Changes [Dec 03, 2007]
Bibliography
Lecture notes
The city state of Lagash (Early Dynastic Period). Gudea and the Second dynasty of Lagash: texts, narrativity and architecture.
Picking up again from Early Dynastic III- we looked at the Diyala sites: where indeed have seen a complexification of urban space and monumental architecture, which is largely shaped around temples of various scales, from small neighborhood shrines to massive terraced temple complexes such as the Temple Oval at Khafajah, or the temple at Al Ubaid. This sophistication in a way we also saw in the developments in visual culture, particularly in the form of pictorial and sculptural representations, includi ng the making of cult and devotte statues, wall plaques, seal imagery, impressively rich architectural decoration as well as artifacts from burial contexts, and we have agued that material production of such artifacts and imagery had certainly something to do with politics of the public sphere, power contestations among different cultural groups in the ED city as well as an increasing sophistication of cult practices, rituals etc. One interesting type of monument that emerges from precisely this politico-religious urban context of ED cultures in Southern mesopotamia is the “stele” a upright standing stone carved with images and inscriptions: a commemorative monument that presents a narrative account of socially recognized, socially significant event or episode. The so-called “Stele of Vultures” from . But first some historical context. Usually a historical monument presenting a particular royal rhetoric: this practice of marking landscapes with steles, or creating cult places in temples or palaces through the making of these steles is a long-term tradition in the ancient Near East.
Shortly introduce the city-state of Lagash, and the land dispute between Lagash and Umma (Kuhrt+Winter). The city state of Lagash, was one of the most prosperous, powerful city states in the South, located on the East bank of the Tigris. The city-state wascentered around 3 major urban centers. Lagash itself (modern Al Hiba), Girsu (modern Tello), and Nina (modern Surgul). Lagash and Girsu are excavated among those.
We know from written documents, we know the specific king names from this city state, so we are lucky, and we are also aware of the military activities/political disputes and building campaigns of these kings. The ruler at this time was called and ensi, literally a city-governor, he was the protector of the city in the name of the city’s main deity, for whom he cared by building and maintaining temples. Some of the land was owned by the ruler, some assigned to temples and some in private ownership, different households/families. We also know that especially at the time of their ruler Eannatum, ca 2450 BC, the city-state of Lagash has political dispute with the neighboring city state of Umma, immediately to the West, across from one of the tributaries of Tigris. And by means of a monument we will study the details of this conflict, which was basicly over some fertile irrigated agricultural land between Umma and Lagash. Girsu, Lagaš and NINAKI were all established along a major irrigation canal, namely IDNinaKI-du-a that branched out from the Tigris. The head of the canal was controlled by the regional state of Umma, with whom Lagaš rulers occasionally had water-based and territorial conflicts. While Girsu was located upstream near the border with Umma, Lagaš and NINAKI were both located further south. The borders between Lagaš and Umma were usually marked with canals and levees, and consolidated with inscribed boundary monuments (stela, boulders, cones) and cult places.
The settlement developed really huge in the ED period especially in the EDIII, when large temple complexes were built. But very limited excavation.
Ibgal of Inanna and an unidentified partially excavated temple oval.
Donald Hansen, excavated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY and the Institute of Fine Arts of NYU. Massive site (more than 600 ha., 3600x1900 m.), largest mound in SE Iraq, located in the Nasiriyah province,15 miles E of modern Shatra. Identified as ancient Lagash. The city-state of Lagash (1st Dynasty of Lagash): Lagash (Al Hiba), Girsu (Telloh), and Nina (Surghul). 1st dyn of Lagash kings were not included in the Sumerian king list. From other inscriptional evidence we know:
About 25 km NW of Lagash. Very poorly excavated by the French who were intersted in objects than architecture. There is no record of architecture, very poor excavations. Several temples were excavated the one for Ningirsu was the most important and monumental. But one of the very important stone monuments come from Telloh which we will study.
The stele of vultures, its archaeological-historical context. Presentation of the general formal characteristics. The text/ the inscription of the stele.
Louvre museum. Fragmetary:7 fragments, excavated in 1880s at the site of Telloh (ancient Girsu).
A stele. Ht 1.8 m; 1.3 m. in width, 11 cm thick.
A few words on the stele tradition in Mesopotamia: what is a stele. Some examples from earlier stele? The main function as boundary stone to limit the fields. Early land grant tenure monuments are known making the limits of lands.
Carved with high, well-modelled relief in both sides, wrapping around the narrow edges. The monument is therefore intended to be seen all around; freestanding. The empty spaces are filled with an inscription that is continuously incised on the obverse and the reverse. From the text we learn that the stele was constructed by the ruler Eannatum, city-governor, ruler of Lagash in 2460 BC. The stele inscription immediately tells us about the historical context and meaning of the monument. It summarizes the border conflict with the city-state of Umma, the neighboring state immediately to the West. A conflict over a fertile piece of irrigated agricultural land. This allows us to study the visual representation and the text together, which in the Ancient Near East was in close correlation. Consolidation of the city-state of Lagash. EDIII, ca 2500 BC. A public, historical monument with a narrative. A freestanding relief that commemorates the victory of the city-state of Lagash over the neighboring state of Umma. A unique historical event, rather than a generic representation. This question came up in the iconography of the wall plaques.
Description. Obverse side.
Two unequal registers:
Upper register:
Central male figure, holding the net and the mace, hitting one of the heads of the nude captives caught in the net. Two representations of anzu bird of the mythological texts, associated with thunderstorm, and the god Ningirsu.
Identification of the large male figure: Ningirsu, to whom the stele is dedicated to; or Eannatum, by whom the stele was erected. Winter argues convincingly in no other comparable monuments, a royal figure hold this divine amblem. Suggesting that this large figure is the city god, Ningirsu himself.
Smaller figure on the same register a female, with a headdress of splayed cow horns with feathers flanking a central lion head. Behind her is anzu bird amblem again raise on a pole. A series of maces protrude from her sholders which is a clear divine attribute of Ancient Mesopotamia. Identified from these attributes as Ninhursag, Lady of the Mountain, the motehr of Ningirsu. The mythical association of Ninhursag with anzu bird is also known.
So the upper scene epicts Ningirsu, the city god accompanied with his mother Ninhursag and their divine symbol anzu bird, triumphant over the enemies of Lagash.
Lower register:
poorly preserved. Barely enough to identify that a chariot is represented moving toward right, restored by artists from the known iconography of chariots from other sources. The goddess Ninhursag stands facing against it in front. From the bit of hiis skirt, art historians also restored the god Ningirsu standing in the chariot, riding it Thewhole composition of this side is as winter puts it “the battle is over” with the vanquished enemy already in Ningirsu’s hands. Symbolism of the divine patronage/intiation/impetus for the victory.
Reverse:
4 registers. The top curve of the monument covered with vultures with the heads of the defeated holding with their beaks. In the first register from the top, a phalanx of 12 shielded soldiers, ready to attack with raised shields and pointed spears; lead by the figure of the distictive individual the king. Asmall fragment of the other side of this register is preserved, and there we have the piled bodies of the Ummites, the fallen enemies. Notice the hierachical use of the size of human body to delineate the status from the god Ningirsu and Ninhursag, to the elaborate depiction of the king, the kings soldiers and the defeated Ummaites. Second register: a group of sldiers, armed to the very left, with spears and battle axes but they are not in an immediate attack position.They are now led by the royal chariot, with the king himself in it, having raised his long spear. Notice how the art historians restore the rest of the chariot with equid animals rather than a mythical anymal which was the case in the obverse side.
In the third register, a central, presumably seated figure of presumably the king (from his size). In front of him a bull tied up for sacrifice, and two libation vessels with sacred plants in them anddate bunches. A naked priest is pouring libation. To left, small figures with mudbrick baskets on their heads climb mounds of corpses. A typical representation in Mesopotamia of construction workers constructing temples, high mounds, ziqqurats. They are literally constructing a trophy monument with the bodies of the vanquished.
Fouth register not preserved at all except for a spear raised by a hand pointing to a bold man’s head. The hand is restored to be belonging to the royal figure again.
Structure of the text:
Eannatum decides for battle with Umma (the conflict), he goes to temple for a dream oracle for divine instruction, and in his dream, he is told that the corpses of his enemy would form a mound reaching the base of heaven, then text is blank, and then he took arms against Umma.
The movement of the figure of the king.
Note the mythologicals aspect of the obverse and the mundane/historical aspect of the reverse. Integration of myth and history, a mythological-sympolic appropriation of a historical event, legitimizing the King Eannatum’s attack on Umma, by shaowing the city god guiding him. Also with the dream oracle component. That is why we can see the monument as a public monument because of this aspect, that the king appropriates his military actions by using the divine guidance and support in front of the public.
According to Winter what is the correlation between the text and the image?
The text and the image complement each other rather than repeating each other. What the visual narrative depicts is really cut short in the text, and the long oaths etc are absent from the imagery. They both have their own structure. At the birth of visual narrative, we do need to see that the narrative comes from the long wall plaque tradition.
A definition of narrative?
Importance of the concept of narrative. A translation of knowing into telling in the pictorial domain. The story, of the oral tradition, translated into a figurative scheme. The way how this is depicted, how it is symbolized in the pictorial schemes as episodes. How much do we understand it, how much is completed by the mind of the viewer. The difference between telling a story (a narrative), and referring to it (single scene)? the meaning of “allusive”, “culminative scene” that stands for the whole story?
Compare the two sides. How does stele of vultures differ in contenct, subject matter from the wall plaques?
The function of the stele. As a historical document, a witness to the victory and the re-established order.
The decline of the prosperity brought by the Akkadians was less destructive on the Southern cities, who managed to keep their Sumerian traditions quite uninterrupted eventhough in a rather politically opressed way. Lagash, who we talked a great deal about, the city state which used to be quite powerful in the Early Dynastic period, regained its independence with a strong revival of the Sumerian culture, architectural and artisanal traditions and the city-state type organization, under a very significant ruler Gudea, whom we will talk about. He was enthroned in about 2125 BC, and ancient Girsu became the new capital of the city-state. Gudea consolidated the wealth of the state by reviving the long distance trade routes , which allowed him for the procurement of precious stones as well. At Girsu, he was able to establish a very specialized artisanal worshops, and restored several temples and public buildings at Girsu, as well as sponsored an impressive amount of royal sculptures.
Gudea claims to have built 15 temples in Girsu, the most important being Eninnu, the great sanctuary for the tutelary deity Ningirsu. Gudea appears as the benevolent patron of craftsmanship and temple building. He must have established a craftsmen school-royal workshop. The idea of materials brought from distant lands is very crucial in his ideology. Several temple foundations with timber from upper Euphrates. He also is supposed to have built temples in Ur, Nippur, Uruk.
Continuity of sculptural traditions: in the depictions of en (priest-king) and ensi. Especially in terms of the material that was used and the scale of the sculpture in the round. We know very little about the function of the ruler statues in the ancient near east, so it is hard to talk about a rejection of one (Akkadian in this case) style by a group of palace craftsmen of a certain city-state (Lagash in this case).
In the excavations at Tello some 20 of these diorite sculptures are excavated, later some were also purchased from the art market by the museum, smuggle out of Iraq at some point. There is awhole issue of forgery with some of these purchased pieces.
In all of these statues, basically a cylindrical form is maintained: nothing really protrudes out of it. Depicted with very impressive muscular arms, clasped and immobilized hands, associated with a pious concentration, enlarged eyes: all acting as visual metaphors.
The facial features are dominated with broad and flat cheekbones, and a prominent chin. Most of them are inscribed, some in standing position some in sitting. Very expressive physical attributes contained within this sculptured form each pointing out to the symbolism of various attributes of the king, like strong, wise, attentive, pious, good leader and a shepherd of his own people. Large eye depicts him as a good seer, large ears as a good listener: its like a visual catalogue of various traits of rulership.
Gudea’s statues, as Irene Winter discusses them in the article we read, the image of the king, apart from its main function of representing the king in perpetual conversation of the deties, also objects of awe and admiration, but as Mary Helms speaks about kingship and skilled craftsmenship, the representation of the king as a skilled craftsmen, a man of wisdom is an essential aspect. In this way the king’s body itself becomes a work of art, just like Naram Sin’s alluring body was represented.
Statue B (with temple plan on lap)
The supreme example of this is his statue whcih depicts him as the builder king, and on his lap rests the plan of the temple. This is a diorite statue from Girsu, from a later context, ca 2090 bc. Dedicated to Ningirsu to commemorate the building and inauguration of E-ninnu, Ningirsu’s temple in Tello/Girsu.
Gudea has inititated a large building activity not only at Girsu his own city but also other cities in South. This period, often also called the Neo-Sumerian period, is the time when actually the foundaton ritual ptractices in Mesopotamia became very elaborate, accompanied with the now developing practice of foundation deposits as we call them. When a public building especially a temple was constructed in ancient Mesopotamia, there were rituals for the consecration of the bit of land on which the temple was going to be built. (these rituals were even attested for the houses). The main purpose obviously is the purification of the land, and legitimization of building on the God’s land, since all lands belonged to the gods, and by building on them the humans were violating the divine territory. You have, I hope read about these practices in detail in Richard Ellis’s article.
These rituals involved deposition of various items, buried in the foundations, or installed at the time of the building’s foundation. Gudea has initiated a whole set of innovations in this practice, depositing the so-called canephorous (basket-carrying) peg figures, representing the ruler as builder himself. Also cylinders, with long inscriptions on them. These are the longest known Sumerian inscriptions, very elaborate narrative compositions.
