Sumerian Red Stone Animal Amulet

"Animal of Noah's Ark". Ancient Sumeria, c. 3000-2000 BCE. Nice little red steatite amulet of a bull. With nicely-incised, stylistic features, holed-through vertically for suspension. Intact, with dark red color. Mounted in nice magnetic frame.

The Flood Story has captivated people’s imagination for more than 4,000 years. In the Biblical Book of Genesis, Noah builds a large boat (the Ark) and proceeds to load a male and female of each species of animal into the Ark to protect life from the great flood. But a much older version of the Flood Story appears in the Sumerian language in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Sumerian Noah is called Ziusudra, and his story, ancient even to the Biblical writers, took place in Mesopotamia.

These amulets were created from a variety of materials, and date from the late 4th to the 1st Millennium BCE. They represent some of the animal passengers saved by Ziusudra (the Sumerian Noah) from perishing in the flood waters, made and used by people from the region and time period where the Flood Story first appeared.

This amulet comes from a collection formed in the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, and donated to the California Museum of Ancient Art in 1989. The collection was recently deaccessioned to raise funds for the Museum's Antiquities Acquisition Fund.