Answer:More than 4,000 years ago the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers began to teem with life--first the Sumerian, then the Babylonian, Assyrian, Chaldean, and Persian empires. Here too excavations have unearthed evidence of great skill and artistry. Examples of fine works in marble, diorite, hammered gold, and lapis lazuli have been found. Stone, wood, and metal was imported. Sumerian art and architecture was ornate and complex - primarily used for religious purposes - painting and sculpture the main median used.
Of the many portraits produced in this area, some of the best are those of Gudea, ruler of Lagash. Some of the portraits are in marble, others, such as the one in the Louvre in Paris, are cut in gray-black diorite. Dating from about 2400 BC, they have the smooth perfection and idealized features of the classical period in Sumerian art.
Clay was the Sumerians' most abundant material. Sumerian techniques and motifs were widely available because of the invention of cuneiform writing before 3000 B.C. Among other Sumerian arts forms were highly sophisticated clay cylinder seals used to mark documents or property.
The famous votive marble sculptures from Tell Asmar represent tall, bearded figures with huge, staring eyes and long, pleated skirts. The tallest figure is about 30 inches in height. He represents the god of vegetation. The next tallest represents a mother goddess-mother goddesses were common in many ancient cultures. They were worshipped in the hope that they would bring fertility to women and to crops. (Another connection to African culture.)
The next largest figures are priests. The smallest figures are worshippers - a definite hierarchy of size. This is an example of artistic iconography. We learn to read picture symbols- - bodies are cylindrical and scarcely differentiated by gender, with their uplifted heads and hands clasped. This is a pose of supplication-wanting or waiting for something.
Ur yielded much outstanding Sumerian work, e.g., a wooden harp with the head of a bull on top, showing mythological scenes in gold and mosaic inlay on the sound box (c.2650 B.C., Univ. of Penn., Philadelphia).
This system of writing developed before the last centuries of the 4th millennium B.C. in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valley, most likely by the Sumerians. The characters consist of arrangements of wedge-like strokes, generally on clay tablets. The history of the script is strikingly like that of the Egyptian hieroglyphic.
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