Goat carrier

One of several gold and silver statuettes of a worshipper (probably a king) carrying a sacrificial goat. Susa, Iran, c. 1500–1200 BC (Middle Elamite period), currently in Louvre...The statuette is really cool, but this next thing is even cooler:

"...in order to make the neglected rites appear magnificently, in order to restore Nippur, as the lead GOAT of the nation"...From "Old Babylonian Period (2003-1595 BC)"

This is an excerpt from an inscription of Ur-Ninurta (1859 – 1832 BC) found in Nippur, which commemorates setting up of a bronze image of the king holding a votive goat...

Apparently, in Sumerian language, goat was used as a metaphor for a leader. And no one really knows why, cause the explanation found in "Concepts and Metaphors in Sumerian" is that "This is related to the fact that the Sumerian society was highly dependent on agriculture and animal husbandry" 🙂

Which of course is a complete rubbish...Why not sheep? Sheep were a lot more important in Mesopotamian agriculture...Or cows? Equally significantly more important to the early Mesopotamians than goats....

So why then goat=first, most important?

The leader is the first, the most important person. So goat must have been seen as equally first and most important animal...Was it? Well of course it was...Before there was god, there was goat...

In Eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Iran, Central Asai, the Ibex mating season, marked by vicious buck fights, starts in Oct/Nov. 

Which coincides with the start of the rain season...Elam (Susa) climate charts:

Precipitation

Temperature

Which is why during the Neolithic, and Bronze Age, ibex was the most depicted animal in these lands. Ibex, The Goat of Rain, whose mating brings rain...I talked about this in my post "Goat petroglyphs from Iran"

Ibex goat was directly linked with rebirth of nature...With the transformation of the dead yellow desert into lush green pasture...Kind of a very very very bid deal in Mesopotamia...I talked about this in my post "Iranian goat of rain"

By the way Markhor goats, which have the same mating season, were equally venerated. 

I talked about this in my post "Goat in a tree"

The Goat of Rain was the first God...The most important god before irrigation was invented...Then The Goat of Rain, became a Goat Dude, a dude with goat horns...I talked about this in my post "Strider"...

Then a dude whose sacred and sacrificial animal was goat...I talked about this in my post "Goat petroglyphs from Iran" 

And then finally a god to whom you sacrifice a goat...Gods' favourite...So no wonder the word "goat" also meant "the first" and "the most important"...

And considering the sacred status of goats, what was the actual meaning of the statues and plaques, depicting kings carrying goats (baby goats, kids)? This one is from Tello and is kept in Louvre...

In the article "A Shulgi Statuette from Tello" the author proposes that this is because goats were used by kings for extispicy, a practice of using anomalies in animal entrails to predict the future...

But sheep were used in these rituals as much as goats...I talked about this in my post "Humbaba"...

And I can't really see how that would make the "goat carrier" into "standard royal representation type"...How that would make kings write inscriptions like this: "The year in which Ammisaduqa, the king, had made the image of him carrying a kid against his chest"...

But if goat was god, the first, the most important god...