The full dress of the earliest Sumerians comprised nothing more elaborate than a skirt fastened round the waist and probably made of wool. But the taste for decoration shown by all primitive peoples is evinced by the Sumerians at a very early date, and they seek to relieve the dead monotony of the skirt by edging the bottom with a fringe (cf. Figs. 25, 52), the fringe on the earliest monuments being formed by a series of pointed tags. In the time of Ur-Ninâ, the archaically fringed skirt has given place to an elaborately flounced and pleated skirt—at least in the case of kings and magnates (cf. Figs. 26, 27), but the upper part of the body was left entirely bare; people of particularly high rank are however sometimes seen wearing a skirt with an upper part attached, which covered the left shoulder as is the case with the leader of the procession on Ur-Ninâ’s tablet (cf. Fig. 26), though it is noticeable that Ur-Ninâ himself here has no clothing on the upper part of his body. Later on the king of Lagash still wears the flounced skirt, but has another garment over it: this upper garment was also apparently made of wool, and passed over the left shoulder and under the right arm (cf. Pl. XII); as this is, however, a battle scene, the upper garment may be part of the king’s military insignia. This custom of leaving the right arm and shoulder free obtained right down to the time of Gudea (cf. Pl. XXIII) and Khammurabi (cf. Pl. XIV). The heads of the majority of the figures on the early sculptures are hairless and beardless, though as we have seen (cf. p. 183) long hair and a pronounced beard were not infrequently worn, the hair on the head—possibly a wig—sometimes being allowed to hang down the neck (cf. Fig. 25, B, C), sometimes being gathered up behind and secured by a fillet (cf. Pl. XII). This seems to have been done by the king when on active service, doubtless with a view to making his helmet more comfortable and secure. As nearly all these early figures are without hats or head-gear of any kind, we are almost entirely in ignorance as to the nature of their head-coverings—if, indeed, they had any. Sometimes feathers were worn (cf. Fig. 25, A), while a figure resembling Gilgamesh on one of the most ancient Sumerian bas-reliefs (cf. _Découvertes_, Pl. I, 1) in existence, has a flat head-gear of indeterminate character, the deity on the same archaic sculpture wearing what appears to be an early form of the horned head-dress of the gods in later times.