“The Sacrificial Ram”: Golden Statue in the History of Art

The paper deals with a gold human figure, carrying a ram on its shoulders, kept at the National Museum of History of Azerbaijan (Fig. 1-2). This statue, a rare, small example of plastic art, was taken from a destroyed grave in the south-east of Azerbaijan, in the territory of Lerik district, and was handed over to the Museum of History in 2012. Although the analogies of the statue, distinguished by its uniqueness, have not been found in the South Caucasus up to date, there is no doubt that such figures existed in the ancient art history of the Near and Central East. Also similar images depicted on numerous metal and pottery items, especially demonstrate prototypes of Mannaean, Assyrian and Urartian art of the 9th – 8th century BC. At the same time, this statue with the image of a man carrying a ram on his shoulders can be considered as a traditional continuation of the ritual rite of “sacrificial ram” in the South Caucasus. Because, the discovery of a great number of ram figures in the territory of Azerbaijan in the ancient Eneolithic-Early Bronze Age settlements (Исмаилзаде, 2008, с. 106) and even the use of tombstones with ram images in burial customs in the later antique, early and advanced Middle Ages (Kərimov, 2006, s. 79–81) should be considered as solid facts proving that “sheep-rams” were a sacred symbol in the district for thousands of years. The main goal of the paper is to comprehensively involve this rare find in scientific research and conduct analogies to determine its period.