The Ancient Near East

Ancient Near East

The life of the farmer and herder was pretty stable

• This time period has been called the Neolithic Revolution.

This change first occurred in Mesopotamia

• Greek word that means “the land between the [Tigris and Euphrates] rivers.”
• Mesopotamia is at the core of the Fertile Crescent.
• Humans first learned how to use the wheel and the plow
• How to control floods and construct irrigation canals.
• The land became a giant oasis, the presumed location of the biblical Garden of Eden. 

This region gave birth to three of the world’s biggest religions

• Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

When this area was first being explored, archaeologists were told to take as many artworks as they could while spending the least possible amount of time and money to do so.

The Sumerians and their successors in the ancient Near East worshiped numerous deities, mostly nature gods. Listed here are the Mesopotamian gods and goddesses discussed in this chapter. I don’t expect you to memorize all the gods and goddesses, but it is helpful to know who we are talking about when viewing these religious works of art.

Anu. The chief deity of the Sumerians, Anu was the god of the sky and of the city of Uruk. One of the earliest Sumerian temples may have been dedicated to his worship.

Enlil. Anu’s son, Enlil was the lord of the winds and the earth. He eventually replaced his father as king of the gods.

Inanna. The Sumerian goddess of love and war, Inanna was later known as Ishtar. She is the most important female deity in all periods ofMesopotamian history. As early as the fourth millennium BCE, the Sumerians constructed a sanctuary to Inanna at Uruk. Amid the ruins, excavators uncovered fourth- millennium statues and reliefs connected with her worship.

Nanna. The moon god, Nanna was also known as Sin. He was the chief deity of Ur, where his most important shrine was located.

Utu. The sun god, Utu was known later as Shamash and was especially revered at Sippar. On a Babylonian stele of ca. 1780 BCE, King Hammurabi presents his law code to Shamash, who is depicted with flames radiating from his shoulders.

Marduk, Nabu, and Adad. Marduk was the chief god of the Babylonians. His son Nabu was the god of writing and wisdom. Adad was the Babylonian god of storms. Representations of Marduk and Nabu’s dragon and Adad’s sacred bull adorn the sixth- century BCE Ishtar Gate at Babylon.

Ningirsu. The local god of Lagash and Girsu, Ningirsu helped Ean-natum, one of the early rulers of Lagash, defeat an enemy army. Ningirsu’s role in the victory is recorded on the Stele of the Vultures of ca. 2600– 2500 BCE. Gudea, one of Ean-natum’s Neo- Sumerian successors, built a great temple about 2100 BCE in honor of Ningirsu after the god instructed him to do so in a dream.

Ashur. The local deity of Assur, the city that took his name, Ashur became the king of the Assyrian gods. He sometimes is identified with Enlil.

An Introduction to Sumer

The Sumerians founded the world’s first city- states in the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and invented writing in the fourth millennium BCE.They were also the first to build towering temple platforms, called ziggurats, and to place figures in registers to tell coherent stories.

Sumer

• Sumerians
• Fourth millennium BCE (4,000 to 3,000 BCE)
• Transformed the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates into the Fertile Crescent.

Ziggurats

• temple platforms
• built using only mud bricks
• built several centuries before the Egyptians built stone pyramids.
• The most famous ziggurat was the biblical Tower of Babel.

Ancient Sumer

• Roughly corresponds to southern Iraq today
• Was not a unified nation.
• Made up of a dozen or so independent city-states.
• Each was thought to be under the protection of a different Mesopotamian god.
• The rulers and priests directed all communal activities
• Including canal construction, crop collection, and food distribution.
• Agriculture was now very well developed

• Only a portion of the population had to produce food
• This meant that some members of the community could specialize in other activities
• Manufacturing, trade, and administration.
• Specialization of labor is a milestone with the first complex urban societies.
• The community now protected the city against enemies and against nature.

• The idea of cities was a Sumerian invention.

Another Sumerian invention was writing. 

• The oldest written documents are Sumerian records of administrative acts and commercial transactions.

Around 3400– 3200 BCE

• Sumerians made inventories of cattle, food, and other items
• Scratched pictographs into soft clay with a sharp tool, or stylus.
• The Sumerians wrote their pictorial signs from the top down
• Arranged them in boxes they read from right to left.

By 3000– 2900 BCE

• Further simplified the pictographic signs 
• Reduced them to a group of wedge-shaped (cuneiform) symbols 
• The development of cuneiform marked the beginning of writing. 

Trade was essential for the Sumerians (what’s good about trade?)

• Their land was fertile but it had very little natural resources such as metal, stone, and wood.

The Sumerians also produced great literature.

• Their most famous work is the Epic of Gilgamesh
• Is earlier than Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey by some 1,500 years.
• Recounts the story of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk and slayer of the monster Huwawa.

WHITE TEMPLE, URUK 

• Had a population of about 40,000.
• Sumerian builders made their buildings from mud bricks.
• Probably dedicated to Anu, the sky god.
• Has a central hall (cella) with a stepped altar
• This is where the Sumerian priests would await the appearance of a god.

The layout of Sumerian cities reflect the central role gods played in their daily life.

• The main temple was at the center of each city.
• A staff of priests and scribes were in charge of official administrative and commercial business
• Also oversaw all religious functions.

The temple stands on top of a high platform, a ziggurat, 40 feet above street level in the center of the city.

• Originally had whitewashed walls which led to it’s modern nickname
• Stairway on one side leads to the top
• Does not end in front of any of the temple doorways
• Has two or three angular changes in direction.
• This bent-axis plan is the standard arrangement for Sumerian temples
• This is very different to what the Egyptians preferred for their temples and tombs.

The corners of the White Temple line up with the points of a compass. (N, E, S, W)

The building is only 61 by 16 feet.

• Only a select few were allowed in
• The priests and possibly the top community members.
• The temple has several chambers.
• The central hall, or cella, was set aside for the divinity
• Housed a stepped altar.

Sumerians referred to their temples as “waiting rooms,”

• Believed that the deity would descend from the heavens to appear before the priests in the cella.
• This idea that the gods live above the world of humans is central to most of the world’s religions.

Warka Vase from Uruk (which used to be named Warka)

• Oldest known example of Sumerian narrative art
• The sculptor divided the vase’s reliefs into registers, or sections.
• In earlier works, figures were place just about anywhere.
• The Sumerians may have been the first to use pictures to tell stories.

Found within the Inanna temple

• Depicts a religious festival in honor of the goddess.

The sculptor divided the vase’s reliefs into several bands (called registers or friezes)

• The figures stand on a ground line (the horizontal base of the composition).
• This technique is used in comic books.

The crops and the alternating male and female animals were the main exports of Sumeria

• Were also associated with fertility.
• The Sumerians believed that Inanna had blessed Uruk’s inhabitants with good crops and large herds.

Center band on the vase

• Procession of naked men
• The men carry baskets and jars filled with everything from the earth.
• They will present these items to the goddess as an offering and will place it in her temple.
• The men are a combination of front and side views.
• The artist wanted to show the parts that conveyed a human form
• If the head was only shown from the side, the eye would not “ read” as an eye at all, because it would not have its distinctive oval shape.

The top band

• A female figure with a tall horned headdress next to two large poles that are the sign of the goddess Inanna.
• A nude male figure brings a large vessel filled with offerings to be placed in the goddess’s shrine.
• At the far right and barely visible in is an only partially preserved clothed man.
• Near him is the early pictograph for a person usually called a “priest-king,”
• A person who is both a religious and secular leader.

The priest-king and Inanna are taller compared to the offering bearers

• This indicates that they are more important
• This idea is called hierarchy of scale. 
  

ESHNUNNA (Sumerian) STATUETTES 

• Carved from soft gypsum
• Inlaid with shell and black limestone
• Range in size from less than 12 inches to about 30 inches tall.
• The two largest figures are shown.

Oversized eyes

• probably symbolize the perpetual wakefulness of these substitute worshipers offering prayers to the deity.

The beakers the figures hold were used to pour drink offerings in honor of the gods.

• All of the statuettes represent mortals, not gods
• Hands folded in front of their chests in a gesture the Sumerians used in religious rites.
• The men wear belts and fringed skirts.
• Most have beards and shoulder-length hair.
• The women wear long robes, with the right shoulder bare.
• With their heads tilted upward, they wait in the Sumerian “ waiting room” for the divinity to appear.

At least one child was portrayed— next to the woman are the remains of two small legs. (bottom right)

Eshnunna statuettes

• simple forms
• made mostly of cones and cylinders.
• Inlaid oversized eyes
• Tiny hands.

The purpose of these votive figures was to offer constant prayers to the gods on their donors’ behalf

• Eyes were wide open to be forever in prayer

Stele

• Carved stone slab used to commemorate a historical event or to mark a grave.
• The city-states of ancient Sumer were often at war with one another

Stele of the Vultures

• Celebrates the victory of Eannatum of Lagash, over the neighboring city-state of Umma.
• Shows Eannatum leading his army into battle.
• The king is shown larger than his soldiers.
• Has reliefs on both sides
• Takes its nickname from a fragment with a scene of vultures carrying off the severed heads and arms of the enemy soldiers.

The fragment depicts Eannatum leading his warriors into battle (above) and attacking from a war chariot (below). 

The foot soldiers are protected behind a wall of shields 

• Trample naked enemies as they move forward. 

Both on foot and in a chariot, Eannatum is larger than anyone else. 

Agriculture and trade brought considerable wealth to some of the city-states of ancient Sumer.One of these cities was the Royal Cemetery at Ur

• City that was home to the biblical Abraham. 
• They have found gold helmets and daggers with handles of lapis lazuli (a blue stone imported from Afghanistan), golden beakers and bowls, jewelry of gold and lapis, musical instruments, chariots, and other expensive items.
• Musicians, servants, and soldiers were sacrificed in order to go with the “ kings and queens” into the afterlife.

Standard of Ur

• Made from mosaics
• Sumerian artist depicted a battlefield victory in three registers or bands
• One of the most significant works of art history
• It’s a rectangular box
• Not sure what it was used for
• Has sloping sides inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone.
• considered a historical narrative, a documentary

Probably was originally mounted on a pole.

• Considered it a kind of military standard-similar to a war flag.

The narrative reads from left to right and bottom to top.

On the war side

On the bottom

• Four war chariots lead by donkeys run over enemies
• The speed of the donkeys accelerates along the band from left to right.

Middle

• foot soldiers gather up and lead away captured enemies.

On the top

• Soldiers present bound captives to a kinglike figure who is larger than everyone else.
• They have been stripped naked to degrade them.
• The king is in the center of the composition, is larger than everyone else and his head breaks the picture plane.

Peace side of the Standard of Ur 

• may be a victory celebration.
• Reads from bottom to top.

In the lowest band

• men carry provisions, possibly things stolen during war, on their backs.

In the middle

• attendants bring animals and fish for the great banquet in the top register.

On the top

• seated dignitaries and a larger-than-life “king” (third from the left) feast
• a lyre player and singer entertain the group.

BULL-HEADED LYRE (like a harp)

• From a royal grave at Ur
• Made from gold leaf over a wooden core.
• The hair, beard, and details are lapis lazuli.
• Inlaid figures of a Gilgamesh-like hero
• Animals acting out scenes.
• Also features bearded— but human-headed— bulls in the uppermost of its four inlaid panels.
• Probably once looked like the instrument depicted in the feast scene on the Standard of Ur.

Composite creatures are common in the art of the ancient Near East and Egypt.

On the Ur lyre

• Figure holds the two man-bulls.

A scorpion-man in the lowest panel are in composite view.

The animals are in profile:

• the dog wearing a dagger and carrying a laden table,
• the lion bringing in the beverage service,
• the donkey playing the lyre,
• the jackal playing the zither,
• the bear steadying the lyre (or perhaps dancing), and
• the gazelle bearing goblets.

Some scholars have suggested

• The creatures live in the land of the dead 
• the images relate to a funeral. 

AKKAD AND THE THIRD DYNASTY OF UR 

The Akkadians were the first Near Eastern rulers to call themselves kings of the world and to assume divine attributes. The earliest recorded name of an author is the Akkadian priestess Enheduanna.Akkadian artists may have been the first to cast hollow life- size bronze sculptures and to place figures at different levels in a landscape setting.In 2332 BCE

• Loose group of cities known as Sumer came under the rule of Sargon of Akkad (r. 2332– 2279 BCE).
• Archaeologists don’t know the specific site of the city of Akkad, but it was near Babylon. 

The Akkadians language was entirely different from the language of Sumer

• Used the Sumerians’ cuneiform for their written documents. 

First known life-size hollow-cast head

• captured the features of the ruler
• also illustrates abstract pattern.
• The head was at some point vandalized.

Under Sargon (whose name means “true king”) and his followers

• the Akkadians introduced a new concept of royal power based on loyalty to the king rather than to the city-state.

Naram- Sin (r. 2254– 2218 BCE)

• Sargon’s grandson,
• Governors of cities were considered servants of the king
• The king called himself “King of the Four Quarters”
• in effect, ruler of the earth, akin to a god.

AKKADIAN PORTRAITURE 

• The head is all that survives of a statue that was knocked over when the Medes sacked Nineveh in 612 BCE.
• There are also signs of deliberate mutilation.
• To make a political statement
• the enemy gouged out the eyes (once inlaid with precious stones)
• broke off the lower part of the beard
• slashed the ears of the royal portrait.

NARAM-SIN STELE 

• Commemorates Naram-Sin’s conquest of Lullubi
• Stele shows him leading his army up a mountain.
• The sculptor staggered the figures
• Abandoning the traditional register format.

It is inscribed twice

• once in honor of Naram-Sin
• once by a king who had captured Sippar in 1157 BCE
• He took the stele as back to Susa in south-western Iran, where it was found.

On the stele

• the grandson of Sargon leads his army up the slopes of a wooded mountain.
• His enemies fall, run, die, or beg for mercy.

The king stands alone, far taller than his men, treading on the bodies of two of the fallen Lullubi.

He wears the horned helmet signifying divinity

• First time a king appears as a god in Mesopotamian art.

Three stars (the stele is damaged at the top) shine on him.

Naram-Sin also seems to be scaling the ladder to the heavens

• Seems very similar to the ziggurats.
• His troops march up the mountain behind him in orderly files
• suggests discipline and respect for the king.

The enemy is allover the place, depicted in lot of different positions — one falls down the side of the mountain.

Ziggurat of Ur

ZIGGURAT, UR 

• The Ur ziggurat is one of the largest in Mesopotamia.
• Has three ramplike stairways of a hundred steps each
• Originally ended at a gateway to a brick temple (did not survive).  What we see here is only the base for that Sumerian temple.

Around 2150 BCE

• The Gutians brought Akkadian power to an end.
• The cities of Sumer united in response to the invasion and drove the Gutians out of Mesopotamia
• Established a Neo-Sumerian state ruled by the kings of Ur.

Historians call this time period the Third Dynasty of Ur

• This is when the ziggurat at Ur was built.
• The base is a solid mass of mud brick 50 feet high.
• The builders used baked bricks laid in bitumen, an asphalt like substance, for the face of the entire monument.

During the Third Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerians rose again to power and constructed one of the largest ziggurats in Mesopotamia at Ur. Gudea of Lagash (r. ca. 2100 BCE) built numerous temples and placed diorite portraits of himself in all of them as votive offerings to the gods. Babylon’s greatest king, Hammurabi ( r. 1792– 1750 BCE), established a comprehensive law code for the empire he ruled. Babylonian artists were among the first to experiment with foreshortening.GUDEA OF LAGASH 

• the ensi (royal title) of Lagash made around 2100 BCE.
• Built or rebuilt many temples and placed statues of himself in all of them.
• In this seated portrait, Gudea has on his lap a plan of the new temple he erected to Ningirsu.

His statues show him seated or standing

• hands tightly clasped
• head shaven
• sometimes wore a woolen brimmed hat
• always dressed in a long garment that leaves one shoulder and arm exposed.

Gudea wanted to make the gods happy

• commissioned numerous statues
• was very wealthy and prideful
• All his portraits are of polished diorite, a rare and expensive dark stone that had to be imported.
• Diorite is also very hard and difficult to carve.

On the back of the statue is carved  “ This statue has not been made from silver nor from lapis lazuli, nor from copper nor from lead, nor yet from bronze; it is made of diorite.”

The Piety (being religious) of Gudea

• He returned to creating votive statues that would pray to the gods on his behalf
• Many of Gudea’s statues are inscribed with messages to the gods of Sumer.
• One of them says, “I am the shepherd loved by my king; may my life be prolonged.”

Gudea built or rebuilt, at enormous cost, all the temples in where he placed his statues.

Here, he has his hands closes in prayer

• The head has been lost
• Gudea has a temple plan drawn on a tablet on his lap.
• It is the plan for a new temple dedicated to Ningirsu.
• Gudea buried accounts of his construction projects in the temple foundations.

The texts describe how the Neo-Sumerians prepared and purified the sites, obtained the materials, and dedicated the temples.

• Also record Gudea’s dreams of the gods asking him to erect temples in their honor, promising him prosperity if he did so.

Hammurabi’s Law Code

• Early 18th century BCE
• King Hammurabi of Baylon created a comprehensive law code for his people.
• At the time, parts of Europe were still in the Stone Age.
• Even in Greece, it was not until more than 1,000 years later that they had their first written set of laws.

In 1157 BCE the stele was stolen and taken to Susa.

HAMMURABI

The resurgence of Sumer was short-lived.

The Third Dynasty of Ur fell at to the Elamites

• Ruled the territory east of the Tigris River.

Independent city-states become popular again and exist side by side.

Babylon was one of those city-states until Hammurabi

Hammurabi (r. 1792– 1750 BCE), reestablished a centralized government in southern Mesopotamia.

• He was famous for his conquests.
• But he is best known today for his law code
• Gave prescribed penalties for everything from adultery and murder to the cutting down of a neighbor’s trees.

Hammurabi’s Law Code (this is really incredible)

• At the top is a representation in high relief of Hammurabi in the presence of Shamash, the flame-shouldered sun god.
• The king raises his hand in respect.
• The god gives Hammurabi the rod and ring that symbolize authority.
• The symbols come from builders’ tools— measuring rods and coiled rope

The law code, written in Akkadian, was recorded on 3,500 lines of cuneiform characters.

Hammurabi’s laws governed all aspects of Babylonian life

• From commerce and property to murder and theft to infidelity, inheritances, and the treatment of slaves.

This is also one of the first examples of an artist using foreshortening— representation of a figure or object at an angle.

If a man puts out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.

If he kills a man’s slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina.

If someone steals property from a temple, he and the person who receives the stolen goods will be put to death.

If a man rents a boat and the boat is wrecked, the renter shall replace the boat with another.

If a man’s wife is caught in bed with another man, both will be tied up and thrown in the water.

Shamash is shown with a combined front and side views.

• His headdress has four pairs of horns is in profile so that only four, not all eight, of the horns are visible.
• The artist seems to have explored the notion of foreshortening—suggesting depth.

Shamash’s beard

• A series of diagonal lines
• suggesting its going back into space
• the sculptor carved the side of his throne at an angle.

Assyrian Art

NEO-BABYLONIA

• The most famous of the Neo-Babylonian kings was Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604– 562 BCE)
• HIs life was described in the Book of Daniel.
• Nebuchadnezzar restored Babylon to its rank as one of the greatest cities of the ancient world.

ISHTAR GATE, BABYLON

• Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was a mud-brick city
• Also used amazing blue-glazed bricks on the most important monuments

One of these monuments was the Ishtar Gate

• were actually a pair of gates
• one of which has been restored and installed in a German museum.

The Ishtar Gate consists of a large arcuated (arch-shaped) opening with two towers on either side

• features glazed bricks with reliefs of animals both real and imaginary.
• Each brick was molded and glazed separately, then set in sequence on the wall.
• Profile figures of Marduk and Nabu’s dragon and Adad’s bull (looks like a unicorn) alternate.
• On the hallway leading up to the gate were reliefs of Ishtar’s sacred lion, glazed in yellow, brown, and red on a blue background.

Ishtar Gate and Neo-Babylonia

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 

• Nebuchadnezzar, considered the “King of Kings” in the book of Daniel,
• bragged that he “caused a mighty wall to surround Babylon . . . so that the enemy who would do evil would not threaten,”
• But Cyrus of Persia (r. 559– 529 BCE) captured the city in the sixth century BCE.

Cyrus

• Founder of the Achaemenid dynasty
• Traced his ancestry back to a mythical King Achaemenes.
• Babylon was only one of the Persians’ conquests.

Egypt fell to them in 525 BCE, and by 480 BCE the Persian Empire was the largest the world had yet known.

Only the Greek were successful in resisting their domination.

PERSEPOLIS 

The most important source of knowledge about Persian art and architecture is the ceremonial and administrative complex on the citadel at Persepolis

The successors of Cyrus, Darius I and Xerxes built Persepolis between 521 and 465 BCE.

The city was very defensive

• The royal buildings were on a high plateau
• They contained a royal audience hall, or apadana, 60 feet high and 217 square square with 36 columns.

Alexander the Great would eventually attack the site to symbolize the destruction of the Persian empire.

When you approached the citadel you went through a huge gateway called the Gate of All Lands

• This was a reference to the harmony among the peoples of the Persian Empire.
• Huge man-headed winged bulls were on either side of the entrance.
• These were Assyrian-inspired
• Wide ceremonial stairways provided access to the platform and the royal audience hall.
• An audience of thousands could have stood within the hall.

The reliefs decorating the walls of the terrace and staircases leading up to the Persepolis

• included depictions of 23 nations bringing tribute to the Persian king.
• Every one of the diginitaries wears his national costume
• carries a typical regional gift for the conqueror.

At one time the reliefs were brightly painted

The art records an active exchange of ideas and artists among all the Mediterranean and Near Eastern civilizations.

A building inscription names Greeks, Medes, Egyptians, and Babylonians among those who built and decorated the palace.

SHAPUR I AND ROME

The Sasanian king Shapur I

• humiliated the Roman emperor Valerian in 260 CE
• commemorated his surrender in over-life-size reliefs cut into the cliffs outside Persepolis.

Shapur appears larger than life

• riding in from the right wearing the a tall Sasanian crown
• which breaks through the relief’s border and draws attention to the king.

At the left, Valerian kneels before Shapur and begs for mercy.

The New Persian Empire lasted more than 400 years

• Ended when the Arabs drove the Sasanians out of Mesopotamia in 636 CE
• Four years after the death of Muhammad.

From here on out, the artists and architects of Mesopotamia worked in under the religion of Islam.