The DUMU.NINTU style

Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati – July 2000, June 2025

Stylistic characteristics

In examining the carving of the human figures in this Urkesh style we can see that the head of human figures is carved in a circle or an oval with nose as part of the exterior circle and small lips and chin. The effect is a wide depression around the interior of the head with a small dot in the center. All the human figures, as well as the animals, have full bodies. In this style there are wide even spaces between the figures. The human torsos are basically triangular in shape but the triangles are full and attached to other parts of the human body so that the triangle is not emphasized, see for example A6.103.

Head of the animals is made also by a strong exterior circle with a dot in the center; the horns are long elegant lines, see for example A06.147. A5.137 GET DRAWING is a good example of this style but in a more complicated and not as elegant composition. The heads are a thicker line, especially at the top. The noses are made in the same way as drill hole at the end of the line. The seated figure and the bull have this type face but the eye in the attendant is smaller and more realistically rendered. In the case of the bull the horns are shown as an angular pattern. In the bull too there is a contrast between the full body and the thin lines for the legs, especially the front legs. The legs of the servant are also shown as thin lines. The crescent with a dot in it can be seen also in the Deep Fringe style.

A similar way of rendering the heads can be seen in A5q835.3. GET DRAWING This is an example of the bird and the nude woman. The head of the bird is in a modified style. The body of the nude female is essentially an outline similar to the head of the bull in A5.137. The spacing of the figures in this design is very tight and no longer the elegant one of the DUMU NINTH (GET DRAWING These style characteristics must also be the case for the other bird-nude scene - CK COMPOSIT). The star in A5.70 GET DRAWING is similar to the DUMU NINTU style because it has a depression in the center and a dot within this. The two faces however are shown in a style close to the faces in the Deep Fringe Style. This is an indication that there is an overlap between the two styles.

Geometric variant

Some of the figures in these seals can have a very geometric quality. For example A5q923.6 GET DRAWING shows a small figure with a circle as the outer portion of the head and with a depression in the center which gives a similar effect as the dotted eyes of the DUMU NINTU style. The next figure is a large person with the head and the torso in the shape of a triangle a single drill hole serves as the neck. This same figure appears to be rolled on A5q939.9. GET DRAWING A unique scene which probably belongs to this style is A5q680-o.GET DRAWING It shows what appears to be an animal herd with at least two animal necks and heads behind the full body of an animal, probably a goat, standing on all four legs. The eyes of the animals are done in the DUMU NINTU style even though the figures are very small as it must have been a small seal (the preserved portion we have is only 1 cm high but since we only have a portion of the original it must have been somewhat higher but not appreciably so).

Fussy variant

A very fussy extreme to this style can be seen in two other sealings: A5.180 and A5.153. A5.180 is an animal combat scene with small figures with heads done in the same way as the other seals carved in the DUMU NINTU style. This rolling shows the origin of this style in the Early Dynastic period because of the small fussy drill work (SEE one of the styles of the Brak sealings). A5. 153 GET DRAWING is a scene in which the line around the face is fuller but there is still a depression before the eye and the eye is shown as a dot in the one head we have on the rolling. The composition is unique in that there is a frame around two. The frame appears to be rectangular and is wide at the top and double along the side before the next box which has an unclear figure in it.