A third stage of Chaldæan sculpture may be represented by the “Vulture Stela,” on which the names of two kings have been read, one of whom is the son of Ur-Nina. The three fragments of this limestone stela are carved on both sides. On one of them a flock of vultures carry away human remains in their flight--heads, hands, and arms. The human heads denote an art which has left the gropings of childhood behind: they are entirely shaved, the nose is always aquiline, the eye of an exaggerated size and triangular. The vultures, more rudely drawn, are nevertheless well characterised by their long curved beak and their claws of exaggerated length; the markings of the feathers and wings are brought out. On another fragment of the same stela it seems that we witness the construction of a sepulchral tumulus. [Illustration: Fig. 11.--The Vulture Stela (Louvre).] [Illustration: Fig. 12.--The Vulture Stela (Louvre).] Men dressed in a short tunic, fringed, and tightened at the waist, carry on their heads wicker baskets, probably containing earth to cover the pile of corpses heaped one upon the other in symmetrical and alternate rows. The third piece of the same monument seems to represent a scene of carnage. As for the back of the stela, it is less ornamented; however, on one of the fragments (fig. 13), a pole surmounted by an eagle with outspread wings is seen, and then a large human head, incomplete but highly interesting; it exhibits, from an anatomical point of view, the same character as the smaller heads which we have just considered; but its head-dress is a most curious feature,--a sort of tiara decorated with bulls’ horns. “By an archaic conventionality,” observes M. Heuzey, “these two horns are seen in profile, curved forwards and backwards; but in reality they were attached to the sides of the cap.... The cap is also surmounted by a crest of four large feathers, in the middle of which rises a cone decorated with a quaint head also crowned by a crescent; this little decorative head, drawn in full face, has an exceedingly long and broad nose without any sign of a mouth, so that it may be doubted whether it be the head of a man or of an animal.”[17] The same tiara is found with unimportant modifications on Assyrian cylinders and bas-reliefs, in which it forms the head-dress of deities or pontiffs. The artistic superiority of the bas-reliefs of the Vulture Stela over the monuments quoted previously is abundantly evident, and already allows us a foretaste of the sober and vigorous art revealed to us by the large statues found in the palace of Gudea. [Illustration: Fig. 13.--The Vulture Stela (Louvre).]