One of two figures found facing each other in Ur, Sumer, c. 4500 BP (Early Dynastic III). The tubes coming up from their backs suggest they used to support something, maybe bowls, or a small table now gone. Found in the ‘Great Death Pit’, a mass grave in the Royal Cemetery at Ur… [1280×853] [OC]

…that contains the remains of 74 people, most of them bejeweled women. One woman found near the goat sculptures was more highly adorned than the others and may have been the primary burial, for whom 68 women and five men may have been sacrificed in a symbolic banquet. A cylinder seal from the grave suggests that the woman was a high priestess of the moon god, Nanna. This position, better evidenced in later periods, was held by the daughter of the reigning king. Her name and dynasty, however, remain unknown.

The statuettes may represent markhor goats, a type of Central and South Asian mountain goat with spiral horns. They stand with their forelegs on the branches of a flowering plant, as goats do when looking for food. Despite being goats, they are generally known as ‘Ram in a Thicket’ because they were named in 1928 by their discoverer after the story of the binding of Isaac in Genesis in which God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son but sends an angel to stop him and reveal a “ram caught in a thicket” which Abraham sacrifices instead.

The subject, however, is thought to be local and undoubtedly non-Biblical. It probably represents the fertility of the land. The eight-pointed flowers on the trunk are the sign of Inanna; the goat is the sign of her consort Dumuzi. These two deities are associated with the changing seasons and the cycle of life and death, making this an appropriate funerary offering. This portrayal of animal and plant life symbolizes nature and fertility, which were of crucial importance to the Sumerians and featured highly in their religion and art.

When they were discovered, the 18.0 in (45.7 cm) figures had been crushed flat by the weight of the soil above them and their inner wooden core had decomposed. This wooden core had been finely cut for the face and legs, but the body had been more roughly modelled. Wax was used to keep the pieces together as it was excavated, and the figure was gently pressed back into its original shape.

The materials for the goat furnishings were exotic. The ram’s head and legs are layered in gold leaf which had been hammered against the wood and stuck to it with a thin wash of bitumen, while its ears are copper which are now green with verdigris. The eye-pupils, the horns, the beard, and the fleece on its shoulders are of lapis lazuli, and the body’s fleece is made of shell, attached to a thicker coat of bitumen. The figure’s genitals are gold, while its belly was silver plate, now oxidized beyond restoration. The tree is also covered in gold leaf with gold flowers.

The figure stands on a small rectangular pedestal decorated with a mosaic of shell, red limestone and lapis lazuli. The goat was originally attached to the flowering shrub by silver chains around its fetlocks, but these chains have completely corroded away.

These two figures were found in the same cemetery as the [Standard of Ur](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/y141pz/standard_of_ur_war_panel_sumerian_empire_c_2600/).

As usual, my apologies for inaccuracies and mistakes.