Ancient Middle East Art

Annotations:

• Akkadians took the architecture of the Sumerians principles, so they copied the materials, the mosaics, the walls, the terraces and the use of the vault.

1. Victory Stele of Naram-Sin

   Annotations:

   • Stele: a prepared surface on the face of a building, a rock,etc., bearing an inscription or the like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY79AuGZDNI
2. Cylinder seals

   Annotations:

   • A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpZYCOFAI_4
3. King Sargon Mask

   Annotations:

   • The Sargon mask of the akkadian king is dated 2334–2284 BC, this means it was approximately 5000 years from us. Eyes were made out of precious stones so the king could watch their people all the time.

Annotations:

• The region of southern Mesopotamia is known as Sumer, and it is in Sumer that we find some of the oldest known cities, including Ur and Uruk. Uruk Prehistory ends with Uruk, where we find some of the earliest written records. This large city-state (and its environs) was largely dedicated to agriculture and eventually dominated southern Mesopotamia. Uruk perfected Mesopotamian irrigation and administration systems. Within the city of Uruk, there was a large temple complex dedicated to Innana, the patron goddess of the city. The City-State's agricultural production would be “given” to her and stored at her temple. Harvested crops would then be processed (grain ground into flour, barley fermented into beer)  and given back to the citizens of Uruk in equal share at regular intervals.

1. Architecture

   Annotations:

   • They used the rich clays they found in their territory to build their buildings. The use of Mosaics were helpful to protect clay from rain and floods. The Vault was first used so they could expand the space inside their buildings.
   1. Ziggurats

      Annotations:

      • A ziggurat is a built raised platform with four sloping sides—like a chopped-off pyramid. Ziggurats are made of mud-bricks—the building material of choice in the Near East, as stone is rare. Ziggurats were not only a visual focal point of the city, they were a symbolic one, as well—they were at the heart of the theocratic political system
2. Cylinder Seals

   Annotations:

   • Cuneiform was used for official accounting, governmental and theological pronouncements and a wide range of correspondence. Nearly all of these documents required a formal “signature,” the impression of a cylinder seal. A cylinder seal is a small pierced object, like a long round bead, carved in reverse (intaglio) and hung on strings of fiber or leather. These often beautiful objects were ubiquitous in the Ancient Near East and remain a unique record of individuals from this era. Each seal was owned by one person and was used and held by them in particularly intimate ways, such as strung on a necklace or bracelet. When a signature was required, the seal was taken out and rolled on the pliable clay document, leaving behind the positive impression of the reverse images carved into it. However, some seals were valued not for the impression they made, but instead, for the magic they were thought to possess or for their beauty.
3. Worshipers

   Annotations:

   • *The main types of sculpture in the round during this time period were for religious reasons. Sculpture was made for a purpose. The most prevalent are wonderful sculptures with big eyes. These were placed in the high temple on top of the ziggurat. According to many of the archeologists who have studied the Sumerian sculpture these statues were given to the temple to pray for the person who donated them. When the temple was rebuilt the figures were buried with in the Ziggurat.
4. Standart of Ur

   Annotations:

   • Leonard Woolley, the excavator at Ur, imagined that it was carried on a pole as a standard, hence its common name. Another theory suggests that it formed the soundbox of a musical instrument. The main panels are known as "War" and "Peace." "War" shows one of the earliest representations of a Sumerian army. Chariots, each pulled by four donkeys, trample enemies; infantry with cloaks carry spears; enemy soldiers are killed with axes, others are paraded naked and presented to the king who holds a spear.The "Peace" panel depicts animals, fish and other goods brought in procession to a banquet. Seated figures, wearing woolen fleeces or fringed skirts, drink to the accompaniment of a musician playing a lyre.
5. Cuneiform

   Annotations:

   • Cuneiform writing was used to record a variety of information such as temple activities, business and trade. Cuneiform was also used to write stories, myths, and personal letters.
6. Silver Lyre

   Annotations:

   • The Lyres of Ur or Harps of Ur are considered to be the world's oldest surviving stringed instruments. They are over 4,500 years old, from ancient Mesopotamia during the Early Dynastic III Period (2550–2450 BCE). The decorations on the lyres are fine examples of the court Art of Mesopotamia of the period.

Annotations:

• The city of Babylon on the River Euphrates in southern Iraq is mentioned in documents of the late third millennium B.C.E. and first came to prominence as the royal city of king Hammurabi (about 1790-1750 B.C.E.). He established his control over many other kingdoms stretching from the Persian Gulf to Syria. The British Museum holds one of the iconic artworks of this period, the so-called “Queen of the Night.”

1. The "Queen of the Night" relief

   Annotations:

   • This large plaque is made of baked straw-tempered clay, modeled in high relief. The figure of the curvaceous naked woman was originally painted red. She wears the horned headdress characteristic of a Mesopotamian deity and holds a rod and ring of justice, symbols of her divinity. Her long multi-colored wings hang downwards, indicating that she is a goddess of the Underworld. Her legs end in the talons of a bird of prey, similar to those of the two owls that flank her. The background was originally painted black, suggesting that she was associated with the night. She stands on the backs of two lions, and a scale pattern indicates mountains.
2. Architecture

   Annotations:

   • The Neo-Babylonians are most famous for their architecture, notably at their capital city, Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar (604-561 B.C.E.) largely rebuilt this ancient city including its walls and seven gates. It is also during this era that Nebuchadnezzar purportedly built the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" for his wife because she missed the gardens of her homeland in Media (modern day Iran). Though mentioned by ancient Greek and Roman writers, the "Hanging Gardens" may, in fact, be legendary.
   1. Ishtar gate

      Annotations:

      • The Ishtar Gate (today in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin) was the most elaborate of the inner city gates constructed in Babylon in antiquity. The whole gate was covered in lapis lazuli glazed bricks which would have rendered the façade with a jewel-like shine.  Alternating rows of lion and cattle march in a relief procession across the gleaming blue surface of the gate.
   2. Towers of Babel

      Annotations:

      • Some modern scholars have associated the Tower of Babel with known structures, notably the Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to the Mesopotamian god Marduk by Nabopolassar, the king of Babylonia circa 610 BCE. The Great Ziggurat of Babylon was 91 metres (300 ft) in height. Alexander the Great ordered it to be demolished circa 331 BCE in preparation for a reconstruction that his death forestalled. A Sumerian story with some similar elements is told in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.
3. The Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi

Annotations:

• The Assyrian empire dominated Mesopotamia and all of the Near East for the first half of the first millennium, led by a series of highly ambitious and aggressive warrior kings. Assyrian society was entirely military, with men obliged to fight in the army at any time. State offices were also under the purview of the military.

1. Sculpture

   Annotations:

   • The finest carvings, are the famous lion hunt reliefs from the North Palace at Nineveh belonging to Ashurbanipal (668-631 B.C.E.). The scenes were originally picked out with paint, which occasionally survives, and work like modern comic books, starting the story at one end and following it along the walls to the conclusion.
   1. Lamassu

      Annotations:

      • In art, lamassi were depicted as hybrids, with bodies of either winged bulls or lions and heads of human males. The motif of a winged animal with a human head is common to the Near East, first recorded in Ebla around 3000 BCE. The first distinct lamassu motif appeared in Assyria during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser II as a symbol of power. Assyrian sculpture typically placed prominent pairs of lamassu at entrances in palaces, facing the street and also internal courtyards. They were represented as "double-aspect" figures on corners, in high relief. From the front they appear to stand, and from the side, walk, and in earlier versions have five legs, as is apparent when viewed obliquely. Lumasi do not generally appear as large figures in the low-relief schemes running round palace rooms, where winged genie figures are common, but they sometimes appear within narrative reliefs, apparently protecting the Assyrians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=2GrvBLKaRSI
   2. Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions

Annotations:

• The heart of ancient Persia is in what is now southwest Iran, in the region called the Fars. In the second half of the 6th century B.C.E., the Persians (also called the Achaemenids) created an enormous empire reaching from the Indus Valley to Northern Greece and from Central Asia to Egypt. A tolerant empire Although the surviving literary sources on the Persian empire were written by ancient Greeks who were the sworn enemies of the Persians and highly contemptuous of them, the Persians were in fact quite tolerant and ruled a multi-ethnic empire. Persia was the first empire known to have acknowledged the different faiths, languages and political organizations of its subjects.

1. Persepolis

   Annotations:

   • Persepolis was intentionally founded in the Marvdašt Plain during the later part of the sixth century B.C.E. It was marked as a special site by Darius the Great (reigned 522-486 B.C.E.) in 518 B.C.E. when he indicated the location of a “Royal Hill” that would serve as a ceremonial center and citadel for the city. This was an action on Darius’ part that was similar to the earlier king Cyrus the Great who had founded the city of Pasargadae. Darius the Great directed a massive building program at Persepolis that would continue under his successors Xerxes (r. 486-466 B.C.E.) and Artaxerxes I (r. 466-424 B.C.E.). Persepolis would remain an important site until it was sacked, looted, and burned under Alexander the Great of Macedon in 330 B.C.E.