The Sumerians are credited for developing pottery and jewelry. Sumerian art was mainly used for religious reasons. Sumerians primarily painted elaborate images of their gods on temple walls and sculpted complex images of gods in marble, gray-black diorite, gold, and lapis lazuli; gray-black diorite is a gray stone found in mountains and lapis lazuli is a blue semi-precious stone that the Sumerians acquired through trading. The majority of the statues had large eyes and clasped hands to indicate a prayer pose; the God Ur was regularly depicted. Male statues were often naked; female statues frequently wore headdresses. Wooden objects were inlayed with shells and precious stones and pottery was often decorated with painted scenes depicting daily life.
When king Sargon conquered the Sumerians, the art forms in Mesopotamia became less religious and took on a more warlike or political form. The sculptures retained Sumerian influence but they had more human like characteristics; for example, many of the regional kings had sculptures of themselves made instead of the previously worshipped gods. Carvings and paintings were of Akkadian kings conquering their enemies or of the gods rewarding the kings. Since Akkadian art was primarily for showing how important the kings were, much of it was destroyed by enemies after the Akkadians lost power.
Assyrian art was primarily used to decorate palaces and temples. The smaller sculptures were used as trading currency because they were made of alabaster and were in the form of narratives; they are called narrative relief sculptures. For example, many relief scenes were of hunting expeditions or the king's military exploits. Mythological creatures such as winged bulls with human faces were sculpted out of stone and placed at the gates of palaces as guards.
King Hammurabi is given credit for restoring much of the original Sumerian art form and incorporating all of the artistic influences. Babylonian art suggested that kings and gods were interconnected. Artisans depicted beautiful agriculture narrative reliefs and Babylonian daily life on terra-cotta plaques. Crafts like jewelry making, carpentry and pottery resurfaced. King Hammurabi respected the Sumerian gods so many of the paintings and sculptures reverenced the sun god and the fertility goddess. Glass making is recorded as being very popular during this time. King Hammurabi encouraged the early Sumerian method of sculpting, in combination with the Akkadian reason for sculpting, and allowed artists to sculpt images of him worshipping the gods.