WEEK IV
*Note: names of Egyptian cities and kings:
Many of the names we use, like "Thebes" or "Mycerinus" or "Cheops", are ancient Greek/Latin versions of Egyptian names that sounded often quite different. (As we say in English "Munich", and Italians "Monaco", where Germans themselves say "Muenchen".) This is because Europeans knew about Egypt only from Greek and Latin ancient texts until hieroglyphs began to be properly deciphered in the age of Napoleon. Even know, scholars disagree about the vowels to assign to the syllabic hieroglyph indications, so that you see "Aten" or "Aton", "Amon" or "Amun", for the same god or portion of a longer name.
For information, see Week III email.
context: Thebes, Tomb of Mereruka, view chapel det.: statue in niche
Saqqara Stele of Hesira H&F see Week IIIemail
Saqqara Seated scribe H&F see Week IIIemail
Tomb models and worker figures, [know this class of art exists in a general sense]
Old & Middle Kingdom:
Saqqara Dyn. V Girl at beer-mash tub, painted limestone, 10.5 in.
(contemporary to Hesira & scribe)
Thebes, Dyn. 11 Weavers' workshop, painted wood
Thebes, Dyn. 18 Tomb of Nebamun, Banquet w musicians and dancers see Week IIIemail
Saqqara, Dyn. 5 Tomb of Ti, rural life H&F see Week IIIemail
Thebes, Tomb of Mereruka, H&F see Week IIIemail
Dyn. I Palette of Narmer, H&F see Week IIIemail
Giza Dyn. IV Mycerinus & Queen, from his Giza pyramid & mortuary temple sanctuary, life-size or just under (1.24 m.), one of many installed here. Dark slate or schist. M in formal linen skirt, Pharaoh's ritual beard and crown; his wife ambraces him in standard pose, one arm around his body, one over his arm, with both hands visible. Boston H&F 2.34
Medum Dyn. IV Nofret & her husband prince Rahotep, tomb statues, painted limestone. She wears a linen mantle wrapped over her sheath. (both wear their jewelry!) Life-size (1.2m, seated). Cairo H&F 2.33 - standard Egyptian costume for men: linen kilt, for women, long tight linen sheath with narrow shoulder-straps, often leaving breasts bare. Both genders could wear the great jewelled collars we find in tombs. The heavy hair you see on many elite men, and even on women, was often a wig.
dets "", 3/4 views upper body
context:- for images of affectionate spousal relations cf. Tutankamun's banquet chair, det. back, T. and wife see H&F 3.17 - for a banquet, the princess anoints her young husband with perfume, as he sits on a chair like this one. Over wood, gold and inlay of glass enamel and precious stones.
Brooklyn Princess Head, greenstone, H&F 2.40 3/4 view, and also frontal shot - Middle Kingdom, ca. 1929-1892 BC. Green chlorite, broken at neck and across lower hair mass. Once inlaid eyes.
Akhnaton Pillar Portrait, c. 1375 BC, sandstone, Cairo, H&F 3.15, and 3/4 museum photo. From Karnak. Colossal - still 3.96 m. tall. Legs broken away at knees, left arm broken away from body. A. wears crowns of Upper & Lower Egypt, ritual beard, and carries in crossed arms ornamentalized, ritual versions of staff and flail; he wears heavy cartouche jewels at throat and down his body (their chains would have been painted on), and more hieroglyphs are carved on his belt; his ceremonial skirt has a great jewel sewn to the end of its front flap (bead motifs and uraeus snakes crowned with sun disks). - original context: view, court at Karnak (where this comes from too), of Ramesses II - royal pillar statues as a genre are known already at Zoser's Saqqara complex, should you poke around its web sites.
[SEE BELOW FOR INFORMATION]
Map, Egypt & Middle East
Sumerian culture:
[IMAGES are Week III]
Uruk/Warka, view of Sumerian Eanna ziggurat\det. "holy marriage"
context:("hieros gamos") scene on Early Dynastic cylinder seal from Tell Asmar
Uruk/Warka female head, Baghdad
Uruk/Warka, Eanna precinct Alabaster Vase, Baghdad: view and dets.
Friday:
Map: Egypt and Mesopotamia
Abu Simbel view [noting Ramesses' wars in Syria carved inside, and ME captives on podium flanking door]
WARKA/URUK (Jemdet Nasr) - most of what you see, between 3500 and 3000 BC, the 2nd half of the 4th millenium
Mesopotamia map
Warka Eanna ziggurat view = site where much of this found - you see it in its 3rd millenium phase.
Warka, The Eanna Vase (Baghdad Mus.) H&F 2.2, ca. 3500-3000, almost a meter high (91.4 cm), alabaster, view and dets.:
from bottom up, the frieze registers are: river ornament/ date palms and barley plants in alternation/ left to right, bearded rams and their ewes alternating, in procession/ right to left, naked worshippers processing with baskets of produce/ top: priestking [missing] with attendant to bring woman's girdle (you can see the belt and its fringes in the H&F shot), to goddess, thus at her shrine, signalled by objects in it including: for a feast, portions of animals, like those seen live below, and baskets of produce, again as below; 2 vases like this one, and what seem to be statues of a man & a woman standing upon statues of animals. Compare placement of exterior view of a ziggurat's top shrine, w god approached by priest-king, crowning Hammurabi stele. Girdle/belt is reference to "sacred marriage" - it is a consort/lover's gift, and a metaphor for initiating sex in this culture is, "to loosen a woman's girdle". (and note // to the animal couples below!)
Tell Asmar, temple of Abu, shrine statuettes, H&F 2.5 in gypsum w inlaid eyes and bitumen-painted beards: View group (Baghdad and Chicago), the god (?) in middle, view (= H&F) one worshipper (NY Met. Mus.)
Warka, Woman's Head H&F 2.4 [goddess? priestess?], Baghdad, in alabaster, inlays for brows and eyes now missing. Ca. 3500-3000. Made like a mask, for attachment to a statue in another material (wood? metal?), probably veiled [this is face and hair of uncovered portion] like the vase goddess, hole for attachment visible. .22cm ht. = just over half life-size [on the rough rule that head ht x 5 = body height] - for inlay effect compare, det. of a tell Asmar figurine. Note deliberate enlargement of eyes to strengthen gaze effect.
Warka, Statuette/Figurine of lioness-demon, H&F 2.6, now brooklyn Mus. fine white limestone, 8.9 cm. with [on other side] inlays of lapis-lazuli spots in mane, inlaid eyes now missing; broken off below, moving "standing" in processional pose, paws clenched before chest with bent arms [compare Tell Asmar worshippers]. Query, terrifying or benevolent? H&F fig. 2.6. - for technique and scale compare: also from Uruk, miniature panther and bull, 3100-2900 BC. [Also compare the animals in humanoid poses and roles on Ur Bull=head Lyre.]
and also compare
Ur Cylinder Seal and impression, H&F 2.3: (Chicago) Gilgamesh vs. horned sheep/ his friend Enkidu [bullman] vs. lion, @ to Epic of Gilgamesh. H&F 2.3 Note frontal faces of heroes, for emphasis and confrontation.
The Great Ziggurat: Birds-eye Isometric reconstruction, H&F 2.13, cf. 2.12 view - ca. 2100 and view of ruins. Mudbrick, once plastered and painted. 3 platforms (at least one probably planted, as in later ziggurat at Assur)), crowning shrine. Note decoration: brick surfaces articulated [// Saqqara] with fictional buttrees piers and entablatures, and the three great ramps.
ROYAL TOMBS ca. 2685: Grave 800, excavation plan, showing skeletons of humans and chariots and chariot animals, grave-goods. This cemetery held a number of graves, each evidently of a senior prince or princess, often with slain entourage. Graves held appartus of war and banquet. Each was a sunken chamber with a ceremonial walled way leading to it (dromos0, filled in with earth after the burial; compare the burial pits for boats and objects next to the Great Pyramids in Egypt. Human sacrifice was not so common after this, but in Middle Eastern tradition, sometimes, both historic rulers (Mithridates, 1st c. BC!) and semi-mythical ones (Sardanapalus - cf. the Dlecroix painting) would have their "harems" of their many wives and concubines killed when the rulers knew was coming for them. context: smashed head of court lady, with gold ornaments in hair (Penn Univ. Museum), and artist's reconstruction of the entourage filing into a tomb on the day, arranged to die in order.
compare:
-Tomb 799, "Standard" [know about this, if not in detail] (we don't know what it is for) - see Images:Comparanda. Rectangular object, trapezoidal in section and at ends, inlaid with bitumen and shell in 3 registers. War side: king and his forces, esp. chariots, in procession. banquet side: King and his oficers drinking at feast, animals for banquet led below, note harpist playing at feast a lyre like those found in many tombs here, and how the harp is held up with sound-box face towards feasters at their eye-level. Ends (web, above): animal-fable and mock-heroic scenes, in the vivid, bouncy style of the Penn Harp, different to the main faces.
*Note: Sumerian bitumen and shell inlay friezes: we know this technique could be used to ornament buildings too, its place of main prestige - in Images: Comparanda you see the frieze of the Al Ubaid Ningirsu shrine set back up in its museum, with scenes of herd animals and their shepherds (priests at the temple's holdings?) and sanctuary/estate buildings; and in another section, fragments of a "historical" frieze from the palace at Kish, a warrior marching a bound captive before him. (This, and the drawing of an animal slab, are put therein to show you the very ancient prototypes for Assyrian war-history and hunt palace decoration.) The Standard itself, thus, also probably echoes palace wall decorations. The technique was striking in its effects, permanent in its color contrast 9unlike painted stone) and easy to apply, a good substitute for carving stone; the museum vista of the Al Ubaid shrine shows you how legible such decoration could be at a distance.
The Bulls-Head Lyre: c. 2685 BC, soundbox c. 43.cm ht., H&F 2.7-8 - Penn Univ. Museum View (similar) lyre (London, Brit. Museum) from side (wood frame is reconstruction), compare bull-head lyre on the Standard from these Tombs. 3/4 view: Sound box: Bull's head in gold with lapis lazuli beard and horn inlays, shell and bitumen for sound-box face and bull's eyes. Study-shot, sound-box inlays. 4 registers. Bottom 3 = animals and monsters at banquet (@ animal-fable literature?), each with 2 main figures in profile, so that the actors line up over one another. Bottom, monster and animal bringing drink next, singing harpist playing a lyre just like this one, and dancing bear (a joke on a classic sort of entertainment animal, real dancing bears), a little seated banqueter staring at the soundbox; next, servants bringing food (wood or basket table, with joke food of piled-up animal heads) and drink. Top: heraldic 3-figure scene - Gilgamesh in center, crushing in embrace two manheaded bulls, all staring out with frontal faces - bulls on hind legs // 2-figure scene below, all three faces @ with one another and with the similarly bearded bull head sculpture just over them (shaded by beard in H&F 2.7). Burlesque treatment of 'serious" themes (compare Warka cylinder seal above, and serious faces/ "light-hearted" ends of the Standard, above.)
Temple&Palace - power, piety, control
View Ur Ziggurat, H&F 2.12
Reconstructed view, The city of Assur looking at Northern wall, sanctuary and palace towers vista.
Compare:
Stele of Hammurabi (ruled 1792-1750): H&F 2.14. Colossal basalt stele, 2.24 m. ht. (Louvre), found in Susa in Iran. There will have been very many of these made, sent around Hammurabi's empire to "publish" his code; we don't know if this one went originally to Susa or was 'collected' there later by some later Assyrian or Achaemenid ruler. Below, the Law Code of Hammurabi (Wren). Top register, Hammurabi before his god, the sun-god (cf. Naram-sin's stars!). H. makes a pious gesture of acceptance before his face; the god passes to him the ring & rod, standard Near Eastern royal attributes of rule and allotment (originally, architect's tools, survey staff and coiled rope). The divinity is enthroned on top of a mountainous ziggurat's crowning shrine: stele/ziggurat equation as visual pun, with "law" making the ziggurat platform. H.'s gesture might possibly be one of speech, in this conversation with god; his laws are, similarly, presented as his prounouncements to the rest of us mortals, and the image shows them as transmitted and guaranteed by god. (Compare the Old Testament story of a Hebrew leader receiving the tablets of law from his god in a private conversation upon a mountain top, and bringing them to his people to be preserved as god's pronouncements (Moses at Sinai and the "10 Commandments").
NEO-SUMERIAN:Telloh/Lagash & Gudea (ruled c. 2144-2124) [see Gudea Hymns]
Some of the Gudea statues from the temple of Ningirsu
All are under life-size, in very hard basaltic stones.
- Seated Gudea the Builder (Louvre), about 1/2 life-size, now headless, sitting on chair with hands clasped in prayer, chair and skirt over-written with texts (hymns to Ningirsu), on his lap a tablet inscribed with - det., the plan of the buttressed walls of a sanctuary precinct. Note geometrically stylized pose, emphatic musculature in arms ("power").
- Gudea Head in Boston, broken from a diorite statue, 23.2cm., H&F 2.11: beardless G, long hair arranged with a corolla of tightly curled protruding fringe. [others here, skull shaven like a priest.] - view, the Gudea room at the Louvre, in 1947 - note range of standing and seated statues, the headless Gudea-Builder at far left. context: one of the standing, draped Gudea figures, head like ours (traditional pose ID, to Tell Asmar figures)
AKKADIAN:
Stele of Naramsin c. 2300-2200, 2.03 m. (Louvre) [apologies - I can't find out the provenance] Pink sandstone, low relief within a raised frame, curved top broken above at left. 2/3 of scene is mountain landscape with trees and rocks, above is moutnain top, 2 stellar symbols above, Naram-Sin as warrior (kilt, horned helmet, with bow and arrows, and mace), bodies of slain enemies under his feet, see det. - (enemy with arrow in throat dying before him). Other figures in 2 registers - most are his own soldiers, moving up and left to right; the figures at far right are enemies raising arms in submission on "far" side of mountain. We know this is a campaign against Iran - so, the Zagros range being scaled by N.'s invincible armies.
Bronze Head of Ruler (so-called Sargon), H&F 2.9. Life-size (30.5 cm). Cast, hammered and engraved bronze, inlaid eyes gouged out - the head had been moved to Assyrian Nineveh by the 9th c., where the statue was taken apart, precious eye-inlays removed, and the head put in a trash-heap. (Though not-melted - some sort of reverence? The statue may already have been damaged.) (The neck line seems a clean edge - inserted into a statue in another material?) Ruler as priest&judge - note carefully dressed long hair arranged in braid-crown, an 'ancient hair style [context: compare a stele of Gudea, top register, the gods who lead Gudea (far left, as shaven-headed priest) into audience with a higher god; and compare Stele of Hammurabi top scene.)
Stelae: [Many cultures have sacred standing stones ... "stele" or "stela" is a Greek word art-historians use for this class of decorated slabs (Greek-style plural is, "stelai", Latinate, "stelae" - modern schaolrs have the confusing habit of spelling Greek words in Latin spelling, often). H&F's remarks on the similarity of Hammurabi's Stele to a phallus are to enable comparison to the similarly shaped stone sacred "image" of Shiva in India, the "lingam". You should note that this tall, slightly tapering form with curved top is typical of rulers' votive stelai from Sumer and Akkad already. Most are flat slabs; this one seems meant to be a great pillar - taller than most ruler statues! at the same time, and its height helps explain why it was left like a column (to stay standing), and the similarity to such a building element may not have been accidental either ("the pillar of the law", as we would say. The great size was necessary to hold the enormous text, though Naramsin's is similar. These sorts of narrative slabs start in the Sumerian period, and so does the curve-topped shape. Assyrians made them too - cf. the so-called "White Obelisk", a great carved pillar, on which our Prof. Pittman has a significant essay in Art Bulletin. The early ones at least seem to have figures, not text - later ones have narrative text bands also. they were decorated on one side only, usually. You must imagine any ancient sanctuary in the great cities crowded with rulers' stelai in adjoining sequences built up over the decades and centuries (The Gudea Hymn tells you about Gudea putting up many of them to different gods - each divine recipient is who would have been shown in the top lunette). This may have something to do with the later Assyrian and Anatolian idea to simply revet the lower part of a wall in a sequence of carved stone slabs, permanently fixed. The Sumerian ones, and fragments of Sargon's Akkadian stelai too, were carved in bands (registers) of figural ornament (another prototype for Assyrian habits), and they tend to show war scenes and images (at top) of the ruler with gods; another king of Gude's dynasty had one about the building of a temple. Many stelae are sandstone or limestone - the basalt here is terribly heavy and expensive, and meant to be especially enduring. Even a smaller limestone stela was difficult to move without breaking - see the web comparison slide for Naramsin's stele being transported after excavation; a formidable ox-cart procession will have taken every one of these law-code pillars out probably from some central manufacture center (Babylon?), winding through the empire - and the raw pillars of basalt, or perhaps smaller versions in limstone, being transported from their mountain quarries will have made a similar sight. One was meant to know that the "master" copy stood in Babylon itself - perhaps this is it, spoliated to Susa for its venerable prestige after the Medes & Persians took Babylon?
*Middle Eastern costumes: the clothing you see is wool. In some Sumerian art (as at Ur) men wear long, often tufted skirts with the upper body bare, and as in Egypt often cropped or shaved their heads. (Priests often shaved it seems, even when others did not - e.g. a beardless, bald Gudea, who seems to have affected a very priestly appearance, is led by bearded gods on one of his stelai.) Otherwise, men and women both wore closely wrapped wool robes, often leaving one shoulder bare; and in many Mesopotamian cultures men wore long beards and also long hair, like women's, gathered up in knots and braids. Assyrians wore armless tunics sewn at the shoulder and belted ofen, at the waist. The very smooth look of much pre-Achaemenid costume in the ME is partly a sculptor's esthetic, but the effect of unwrinkled fine wool pulled flat sems to have been a costume esthetic too (as for our mens' wool jackets); texture was supplied in embroidered and fringed edges. Egyptian interest in transparency effects and textures of nested fold lines was permitted by their use of fine and even sheer linens (made of plant fiber, from flax), which could be starched and pleated. (Cotton was unknown in the Mediterranean world in these millenia, coming in only later from Southeast Asia.