The Hand of a Goddess?

[@chinchillax4208]

Holy crap I've never been this early to a video so glad I found this channel through Milo

[@kylecassidy3391]

I was going to comment "FIRST!" but by the time i got to it there were five.

[@richardsweeney197]

Always learning from your videos, Thank You!

[@newman653]

Fascinating & informative as always .

[@filososabke]

Thank you for the insight into this artefact and showing us how not only the large structures tell a fascinating story

[@normalboy2907]

Finally! 2025’s Holy Grail War is gonna be peak as all hell.

[@EdrickBluebeard]

Guess humans have been yelling, "get your hands in tge air! Raise the roof!" for a lot longer than I thought.

[@Zubluu279]

Who here made there way to this channel through Milo Rossi?

[@spensei2451]

Yup 😂

[@Diwalia]

Maybe the temple of Ishtar just needed some extra hands?

[@cmpe43]

Be safe!

[@Sharon-t4q5w]

Enjoyed

[@buttercxpdraws8101]

Amazing ❤❤❤

[@lordofuzkulak8308]

Could the temple have originally been a Ninurta temple, and for whatever reason got repurposed for an Ishtar temple? Especially given you mention they were part of the same temple complex.

[@artifactuallyspeaking]

Yes; in fact in our latest season just completed we have found two new shrines and it looks like the Ninurta Temple housed shrines of many deities, but was considered the Ninurta complex first and foremost.

[@lordofuzkulak8308]

@ probably not that surprising; I expect as a polytheistic culture, even in places where one god was exalted above all others, they’d still make room to pay respect to other gods (especially if those gods’ purviews overlapped with those of the main deity). In fact, given how much resources, labour, etc that I imagine goes into constructing a temple, I think it’d be natural that until a dedicated temple could be built, a space would be set aside in older/existing temples for other gods (and that’s before getting into one god’s importance going into decline and another’s ascension eclipsing them that could cause the latter’s cult to take over the former’s temple).

[@ThinkForYourself2025]

The original temple could have been damaged, and pieces of the goddess were moved to another temple for deconsecration, repair, or ritually destroyed. Was there anything else found with it?

[@artifactuallyspeaking]

Yes, but mostly fallen brick, though a few bits of copper and some blue decorative frit/faience (in the general area, not directly with the hand).

[@ThinkForYourself2025]

@@artifactuallyspeaking Darn, that's some unhelpful context. I would be looking into the copper. I wonder if copper was normally used in temple decoration.

[@MoadikumMoodocks]

Thanks, I really appreciate all your videos.

[@AnneAslaug]

I was thinking: in the video were you found some pieces of stela re-used as floortile, maybe generations after the temples were built, materials that had lost it's original meaning to the contemporaries, maybe illiterate, wanted to keep the temples from complete disrepair and repurposed building materials were they found them to be needed the most and therefore a supporting hand and stela pieces have ended up in non-contextual placements. We see all over the world valuable materials being repurposed for new buildings because resources are limited or just hard to come by (ex. The Colosseum etc). Or maybe even the repurposing were meant as insults to the god and godess they represented? The simplest solution is usually the correct one, but not always... I am of the firm opinion that earlier archeology and history has had a general tendency to condsider culutres before our own as lesser, therefor simpler and stupider. Both now and then people did stuff because they could and wanted to. Most actions have no deeper meaning, human nature is multifaceted!

[@artifactuallyspeaking]

Yes, the people in the ancient world were just as smart as we are, they just didn't have all the technologies we have now. They could do and did do amazing things. Plus, this building was in use for a long time and was repaired and rebuilt in many ways. And the eventual destruction also moved things around, so yes, I think they did repurpose things and this could be some evidence of that. It's often hard to tell the difference between intentional and accidental when you dig things up thousands of years later, of course.

[@AnneAslaug]

@@artifactuallyspeaking Thx for the response! 😄

[@Bildgesmythe]

Like the idea of the paw/hand holding up the ceiling.

[@AnneAslaug]

@@Bildgesmythe Yes, exactly! McGyver-ing isn't a new thing, objects can change function and purpose as somone see fit at that specific point and place in time. 😄🙃

[@AnneAslaug]

@@artifactuallyspeaking I just rememberd a hilarious example from palenthology: At an excavation in Australia two younger members of the team was identifying/catalouging items (palentology use the same grid/geological layers system as aracheology) and from a layer way older than any mammal, they identified a skull as that of a wombat (marsupial). They got each other more and and more exited about potentially having found something completely paradigme-changing until their team leader came by, just looked at them with an expressionless face and said: "Wombats burrow." And left. 😂😂😂 Oh, well..

[@pencilpauli9442]

Great stuff as always! My first thought was, "Lion paw" but not sure why they would have been covered in bitumen. Also surprised that there aren't more of them knocking about.

[@artifactuallyspeaking]

We've just completed our second season of 2024 and have found at least 7 more, so they are pretty common, we just didn't know it yet.

[@pencilpauli9442]

@@artifactuallyspeaking Ah my bad Thank you for the clarification.

[@I-am-Hrut]

Love John!

[@mausercawley]

Any reason they couldn't just be dedications, like, you got a king who wants to do something nice, maybe jazz the ceiling up, add some interest, but wants to be remembered for it? Like, this may be the temple of Ishtar but its roof stays up because of men?

[@cynthiadugan858]

❤

[@footshotstube]

who is throwing stones at yu , around 6:10 ?

[@degolaskoma8607]

Ishtar of assur or ishtar of ninevah ?

[@artifactuallyspeaking]

Ishtar had many different aspects, to be sure, and even here at Nimrud there were two temples to her, one called Ishtar Kidmuri, and the one we're working in, Isthar Sharrat Niphi. Of course, we don't know that these were really 'hands of Ishtar' especially since the cuneiform mentions Ninurta.

[@degolaskoma8607]

@artifactuallyspeaking thanks for your response

[@awcinema8333]

This is where the Catholic Church gets Easter from have nothing to do with either of them

[@awcinema8333]

All false gods will fall before the God of Abraham

[@alicerossimarzouka2971]

I love this video, what saddens me is that locals have less interest in studying cunioform and archeology, all around the Middle East you find Italians, Americans excavating. Just like in Petra now.