temple at Tell Agrab
(Frankfort 1943, pi. 40) and the Sin Temple at Khafajah
(Frankfort 1939, pi. 33), also conventionally dated to ED
II. The style reappears in Syria in the 2nd miDennium (at
Ebla: Matthiae 1984, pi. 60), but this later Ebla beard is of
a different shape and ends in conventional Meso-
potamian curls.
A further Mesopotamian parallel can be found in
the small bearded cow from Khafajah (Frankfort 1943,
pis. 4648), in the treatment of the tail which lies under-
neath the body and along the flank. But here the style of
the carving (and certainly of the beard which is attached
by a strap around the nose!) is undoubtedly Sumerian.
An equally small human-headed bull protome from
Khafajah, also from Nintu Temple VI, resembles our
Brak statue solely in the treatment of the hair on the
forehead (Frankfort 1943, pi. 40).
An unusual and very striking stylistic device on
the Brak statue is the awkward foreleg, carved at a right-
angle to the body, so that it can be seen from the front.
The pose can be exactly paralleled at Ebla, in a small
wooden statuette plated with gold leaf (Matthiae 1984,
pi. 39), but the Ebla piece is otherwise very Meso-
potamian in style (beard, horns), and other animal statu-
ettes from Ebla display more conventional poses (e.g.
Matthiae 1984, pi. 39, top, & pi. 51). The evidence for the
stylistic origin of this awkward pose remains equivocal,
since it can also be paralleled on an Early Dynastic seal
from Sumer (?Ur, Strommenger 1964, pi. 64, row 2).
The eyes of the Brak piece are inlaid with ivory, in
preference to the more common shell, set into a black,
presumably bitumen, inlay. The pupil is represented by
a circular hole in the ivory, revealing the background
black. The central area would appear originally to have
had a further 'overlay7 representing the iris; this is
suggested by the darker area on the ivory surface, clearly
visible in the photographs.
The stylized horns suggest that our human-headed
bull may have been a minor deity, and the fact that the
statue was not found in situ in the Akkadian ceremonial
building does not exclude the possibility that it was
originally installed there. Its original position cannot, of
course, be established, but certainly it was to be viewed
from the front; this is shown both by the position of the
right foreleg and by the lack of detail on the lower back.
It may well have been one of a pair, and the later
tradition associating bull-men with temple doorways,
for example at 2nd millennium Ur (Oates 1986, fig. 52)
and Tell al-Rimah (PL 4; see also Oates 1967) suggests the
possibility of a similar position for the Brak piece. This is
not the place for an extended discussion of the differ-
ence, if any, between the human-headed bull, attested
on Early Dynastic seals (e.g. Strommenger 1964, pi. 64,
rows 2 & 4; Porada 1948, nos. 73,78, etc.), and especially
 David & Joan Oates

South Courtyard

Figure 1. Plan of the Akkadian ceremonial complex, Tell Brak, as revealed at the close of the 1990 excavations.

common at Brak, and the bull-man, with human upper
torso, also depicted on Early Dynastic seals (Strom-
menger 1964, pi. 64, upper right; Porada 1948,10, nos. 60,
75, etc.) and common as the guardian of doors in the 2nd
millennium. The Rimah statue, now to be seen in the
Mosul Museum, has not previously been published;
originally an impost block, it was washed out of the gate
chamber of the Great Temple during a heavy storm in
the winter of 1970-71. Its long skirt is unusual and its
style is, of course, very unlike the much earlier statue
from Brak.
Although the iconographic tradition of the new
Brak statue may derive from Southern Mesopotamia -
though in the light of our current ignorance even this
cannot be certain - we can at least be confident that the
style is not Sumerian. Whether the piece is North Meso-
potamian or North Syrian cannot, however, be estab-
lished on present evidence. Nor can we be certain whether
the piece is Akkadian or Early Dynastic in date. Indeed,
it is not impossible that our statue may be representative
of an essentially local artistic tradition. We know that
there were important dties in the Khabur area in the 3rd
millennium, of which Brak was undoubtedly one.
Moreover, at Brak the human-headed bull is obviously
an important local symbol; this is shown particularly by
the great variety of late Early Dynastic and Akkadian

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 A Human-headed Bull Statue from Tell Brak

Catalogue details: Human-headed recumbent bull

statue, height 282 cm, length 41.5, width 165; excava-
tion registration number 4493; museum catalogue
number TB 11001; site locus number SS 585.

David & Joan Oates

Faculty of Oriental Studies
Sidgwick Avenue
Cambridge CB3 9DA

References
Frankfort, H., 1939. Sculpture of the Third Millennium BC
from Tell Asmar and Khafajah. Oriental Institute
Publications 40. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press
Frankfort, H., 1943. More Sculpture from the Diyala Regbn.
Oriental Institute Publications 44. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press
Matthiae, P., 1984. I tesori di Ebla. Rome: Laterza
Oates, D., 1967. The excavations at Tell al Rimah, 1966.
Iraq 29, 70-%
Oates, D., & Oates, J., 1989. The Akkadian Buildings at
Tell Brak. Iraq 51, 193-211
Oates, J., 1986. Babylon. Revised ed., London: Thames &
Hudson
Porada, E., 1948. Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in
North American Collections I: The Collection of the
Pierpont Morgan library. New York: Pantheon Books
Strommenger, E., 1964. The Art of Mesopotamia. London:
Thames & Hudson
Plate 4. Bull-man impost block from the gate chamber of the
Great Temple, Tell al Rimah, c. 1700flC.Ht. offigurec. 1.0 m

seal impressions depicting isolated and repeating bull-

man heads, both naturalistic and very stylized (see e.g.
Oates & dates 1989, 205). During the 1990 season some
30 examples of such sealings were recovered from room
18 alone, of which only half was excavated. Brak was an
important centre of Akkadian provincial administra-
tion, but there existed here a major city tong before the
advent of Sargon and Naram-Sin. We are ignorant of
much of this earlier history, not only at Brak but in the
region as a whole. Our bull-man's enigmatic smile con-
ceals many historical secrets, at least some of which, we
hope, may be revealed in future seasons. In the mean-
time this rare and striking example of 3rd millennium
sculpture is soon to be installed in the new Museum of
the city of Deir ez-Zor.

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