Seated Ruler (2000–1700 BCE): Art, History and Details

Seated Ruler (2000–1700 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Four thousand years ago northern Syria was a crossroads of peoples and cultures, meeting through trade and military conflict. This statue of a portly man sitting on a low throne combines Assyrian and Amorite stylistic influences. It was possibly found at Ebla, where some scholars believe the biblical Abraham visited as he traveled from Chaldea to Canaan around 2000 bc. Such a large carved stone image suggests a local ruler or high official. The head was removed, probably in an act of ritual defilement, since decapitation was believed to cancel the object’s supernatural presence.

Object facts

• Title: Seated Ruler
• Date: 2000–1700 BCE
• Culture: North Syria, possibly Ebla
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: limestone with shell inclusions
• Dimensions: Overall: 66.7 x 38.2 x 54.6 cm (26 1/4 x 15 1/16 x 21 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Near Eastern Art
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1969.37

A detail from the museum

The remains of a beard can be seen at the neckline.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kozloff, Arielle P. "Three Ancient Near Eastern Celebrations and a Guest of Honor." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 1 (1974): 14-26.
• Orthmann, Winfried, Paolo Matthiae, and Michel Al-Maqdissi. Archeologie et histoire de la Syrie: I. La Syrie de l'epoque neolithique a l'age du fer. Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz Verlag, 2013.
• Blanchard, Vincent. Royaumes Oubliés:de l'empire Hittite aux Araméens. Paris: LienArt, 2019.

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.