Head of a Bull (3000–2000 BCE): Art, History and Details

Head of a Bull (3000–2000 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This bull head is carved in a banded stone. The sculptor has ingeniously planned the work so that the veins of the stone enhance the anatomy of the head. Inlays of stone, ivory, or gold (now missing) were set into the eyes and horn sockets. The other holes were used to attach the head to a body of a different material.

Object facts

• Title: Head of a Bull
• Date: 3000–2000 BCE
• Culture: Mesopotamia, Sumerian, Iraq, Tigris-Euphrates valley, Early Bronze Age I (c. 3300–c. 3000 BCE)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: chalcedony
• Dimensions: Overall: 3.1 x 2.9 x 4.3 cm (1 1/4 x 1 1/8 x 1 11/16 in.)
• Collection: Near Eastern Art
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1997.51

A detail from the museum

This object is made of quartz, which is used to make electronics today.

Collection credit

Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Museum Acquires Major Chuck Close Painting, 19th-century Fire Screen, Rare Prints & Drawings,” June 9, 1997, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Del Bufalo, Dario. Precious portraits: small precious stone sculptures of Imperial Rome. 2020.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.