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MESOPOTAMIA. The land between the rivers…. The name Mesopotamia ( land between the rivers ) refers largely to the area of modern Iraq. At various times, it included: Sumeria Akkad Assyria Babylonia At times, because of the geography, many other cultures invaded and had an influence.
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MESOPOTAMIA The land between the rivers…
The name Mesopotamia (land between the rivers) refers largely to the area of modern Iraq. At various times, it included: • Sumeria • Akkad • Assyria • Babylonia • At times, because of the geography, many other cultures invaded and had an influence
before 8000 BCE, there was sparse inhabitation • Gradually, plants and animals became domesticated • The food supply increased, populations increased, and the nomadic way of life was abandoned – villages, then towns and cities would evolve • Irrigation would occur, as there was little rainfall • With irrigation and agriculture came the need for government and laws, to organize, direct and protect workers, to record land ownership etc. • Trade evolved, as there were few resources – no stone, wood, metals – they would need to trade what they HAD for what they LACKED
Southern Mesopotamia grew rapidly. During the early Sumerian period (c. 3100-2000 BCE) the following emerged: • Flood control • Writing system • Religious literature • Monumental architecture • Economic organization • Codification of laws • Weights and measures • Concept of the city-state
Mesopotamia was very open to invasion – there were many conquerors The culture was enriched, but not absorbed – rather, the conqueror’s culture was absorbed into the existing culture THIS WAS DUE TO GEOGRAPHY…….NO NATURAL FEATURES TO PROTECT MESOPOTAMIA
Pottery • Traditions of making painted pottery flourished in agricultural villages and nomad camps throughout the Near East by the Late Neolithic period of the seventh millennium B.C.E. • These early ceramics were made by hand in a variety of techniques, including coil, mold, and slab construction, and served as cooking, serving, and storage vessels. • Most early pottery is STYLIZED, simple, and GEOMETRIC • Decoration becomes more sophisticated and intricate as time goes on
Storage jar decorated with mountain goats, early 4th millennium B.C.E.Central IranCeramic, paint; H. 20 7/8 in. (53 cm) Funerary beaker in Susa A style graveyard outside Susa. Ca. 4000 B.C. The horns of a stylized ibex sweep up in a geometric design, and the rim decoration consists of long necked water birds in a formal arrangement. Archaeological Museum, Teheran, Iran.
Funerary beaker in Susa A style from extramural graveyard at Susa. 10.5" tall. Elegant geometric design with stylized foliage. Early 4th millennium B.C.E. Le Louvre, Paris. Susa pottery bowl with dark brown geometric designs and birds on buff ground. Late 4th millennium. B.C.E. BritishMuseum, UK.
RITUAL OBJECTS Tell Asmar figurines c. 2700 BCE VOTIVE FIGURINES Gods, priests, worshippers – Hierarchy of size, up to about 30 “
Conventions • Artistic conventions evolve according to the accepted style or tradition of a certain culture at a certain time and place – therefore, characteristics we seem to find repeated often – almost a formula • What might be conventions in the Tell Asmar statues?
Conventions • Hierarchy of size • Cylindrical, closed forms • Pose of supplication – prayer – hands clasped • Simplification • Stylized • Wide, staring eyes – window to the soul? All-seeing? • Votive figurines were left as stand-ins – when the person was dead, or away, or busy?
Important Sumerian developments include: • The concept of the city-state • Writing • The concept of a powerful god communicating their desires to humanity through the medium of a powerful priest class or autocratic ruler • Government by a priest class through religious power is known as a THEOCRACY • This system centralizes power in the hands of a small group of people and gives political decisions a religious authority
ZIGGURAT – UR the temple was central ….the social cement” that bound the community together -
The ZIGGURAT was a temple raised up above the common level from which announcements might have come down from the gods • It may symbolize an artificial mountain (mound) – closer to the gods? • Mountains are sacred in many cultures – Mount Olympus – Ancient Greece • Only priests went to the top (Mayans did this as well) • Stairs and ramps represent the path up the symbolic mountain – a spiritual journey to receive guidance • Built of mudbrick – little stone or wood in Southern Iraq
Headdress with leaf-shaped ornaments, 2600–2500 B.C.E. Sumerian styleExcavated at "King's Grave," Ur, MesopotamiaGold, lapis lazuli, carnelian; L. 15 3/16 in. (38.5 cm)
Four strands of beads, 2500–2400 B.C.E Excavated at the "Great Death Pit," Ur, MesopotamiaGold, lapis lazuli; L. 21.26 in. (54 cm) Lunate earrings, 2500–2400 B.C.E Excavated at the "Great Death Pit," Ur, MesopotamiaGold
RAM IN A THICKET – UR Ur – 2800 BCE – 18” May represent the god TAMMUZ – male principle in nature
Things really haven't changed much in the 4500 years since the ram statuette was fashioned in ancient Ur as can be seen from this 1999 photograph of African gerenuk on their hind legs eating the leaves of an acacia tree.
Lyre Soundbox of Queen Puabi (18”) Images (mythical beings) organized into registers, anthropomorphism evident – Mesopotamian interest in combined creatures – human/animal combinations
OBJECT OF STATE - The Standard of Ur - 2600-2500 BCE ROYAL STANDARD – UR- about 18”, shell, lapis lazuli, sound box
The figures on the standard commemorate all aspects of life in Sumer • Art is a reflection of the culture from which it springs • In this case, the standard gives us a narrative of Sumerian life and culture • It is divided into registers • Very STYLIZED combination of profile and frontal poses – similar to the Egyptian way of portraying the human figure
Standard of Ur – Scenes of Peace The king holds a banquet, while commoners bring gifts of livestock, produce and manufactured goods
Standard of Ur – Scenes of War Soldiers in battle lead prisoners to the king – the king rides his chariot over the dead – propaganda – use of fear to impress their enemies
Ashurbanipal's brutal campaign against Susa is triumphantly recorded in this relief showing the sack of Susa in 647 BCE. Here, flames rise from the city as Assyrian soldiers topple it with pickaxes and crowbars and carry off the spoils.
Anthropomorphism Assyrian eagle-headed spirit
Power and Authority • To regulate trade, and matters of state, a powerful government evolved • The king’s court was luxurious and powerful • The king built temples, administered justice, maintained canals for irrigation • At first, kings were elected, then they became hereditary • Sumerians claimed their kings were appointed by heaven • Monarch’s main job was to wage war • Conflict over land and water rights was common • First professional army
Relief – Dying Lioness, Palace of Ashurbanipal, Nineveh, Iraq, bas relief panel, limestone, figure: 13.75" h, c. 669-633 B.C. (British Museum, London):
Killing lions was strictly a royal activity or ritual • Is the lion shown sympathetically? • Lion often a royal symbol
ASHURBANIPAL HUNTING – NINEVAH – 7TH C. BCE
The History of Writing • Language existed long before writing • the signature event that separated the emergence of palaeohumans from their anthropoid progenitors was not tool-making but a rudimentary oral communication that replaced the hoots and gestures still used by lower primates. • The transfer of more complex information, ideas and concepts from one individual to another, or to a group, was the single most advantageous evolutionary adaptation for species preservation. • As long ago as 25,000-30,000 years BCE, humans were painting pictures on cave walls. Whether these pictures were telling a "story" or represented some type of "spirit house" or ritual exercise is not known.
The advent of a writing system, however, seems to coincide with the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to more permanent agrarian encampments • perhaps it became necessary to count one’s property, whether it be parcels of land, animals or measures of grain, or to transfer that property to another individual or another settlement. • We see the first evidence for this with incised "counting tokens" about 9,000 years ago in the Neolithic fertile crescent.
Around 4100-3800 BCE, the tokens began to be symbols that could be impressed or inscribed in clay to represent a record of land, grain or cattle and a written language was beginning to develop. One of the earliest examples was found in the excavations of Uruk in Mesopotamia at a level representing the time of the crystallization of the Sumerian culture.
The pictures began as representing what they were, pictographs, and eventually, certain pictures represented an idea or concept, ideographs, and finally to represent sounds. • head foot sun"day“ hand woman
It's tempting to claim that the development of a writing system was necessitated by the need to keep track of beer, but perhaps we can be satisfied that it was just part of it. • Eventually, the pictographs were stylized, rotated and in impressed in clay with a wedge shaped stylus to become the script known as Cuneiform. The pictograph for woman, as seen above became: • Written language was the product of an agrarian society. These societies were centered around the cultivation of grain. A natural result of the cultivation and storage of grain is the production of beer. It is not surprising, therefore, that some of the very oldest written inscriptions concern the celebration of beer and the daily ration allotted to each citizen. Early cylinder seal depicting beer production
