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Bibliography:
Morandi Bonacossi
1996; Morandi Bonacossi 2003.
Housed in the Museum of the
Monastery of the Congregazione
Armena Mechitarista on the Island
of San Lazzaro in V
enice, this figurine
is an exceptional example of small-
sized statuary from the ancient Near
East of the protohistorical epoch.
The sculpture, 8.4 cm tall and 5.5 cm
wide, represents a nude kneeling man
with a bald head and a circular beard.
On his back he carries a jug whose
weight bends his torso forward. Two
large serpents covered in scales have
swallowed the man’s arms almost to
his shoulders; they intertwine behind
his back, immobilizing him, and wrap
around in two wide circular coils that
cover his sides, resting their tails on
the raised soles of the kneeling man’s
feet. On his cheeks are two incised
designs in the form of a star or rosette
with a diameter of 0.4–0.5 cm, perhaps
representing tattoos.
Unfortunately, the provenance of
the statuette is unknown. However,
despite the absence of conclusive
information about its origin and the
context in which it was discovered,
iconographic and stylistic analyses of
the artefact alone make it possible
to realistically propose its cultural
and chronological identity. Similarly,
chemical-physical analysis of the
stone allows us to hypothesize that
the region of provenance of the
polymineralic stone is the Zagros
Mountains of Iran, where the presence
of chloritized trachyandesite is well
documented. The high potassium
content typical of this volcanic rock
makes it a rather unique material with
limited diffusion, found in the volcanic
belt of the Iranian Zagros Mountains.
The most distinctive iconographic
aspects of the sculpture – the man’s
disc-like beard, his nakedness, his
kneeling pose with torso bent forward,
the typology of the vessel on his back,
and the fact that he is being attacked
and devoured by powerful snakes –
recur frequently in the statuary, reliefs
and engraved gems of southern
Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau
between the end of the fourth and
beginning of the third millennium BC.
1
For example, a man attacked and
devoured by two snakes is depicted
on a truncated cone-shaped vessel
with relief decorations coming
from the antiquities market but
perhaps found in Uruk, in the
flood plain of Southern Iraq. With
stylistic characteristics apparently
contemporaneous to the Venetian
statuette, the vessel is sculpted out
of a chloritized andesite quite similar
to the chloritized trachyandesite
of the Armenian collection. Two
other statuettes from the Southern
Mesopotamian area, most likely from
Tell es-Sukhairi and dating from the
late Protodynastic II – Protodynastic
III Periods (ca. 2600–2400 BC), depict
the same theme – a man imprisoned
and devoured by snakes – using a
very similar iconography to that of the
San Lazzaro figurine. In the same way,
the realistic execution, the attention
to details of the face and body of the
man carrying the vessel, the attempt
at delicate, plastic naturalistic effects
and, in contrast, the rendering of the
pectoral muscles with exaggerated,
rigid geometric volumes, the heavy,
square modelling of the legs and
feet, and the disproportion between
the man’s large head and his body
all powerfully express the dualism
between naturalism and schematic
rigidity that distinguishes the plastic
art of the archaic cultural horizon of
Mesopotamia at the end of the fourth
millennium BC.
Regarding the function of the San
Lazzaro statuette, the evidence
of the many figurines found in
temples or other sacred contexts in
Southern Mesopotamia representing
men or animals carrying vessels
and dating to between the Uruk
and Protodynastic periods (late
fourth – mid-third millennium BC)
suggests that our statuette was also
used in a cult context. On the other
hand, the iconography of the nude
male imprisoned and devoured by
snakes is more difficult to interpret.
The portrayal of lions and snakes
attacking and devouring a man-hero
represents a very ancient motif,
dating to the Middle Uruk period
in Mesopotamia (3500–3300 BC).
It is particularly diffuse in the Late
Uruk – Jemdet Nasr (3300–2900 BC)
in Mesopotamia and Iran, where it
also appeared in the Proto-Elamite
epoch (Susa III phase: 3100–2900
BC). Although the evidence is quite
ephemeral, it has been suggested that
the figure of a man carrying a vessel,
imprisoned and devoured by snakes,
may be associated with the third and
little-conserved part of the popular
Mesopotamian myth of Etana, well-
known through cuneiform texts from
the second and first millennium BC
(Winkelmann 2003, 2008). In the last
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