Tallay Ornan 2013 , A Silent Message Godlike Kings in Mesopotamian Art (original) (raw)
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From the very first inscriptional evidence, all Mesopotamian rulers are said to have been touched by the gods in one way or another, although only some Mesopotamian rulers were explicitly accorded divine status, and only in some periods. in order to explore this association with the divine with respect to the moments/modes/metaphors of visual representation of the ruler across the Mesopotamian sequence, it is important to rehearse some of the issues surrounding " kingship " itself; and it is also important to pose the question of the commonalities and/or divergences between visual and verbal representation. it may be useful to anticipate conclusions at this point as well: that if one distinguishes between the sacred inscribed within notions of rule — that is, sacral kingship — from the explicit ascription of divinity to the ruler — that is, divine kingship — then the Mesopotamian ruler was never not accorded special status sanctioned by the gods. From earliest attestations, he participated in and was touched by the divine, and so occupied a space, if not co-terminus with that of a god, then at least that of an intermediary between god and man. There are at least four useful categories of textual evidence related to kingship upon which we may draw in Mesopotamian studies to inflect readings of royal imagery: 1. those dealing with the origins of the institution of rule 2. those articulating criteria for recruitment 3. those describing the necessary attributes of the effective ruler 4. those designating the signs by which such effectiveness could be recognized These text categories make clear that the institution of kingship was said to have originated with the gods (Jacobsen 1939; Klein 2006), and individuals ultimately designated to rule then claimed, or were accorded in official text, special qualities that led to their selection — including purposeful shaping by the gods — and manifest physical signs that indicated both their appropriateness for selection and their ability to govern. 1 The texts further permit one to explore the relationship between the ruler and the divine sphere, as well as between " divine kingship " and imagery. in the paper that follows, i shall not confine myself to images associated with periods in which rulers were explicitly accorded divine status — the akkadian and the neo-sumerian periods of the third millennium b.c. — but rather, starting from there, will look at a wide range of images and periods in which rulers were described and treated as if they were born of the gods and/or manifested divine signs. My proposition is that, even when not explicitly accorded divinity per se, rulers nevertheless could be represented verbally and visually as if they occupied a place in society that merited divine attributes, qualities, and status;
2005
This book analyzes the history of Mesopotamian imagery from the mid-second to mid-first millennium BCE. It demonstrates that in spite of rich textual evidence, which grants the Mesopotamian gods and goddesses an anthropomorphic form, there was a clear abstention in various media from visualizing the gods in such a form. True, divine human-shaped cultic images existed in Mesopotamian temples. But as a rule, non-anthropomorphic visual agents such as inanimate objects, animals or fantastic hybrids replaced these figures when they were portrayed outside of their sacred enclosures. This tendency reached its peak in first-millennium Babylonia and Assyria. The removal of the Mesopotamian human-shaped deity from pictorial renderings resembles the Biblical agenda not only in its avoidance of displaying a divine image but also in the implied dual perception of the divine: according to the Bible and the Assyro-Babylonian concept the divine was conceived as having a human form; yet in both cases anthropomorphism was also concealed or rejected, though to a different degree. In the present book, this dual approach toward the divine image is considered as a reflection of two associated rather than contra-Vl Chapter 4 Removed from Official Art: Anthropomorphic Representations of Deities in First-Millennium Assyria 4.1. Anthropomorphic Deities in First-Millennium Assyrian Monuments 4.1.1. Syrian Inspiration 4.1.2. Anthropomorphic Deities under Sennacherib 80 4.1.3. Anthropomorphic Deities on Wall Reliefs 4.2. Anthropomorphic Deities in First-Millennium Assyrian Glyptics Chapter 5 Outside the Temple: Non-Anthropomorphic
The Materiality of Divine Agency, 2015
Focusing on the divine image in Mesopotamia, this essay explores the construction and implications of the anthropomorphized divine body; the nature of the relationship between the image (specifically the ṣalmu) and its divine referent; and the means by which the authoritative and authorized status of a divine image might be established, in order that the image might successfully presence the deity. Taking the ninth century BCE Sun God Tablet (SGT) from Sippar as case study, Sonik specifically examines the embedding of images within the pictorial stream of tradition as a means of establishing their authoritative status. Such an embedding might be accomplished through both pictorial and written strategies: pictorial compositions may be deliberately designed to incorporate archaizing motifs or elements, visually announcing their ties to the (or even a specific period of the) ancient and esteemed past; written accounts, for their part, might trace or deliberately construct an object’s relationship to a more ancient model or even authoritative prototype with origins in the divine sphere
In respond ing to the visua l them e o f th e 3 rd ICAANE: "Re p resen tation des ideologi es ro y-ales et religieuses"/"Representations of Royal and Religious Id e ol o gies," I would lik e to take on the qu est ion of representation itsel f-n ot on ly th e fact o f, b ut th e power inhere nt in the vel) ' act of representation. In doing th is, I wo uld like to co ncent ra te on those instances in which th e two su b-sets-kings and go d s-the ro yal and the religi ous-actua lly co m e together, rather than remain-in g discreet classes of imagery. But before moving 10 substa nce, it is also imp ortant to n ote th at ano the r te rm in the th em e's titl e, the wo rd ideology, is probably one of the m o st over-used terms of ou r sc h olarly gene ratio n, a n d so also needs to b e clarified. Once used o n ly by Marxist historians, the term has finally p ercolat ed into "na tu ral" language to mean any belief system as represen ted , ver bally or visually. As I shall use it today, a definition o f "id e o logy" sho uld have several compo ne n ts, including th e co nscio us ac tivatio n a nd promulgation o f a co de d message o r m essages, origina ti ng fr om a defin abl e so u rc e, and design ed as a n e xp res-sive formulation with a mission: in short, a d esired co m m u n ica tio n act, gen erally (b u t o nly ge ne rally) emanating fro m an elite pow er structure and dire ct ed to a b road er, ofte n p opular, aud ience , with a view not only to narration, but to rationalization and per suasion. A gene ratio n ago, th e same th em e , "Representations of Royal and Religious Id eologies," would have been ca lle d simp ly "T he Iconogra phy of Kings a n d Gods ," and for some sc holarly o pe ra tions, th e two titl es co uld still be cons idere d syno nymo us. From the Ren aissance to th e 20th cen tury lega cy o f art historian, Erwin Panof sky (Ripa 159 3; Panofsky 1939, 195 5), "ico-nography" has b e e n co nsidered the key to m eaning in th e visual arts-the "what" of content , as distin ct fro m the "how" of style. The a n a lytical process o f uncovering meaning implicit in "iconogra phy"-the grap hing, or writing in , of meaning into imagery-required that one ha ve, in Pan ofsky's terms, a gove rn ing "text." That is, a text like the Gospels that would permit o ne to kn ow th at a pain ting like Leonardo d a Vinci's Last Supper was actu ally a reference to th at meal and n o o ther; o r tha t in Raphael's Marriage of th e Virgin , we are see ing n ot j ust any marriage, but th e vel)' union whose sig n i fica nce was directly related to the as-yet unoccupied and altar-less ch u rc h in the background. Once these d et erminations were made, the y could then be applied to other such images, creating clusters of like im ages, while the ac t of "do ing" icon ographical a nalysis was, in effect, th e d e-coding o f im ages accord ing to th e conve n tio nal "meanings" tha t la y behind the m .
Ur III Kings in Images: A Reappraisal
Your Praise is Sweet. A memorial volume for Jeremy Black from students, colleagues and friends edited by Heather D. Baker, Eleanor Robson and Gábor Zólyomi, 2010
A main concern of Jeremy Black was Sumerian literature. He launched a monumental project with the goal of compiling the entire corpus of Sumerian literary compositions in updated transliteration and translation, a project conceived as international collaboration and work in progress. The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature has become an indispensable tool for students of ancient Mesopotamia and, at the same time, makes Sumerian literature, for too long treated almost as an occult science, accessible to a wider audience. Jeremy also provided us with an unparalleled and most insightful guide to Reading Sumerian Poetry (1998), in which he appealed to the reader's appreciation for the aesthetic qualities of poetry. In spite of the many difficulties imposed by the fragmentary tradition of ancient texts in a long dead language, he succeeded in disclosing in one example the complex and sophisticated imagination and techniques of Sumerian poetry.
Depiction of Ancient Mesopotamian Religion through art and architecture
Art is one of the most unique ways to represent a culture as it allows the onlookers an insight into the society that no text could communicate, culture however, is in itself made up of the social norms and the overall preferences of the society. it is evident through the Mesopotamian art that Near Eastern society was greatly influenced by the religious personalities and the prevailing religious ideologies. dating back to almost 4500 years, It is one of the most Ancient civilizations known and yet we observe, through their art, architecture and surviving texts, that the role of religion in their society is not only important but it is fundamental to the existence of the Mesopotamian society. Although their belief system changed over time however, one thing that was central to their religion was the role of gods and priests in keeping the social order and harmony amongst the people, which essentially remained consistent over time(Starr). Our understanding of the Mesopotamian religion is based largely on what is depicted in the Mesopotamian art and their architectural remains. People built places for their gods, on whom they relied for survival and protection from natural disasters and other problems in life. Rituals, religious gathering, sacrifices and feasts were an integral part of the society and often the temples were constructed at the heart of the city signifying the importance of religion in daily lives of the inhabitants.
The Cult of the Deified King in Ur III Mesopotamia
2015
The topic of divine kingship in Mesopotamia, and in the Ur III period (ca. 2112-2004 B.C. E.) in particular, has been the subject of studies focused on aspects such as its ideology, rhetoric, political motivation, and place in the history of religion. This dissertation is concerned with more pragmatic aspects of the phenomenon, and investigates what, if any, effect the institution of divine kingship had on day-to-day life. The Ur III period was selected both because four of its five kings were deified during their lifetime, and over 95,000 administrative, i.e. non-ideologically oriented, records dating to this period are available for analysis. The main focus of this thesis is on cult, the essential signifier of divinity in that society, and, specifically, on the manner in which the cult of the deified king was established, extended, and popularized. The primary source utilized was the Base de Datos de Textos Neo-Sumerios (BDTNS). The first chapter demonstrates that at the center of...