Pergamonmuseum - Vorderasiatisches Museum 016

The Sam'al lions are a number of lion-shaped statues from Sam'al, the modern Zincirli, which are currently located in the

Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin The Vorderasiatisches Museum (, ''Near East Museum'') is an archaeological museum in Berlin. It is in the basement of the south wing of the Pergamon Museum and has one of the world's largest collections of Southwest Asian art. 14 halls distrib ...

(

Pergamon Museum The Pergamon Museum (; ) is a Kulturdenkmal , listed building on the Museum Island in the Mitte (locality), historic centre of Berlin, Germany. It was built from 1910 to 1930 by order of Emperor Wilhelm II, German Emperor, Wilhelm II and accordi ...

), the

Museum of the Ancient Orient The Museum of the Ancient Orient () is a museum in Istanbul, and part of the Istanbul Archaeology Museums complex, located opposite the main Archaeology Museum building. The museum is housed in the former building of the Ottoman College of Fine A ...

(Istanbul) and the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

Pergamon lions

The lions are made from

dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grain ...

. They are 1.9 metres high, 2.9-3.05 metres long and 0.85-.0.9 metres wide. The figures have the inventory numbers VAG 1042, VA 2719, VA 2718 und VA 3001. Three of the lions are originals, one of them is a plaster cast.Wartke, 1992, pp. 218-221. The lions come, and have been dated between the 10th and 8th centuries BC. They probably belong to the inner part of the east gate of the city, but were discovered in a secondary deposition. All four lions differ from one another in details. The differences are so great that current scholarship argues that the outer lions must date to the 10th century BC and the inner lions to the 8th century. Both statues stand nearly square with one another. The sides are only carved in shallow relief. The later lions have been created by reworking older statues. They are more detached from the walls than the older ones and details like the manes and extremities have been more starkly worked. In addition, the mouths are opened more widely and give a more threatening impression. The lions served as

orthostates In the context of classical Greek architecture, orthostates are squared stone blocks much greater in height than depth that are usually built into the lower portion of a wall. They are so called because they seem to "stand upright" rather than ...

and thus had both a decorative and a structural role. The lions are displayed in room 2 (Syria and Asia Minor) of the Pergamonmuseum. They form an ensemble with other parts of the

City gate of Sam'al A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

and are located at the opposite end of the

processional way of Babylon Processional is anything of, and or pertaining to a procession. Processional may also refer to: * ''Processional'' (play), a 1925 play by John Howard Lawson * Roman Processional, the tenth chapter of the ''Roman Ritual'' *Processional cross, a cr ...

from the

Ishtar gate The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon (in the area of present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq). It was constructed by order of King Nebuchadnezzar II on the north side of the city. It was part of a grand walled proce ...

. The statues were found by the Orient-Comité excavations in 1890/91 and brought to Berlin as

partage Partage, from the French word "partager" meaning "to share," was a system put in place to divide up ownership of excavated artifacts during the early part of the 20th century. This system was mostly notably employed in Egypt, Iraq, Cyprus, Syria, T ...

(which was common at the time).

Istanbul lions

Two associated lion statues are now on display in the Istanbul Museum of the Ancient Orient.

Gallery

File:Pergamonmuseum - Vorderasiatisches Museum 014.JPG, Lions from the right side, with the later lion at left and the older one at right (Pergamon) File:Pergamonmuseum Torloewen 03.jpg, Head of the left later lion (Pergamon) File:Colossal lion head-AO 8188-IMG 3941-white.jpg,

lion head from Sam'al File:Istanbul - Museo archeol. - Leoni ittiti - Foto G. Dall'Orto 28-5-2006.jpg , Outside the

, Istanbul

References

Bibliography

* , "Rekonstruktion eines Burgtores (mit Blick in Richtung Prozessionsstraße und Istar-Tor)," and "Zwei Torlöwen," in

Liane Jakob-Rost Liane Jakob-Rost (born 1928 in Berlin) is a German Assyriologist. Liane Jakob-Rost studied Ancient Near Eastern languages at the University of Berlin. From 1949 she worked at the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin in Berlin, as an academic employee ...

et al., ''Das Vorderasiatische Museum'', von Zabern, Mainz 1992, pp. 218–221 {{Coord, 52, 31, 15, N, 13, 23, 47, E, region:DE-BE_type:landmark, display=title Antikensammlung Berlin Findings in Turkey outside Turkey Sculptures of lions Sculptures in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin