RAM IN THE THICKETUr, Mesopotamiac.2600-2500 BCE“Sir Leonard Woolley dubbed this statuette the

RAM IN THE THICKET

Ur, Mesopotamia

c.2600-2500 BCE

“Sir Leonard Woolley dubbed this statuette the “ram caught in a thicket” as an allusion to the biblical story of Abraham sacrificing a ram. It actually depicts a markhor goat eating the leaves of a tree. One of two such objects excavated from The Great Death Pit at Ur, the other is housed at the British Museum. Little of the original Ram survived when Woolley excavated it, which he did by pouring wax on it and using waxed muslin strips to stabilize it. In Woolley’s original reconstruction of the Ram, he miscalculated the height of the animal and placed the tree too deeply into the base, causing the Ram’s legs to dangle above the tree’s branches.”

https://www.penn.museum/collections/highlights/neareast/ram.php