The curves and the attention to detail tell us that the Guennol Lioness was made by a master craftsman of ancient times. The superbly realistic curves of the body, the natural posture and the detailed leonine head tell us that the man and his compatriots had a good knowledge of both the lion form, and the muscular human anatomy. However, the figure seems unfinished: its form ends abruptly just at the knees. The stumps of the legs are smoothed off, and one stumps shows a dowel hole that suggests that the lower legs were attached separately, perhaps created from a different material. Another theory is that the lower legs were broken off, by accident or on purpose, and that someone made attempts at repair with the hole that was drilled. Nevertheless, the legs were never found and thus the Guennol Lioness remains known as she is. And legs or no, she is still magnificent.
The Guennol Lioness was certainly made in the Ancient Near East by the Iranian Proto-Elamite culture. Elam was a sophisticated ancient civilization situated in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, perched on the banks of the Persian Gulf. (Morningstar1814 / CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Guennol Lioness: From the Dawn of Time to a Collection
What about its provenance? For researchers, tackling this question was a big challenge. This is mainly due to the fact that the Guennol Lioness hails from a private collection and was not found through conventional archeological excavations. The sculpture belonged to the collection of a noted art dealer and collector, Joseph Brummer, and was acquired from him by a private collector, Alastair Bradley Martin. How it came into the collection of Brummer in the first place remains somewhat of a mystery.
Many works of ancient art find their way to private collections through channels that are questionable and enigmatic. Alleged claims say that it was found, likely in the early 1900s, in Baghdad, Iraq. Still, a general consensus on its age has been agreed on. The leading scholars agree that it originates in the Ancient Near East, and that it belongs to the Proto-Elamite culture.
Elam was an ancient civilization situated in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, perched on the banks of the Persian Gulf. With its center in the capital city of Susa, Elam civilization and its states were the leading political players in the Ancient Near East. Existing from roughly 3200 BC to 529 BC, it was contemporaneous with the earliest civilizations of Sumer, in Mesopotamia.
And the states of Elam and of Mesopotamia were ever at odds as long-term enemies. And the Guennol Lioness is dated to the earliest stages of Elam, to the so-called Proto-Elamite stage, or Susa III. That places the figure’s creation date to around 3,200 to 2,800 BC. Many agree that the figure was contemporaneous with the earliest most significant inventions of mankind, such as the first use of the wheel, the appearance of the first large cities, and the invention of cuneiform writing.
But what does the figure represent. Sure, one can simply say that the Elamite artist, some 5,000 years ago, created nothing more than a human body with the head of a lioness. But such a crude explanation is not acceptable. There is more to this work of art, and a better explanation requires thorough research and knowledge of ancient Near Eastern history. That is something that people on the fringe did not possess. They are those that claim that the Guennol Lioness is a clear proof of an ancient race “of lion-headed people”. Right! But if we once again remember that wonderful thing called “biology,” and we recover the bearings of logic and common sense, we can finally decipher the actual meaning of the Guennol Lioness. And you’d be surprised how logical it all seems!
Lions lived all around most ancient Near East civilizations and they were revered as above by the ᴀssyrians’ famous Ishtar Gate, where Ishtar is another name for the legendary Inanna goddess. The Guennol Lioness was present in Elam in real form and also for her attributes that were used for the ancient Leo lion zodiac form. (Einsamer Schütze / CC BY-SA 3.0)
An Explanation that Lies Within Nature
The ancient civilizations of the world were always fascinated by the zodiac. Leo, Capricorn, Taurus, Scorpio, the creatures from our own world, were natural and akin to us. It is no wonder that the ancient people chose them to create their own solar calendar, and the distinct 12 months of the year, the 12 signs of the zodiac. Because each of the zodiac signs corresponds to a natural occurrence of a respective part of a year. And Leo the lion is no exception. It was chosen by the early Near Eastern civilizations for the months of July and August, because that is the H๏τ and dry part of the year, and the time when the Eurasian Lion begins its mating season.
And when this is considered, it is then no wonder that many of the Ancient Near Eastern deities were represented as lions, or alongside them. The foremost of these is the famed goddess Inanna. A major deity of Sumer, she was also worshiped extensively by the Babylonians, ᴀssyrians, and the Akkadians, who called her “Ishtar.” Inanna was ᴀssociated with the planet Venus and the Morning Star, and her most prominent symbols were a lion and an eight-pointed star. In her most famous depictions, many of them from Akkadian cylinder seals from roughly 2500 BC, she is depicted astride a lion, or standing on top of one. Why? This is because she was depicted “in Leo,” as she rose in the month of Leo, according to ancient zodiacs. And all of this is because the ancient peoples of the Near East ᴀssociated Inanna with the star Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens.
Around 3,000 BC, Sirius rose before the Sun, and was thus seen as the “morning star.” The ancient ᴀssyrians called their Goddess Inanna (Ishtar) as “ Inanna, Great Light, Lioness of Heaven.” This, together with her connection with lions and her depictions with them, is made all the more logical since she was Sirius, the star rising in Leo. From all this, we can understand that the ancient peoples were well aware of stars and constellations and found them important in their early beliefs.
They also understood the H๏τ and dry parts of the year, and the wet ones, and observed the events unfolding yearly in nature to create their own solar calendar and the zodiac. So, for example, the annual rise of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt, one of the most important times of the year for this ancient civilization. Likewise, the Ancient Greeks observed the special “dog days” when Sirius rose, the days of the year when it is H๏τtest and driest.
The goddess Inanna standing on two lions is the star Sirius which rises during the H๏τtest and driest time of the year in Iran, August, which is in the Leo zodiac period from July 23 to August 22. (British Museum / Public domain)
The H๏τ and Dry Part of the Year Converted into Art
From all this, we can understand that the Guennol Lioness is likely an early depiction of Inanna, or some other, early form of this Near Eastern goddess. The lion-headed human symbolizes the Sirius star, the destructive H๏τ and dry part of the year when droughts and sudden thunderstorms can destroy crops and become the boundary between life and death. The lion too, especially the lioness, is powerful and violent, and was seen by peoples in early civilizations as a being of great importance and majesty. And if we consider that many depictions of Inanna are linked with a leonine form, the whole thing seems even easier to understand.
What is more, the people of ancient Mesopotamia had many demonic creatures in their mythology that were depicted as lion-headed. For example, there is mention of a lion centaur called Urmaḫlullû, who “ fended off attacks of the leonine demon Mulkil-reš-lemutti.”
Of course, it is important to remember that much older lion-headed figures have been found elsewhere in the world, long before the Guennol Lioness was crafted. By far the most spectacular of such finds is the Löwenmensch figure, also known as the Lion-man, which was found in the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave. This spectacular figurine was made from ivory and depicts an upright man with the head of a cave lion. It has been dated to roughly 40,000 years before present, which puts it into the archeological Aurignacian culture of the Upper Paleolithic. As such it is the oldest artistic representation, and one of the oldest statues ever discovered. It is not the only such lion-headed figure discovered in modern-day Germany and dated to roughly the same era. Finds from the Geissenklösterle, Hohle Fels, and Vogelherd caves are all very similar.
The stars fascinated people living in the earliest civilizations and they were linked to the seasonal changes on earth and from there turned into zodiac representations. (vovan / Adobe Stock)
Have Human Beings Always Looked Up into the Stars?
What we know of the distant past is that stone age man likely revered powerful creatures such as the cave bear and the cave lion. But is it possible that they too also recognized the movements of the stars and the yearly dry and wet cycles of the year? Could the Löwenmensch figure also represent the anthropomorphic representation of the H๏τtest and most destructive part of the year? It is quite likely. Perhaps our distant ancestors were much more advanced and rational than we think.
