Fragment of a Trough with a Nude Male Figure in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2008

Fragment of a Trough with a Nude Male Figure in Relief
Alabaster (gypsum)
Southern Mesopotamia
Late Uruk-Jemdet Nasr period, 3300-2900 BC

Accession # 1983.527

Two categories of persons appear nude in early Mesopotamian art: humiliated prisoners and priests in a state of cultic purity. Here a priest holds a rope, most likely leading an animal offering to the temple.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.