André Parrot 1954

Marco De Pietri – July 2019

“Acquisitions et inédits du musée du Louvre,”
Syria 31:1-2, pp. 1-13.
Webpage

Parrot presents in this contribution the publication of some Mesopotamian and North-Syrian materials, including the famous bronze foundation, lion-shaped nail holding a white-stone tablet inscribed with a dedication text (25 lines in Hurrian) of king Tiš-atal of Urkesh (AO 19937).
This masterwork was purchased in 1948 on the antiquity market by the Louvre Museum, thanks to the efforts of the ‘Société des Amis du Louvre’; unfortunately, the provenance of the objects was not ensured, but the analysis of the text does not leave any doubts about its origin from Urkesh.

The author then discusses the dedication text on the same tablet: “Il s’agit d’un texte hurrite, dédicace du temple de Pirigal, par Tisari, roi d’Urkesh” (p. 12; cf. ivi, n. 11: “Au lieu de Tisari, A. Goetze lit Tishatal”).

On p. 12, Parrot also compares the Louvre lion with its ‘twin’ kept at the MET, also purchased on the antiquity market and thus with no clear provenance.

Parrot also presents some remarks about the identification of the city of Urkesh, at that time yet undiscovered, recalling papers by Thureau-Dangin (on the ‘Samarra tablet’), Nougayrol and Goetze, stressing in the end as follows: “Une fouille en cet emplacement [i.e., Urkesh], résidence du dieu hurrite Kumarbi, risquerait fort d’être rémunératrice. Les deux lions hurrites qui en proviennent ne laissent aucun doute à cet égard” (p. 13).