Memi And Sabu Essay

The Egyptian statue of Memi and Sabu, and the Sumerian statue of Gudea, are two sculptures that can be easily compared. Their relative geographical proximity, and their history age must be taken in account for any type of comparison. As shown in the below image, both works belong to middle east area with no more than 500 years between their realization. It’s therefore understandable that the crafting style is similar in many aspects. Even a non-expert person, can notice similarities in the carvings, similarities that can’t be found between sculptures of different ages, such as Greek statues or pre-Colombian civilizations ones.
Starting with the Egyptian Memi and Sabu statue, it was made of limestone between 2575–2465 B.C. It probably represents a married couple,
The inscriptions on his robe says “Gudea, the man who built the temple; may his life be long”
The purpose of these statues were very different. The Egyptian statue has the purpose of being buried in hidden chamber so that the spirit would could benefit from food and gifts brought by them. The statue wasn’t meant to be shown to the people, but it was meant for the death benefit. Differently from the Memi and
Sabu Statue, the Neo-Sumerian Statue had the purpose to be exposed and shown. In Neo-Sumerian culture,
Gudea was considered as an intermediary between people and God, and so he was a man of great power and respect. The statue, along with other Gudea statues were made to be placed in the temples Gudea built.
In conclusion we can say that even having different meanings, both statues reached their purpose of giving information according to their time. It’s interesting to notice how in ancient times sculptures were much more used to provide information rather than in our days, as we can adopt other means such like books and media in