Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh – Ancaster 2015 (SOLD)

I was looking for a new idea for a head and I came across an assyrian bronze head from Nineveh that caught my attention. It is supposed to be from king Sargon the Great but many think it represents Gilgamesh, the epic hero of the Mesopotamic civilizations. It is incredibly complex in its simplicity of lines and proportions. It carries royalty, strenght and elegance at the same time. Unfortunately the eyes and the ears have been damaged. Usually ancient statues had precious stones instead of eyes and a quick look at contemporary statues suggested me that this head might have had precious earrings too. As new masters conquered Nineveh they gouged these stones out of statues, hence the empy sockets.

The design of the beard is particularly intricate. I loved the beard so I couldn’t resist to carve it. I chose ancaster as it reminds me of a stone that ancient peoples would have used (like egyptians or assyrians -or think about the roman city of Petra in Jordan) and I took some liberties in changing few features like eyebrows’ shape and the bottom part of the beard. Plus I had to “re-invent” eyes, ears and the back of the head since the first two were damaged and the last one wasn’t possible to see due to lack of photos. So it’s a modern take on an ancient classic, although it was never meant to be a copy anyway but just an inspiration for a bearded head. Carving it and studying the perfect proportions of it taught me a lot about the ancient way of highlighting a detail and I am sure I will use these techniques in the future.

Bibliography: Gilgamesh, Stephen Mitchell, Profile books