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Ram in a Thicket

The Ram in a Thicket is a pair of figures excavated at Ur, in southern Iraq, which date from about 2600–2400 BC. One is in the Mesopotamia Gallery in Room 56 of the British Museum in London; the other is in the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, USA.

Ram in a Thicket

Gold, copper, shell, limestone & lapis lazuli

45.7 cm (18.0 in) high, 30.5 cm (12.0 in) wide

2600-2400 BC

1928-29
Ur (Southern Iraq)
30°57′41″N 46°06′22″E / 30.9615°N 46.1061°E / 30.9615; 46.1061

Leonard Woolley

British Museum, London

ME 122200

Discovery[edit]

The pair of rams would more correctly be described as goats, and were discovered lying close together in the 'Great Death Pit' (PG 1237), one of the graves in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, by archaeologist Leonard Woolley during the 1928–9 season. Woolley was in charge of the joint venture between the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, which began in 1922. The figure's partner is in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia.


Woolley named the figure the 'Ram in a Thicket' after the story of the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22.13, in which God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, but at the last moment an angel stops Abraham and reveals a ram caught in a thicket by its horns, which Abraham sacrifices instead.[1]

Leonard Woolley, Ur: the First Phases, Penguin Books, London and New York (1946)

C.L. Woolley and P.R.S. Moorey, Ur of the Chaldees, revised edition, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, (1982)

H.W.F. Saggs, Babylonians, The British Museum Press, London (1995)

D. Collon, Ancient Near Eastern Art, The British Museum Press, London (1995)

C.L. Woolley and others, Ur Excavations, Vol. II: The Royal Cemetery, The British Museum Press, London (1934)

Miller, Naomi F.; Jones, Philip; Zettler, Richard L.; Pittman, Holly (2020-06-18). "A Sacred Landscape of Sumer: Statuettes from Ur Depicting a Goat on a Tree". Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions. 20 (1). Brill: 27–47. :10.1163/15692124-12341311. ISSN 1569-2116.

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The Ram in a Thicket on the British Museum website

Penn Museum's Ram in the Thicket Collection highlight