"Ram in a Thicket" – British Museum, Bloomsbury, London, England

Although this Sumerian statue, dating from about 2500 BCE, is known as the Ram in a Thicket, it more accurately depicts a goat. The animal stands with its forelegs on the branches of a flowering plant, as goats do when looking for food. This was one of a pair, found by Sir Leonard Wooley in 1928-29 in one of the Royal Tombs of Ur, in a grave that he called the "Great Death Pit" The other is in the University Museum, Philadelphia. Woolley named them "Ram in a Thicket" in reference to the passage in the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 22:13), where Abraham sacrifices a ram caught in a thicket by his horns, in place of his son, Isaac.

Ur was a wealthy and influential city-state in ancient Sumer, and its royal tombs - with their precious objects, many of which were inlaid with gold and precious stones - clearly demonstrate the city's advances in goldsmithing techniques and jewllery art, equalled only by the goldsmiths of Egypt. The plant, with its rosettes and buds, and the face and legs of the goat are made with gold leaf. The goat's ears are copper and its twisted horns and the fleece on its shoulders are lapis lazuli. The body fleece is white shell. The rectangular base is decorated with a mosaic of shell, red limestone and lapis lazuli. It was originally made with a wooden core and the inlay pieces were attached with bitumen. The gold cylinder rising from the back of the goat's neck indicates that it was a support for something, possibly a small table or stand. This portrayal of animal and plant life symbolizes nature and fertility, which were of crucial importance to the Sumerians and featured highly in their religion and art.