The limestone sculpture measures just over 16 inches tall. It was described by Sotheby's as "one of the last known masterworks from the dawn of civilization remaining in private hands. Guennol Lioness [ˈɡwɛnɔl] is a 5,000-year-old Mesopotamian statue allegedly found near Baghdad, Iraq. Depicting a muscular anthropomorphic leonine-human, it sold for $57.2 million at Sotheby's auction house on December 5, 2007. The sculpture had been acquired by a private collector, Alastair Bradley Martin, in 1948 from the collection of Joseph Brummer, and had been on display at Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York City from that time to its sale in 2007. It is called "Guennol" after the Welsh name for "Martin", the name of the collector.[1] In 1950 Edith Porada described it as a lioness "because of the feminine curves of her lower body and the absence of male organs" while conceding the possibility "that the figure represented a sexless creature"
