This lecture covers the second half of the ancient Near Eastern period of art,
and we'll start off looking at the Neo-Sumerian
period, then move on to the Babylonian period, and
then the Assyrian, and finally Achaemenid Persian period --
looking at a few examples of art from each period. So beginning with the Neo-Sumerian
period -- we're returning to the area of Sumer. The cities of Sumer become a resurgent.
The Akkadian dynasty has fallen and around 2100 BC
we see the King of Ur, or also known as the Third Dynasty since they're
resurgent for the third time, and so this is how we call it The "Neo-Sumerian"
period,
that's how it's referred to in your textbook, so beginning by looking at
a ziggurat/temple complex. This is how it survives today. It's
called the ziggurat at Ur, or it's known as the "Great Ziggurat". It has been extensively restored
especially in the 1980s under Saddam Hussein.
A lot of it was faced with modern brick, so a lot of what you see there
is modern-day restoration. Unfortunately, the temple on top no longer survives, but
you can see in this reconstruction
that there would have been four levels with a temple on top where
offering could have been received and perhaps sculptures could have been placed in
perpetual worship
of the gods. You can see that there's a form of buttressing all along the outside
both in the reconstruction and in the photograph here. This would have
supported the walls.
The ziggurats are becoming taller and taller over time, and we'll see this
continue into the
Assyrian period where the ziggurats become
even taller, so just a reminder that there would probably be
very much a need to create more support as the structures are becoming
taller, and it also provides a nice visual effect on these wide areas at
brick,
and presumably there would have been processions that could
go up these wide stairways; these stairways that go in three directions - 1,2,3,
and you can get a sense of the scale, and the growth the growth of these ziggurats by looking at
this
one that has been heavily restored and is currently in
modern-day Iraq. Another work of art that indicates
importance of donating or patronizing or
commissioning these ziggurat/temple complexes
is the "Seated Statue of Gudea", which also dates to about 2100 BCE,
It's made of diorite -- a very rare stone. There's not a lot of stone
that can be found in the ancient Near East, so it needed to be imported.
This demonstrates Gudea's ability
to commission sculptures of this status with
this type of stone; remember that we saw diorite
with the sculpture of Khafre, previously in the Old Kingdom in ancient Egypt.
So this sculpture demonstrates his power and his ability to
create sculptures of this type. It also demonstrates that he
is donating a temple to the god Ningirsu.
You can see that there are little ridges that stick out indicating this is
basically a blueprint
for the temple that he's commissioning for the god,
and actually, it's recorded that he had dreams that he was too
make these offerings -- that the gods wanted him to --
and this sculpture is one of many where we see
Gudea in this perpetually
praying position or he's making an offering in other sculptures.
He would have originally had a head. It has come off,
but in other versions we do see him with his head with his
special headpiece on, and Gudea
seems to have created a lot of these to put in a variety of temples.
The temples on top of ziggurats were known as waiting rooms, where you were
waiting for the gods to appear.
So even if you couldn't stay in the temple waiting for the god, you could put
a sculpture there,
so that you could have a proxy -- someone in your place --
to be there if the gods were to appear. Moving on to Babylon, so the dynasty of
Ur falls, and the most powerful ruler of Babylon is
Hammurabi, and Hammurabi is known for his law code -- his stele that presents a law
code --
and a lot of order. You have a system of crime and punishment outlined on his
law code, as well as a representation of Hammurabi. His empire begins as quite small
so Babylon begins as this
relatively small area here, and then begins to expand
quite dramatically around Euphrates by 1750 BCE, so by the
end of his rule. If we look at his
stele, you can see it's another one of these works of art that could be placed in a
public location -- just like
the "Stele of Naram-Sin" or the "Stele of Eannatum" that could present someone
in a very positive light, so this one
you could that Hammurabi has a close connection with Shamash, the sun god,
and so you can see him -- this is Hammurabi here,
this is Shamash right here -- and we'll zoom in in just a second.
And then the law code is down below, which tells us about
out what the crime and punishment would be, so this one example: an eye for an eye, so if
you put out someone's eye
your eye will be put out. If you steal from a temple -- remember people are making
extensive offerings to these
temple complexes -- and so if you steal something from a temple
you will be put to death. There are crimes for adultery.
There are laws for how a woman dowry would be handled,
so all of this is outlined in the laws down below,
which are written in cuneiform script, but in the Akkadian language.
If we zoom-in, we can see Hammurabi right here. You can see his extensive
beard, which we often see very stylized in Near Eastern art,
and possibly a gesture of greeting or speaking, and you can see
that Shamash is offering him the tools of an architect, which were tools
of leadership so
tools for building, tools for developing cities,
and Shamash is clearly much larger, a bit more muscular
If Shamash were to stand, he would really tower over Hammurabi.
He is seated though on a type of throne. His
feet are raised on a footrest, and he's wearing a much more
elaborate headpiece -- almost similar to Naram-Sin with all the horns that
are
incorporated, but even more elaborate than Naram-Sin --
a larger beard -- a stylized beard -- and also we can tell it's Shamash.
He has little flames flickering out from his shoulders, so we get a sense
and that he is indeed the sun god, and one final thing to note
is just that there is no intercessor between the two -- there's no figure in
between them.
Hammurabi is suggesting with this stele that he doesn't need an intercessor --
that he and
Shamash are close enough -- that he has close enough connections to the divine
that he is able to communicate with them in a one-on-one
type of interaction, so that definitely
speaks highly of Hammurabi. Moving on to the Assyrian
period. The Assyrian Empire becomes much larger than the Babylonian
and the Neo-Sumerian areas of dominance. You can see that
up by the end it -- it's really dominating this whole area around the
Mesopotamian region, but also moving into Egypt,
so moving into areas that previous Near Eastern
dynasties or empires had never reached.
After defeating the warring factions, including the Babylonians,
the Assyrians take their name from Ashur, which is their city named after
the god,
so right around here, and then you can just see how it begins to spread and
spread
in moving both east and west.
The Assyrians were known for their extensive citadels. A number of rulers
built citadels that had extensive fortifications -- they were often raised so that you would
have a view, and also you would know if anyone was coming,
extensive gateways, so those who would visit the citadels
would move through these gateways. This area out here
is where more of the bureaucratic offices for managing the empire would be located
and then up here would be more of the area for audience halls, for throne
areas for
at the ruler -- in this case, it's Sargon II, so this is the citadel of Sargon II
in modern-day Khorsbod, or
or previously called Dur Sharrukin, and you can also see there's a
ziggurat included, so the essential features are
these bureaucratic office, the fortifications
the courtyard where people to gather and wait, and then the audience halls, which were
within this area
and then the ziggurat, which you can see has developed from
the single tier to the four tiers that we saw
at Ur, and then now we these multiple tiers
moving up to much taller ziggurat complex.
One of the things that was discovered at the citadel of Sargon
were these "Lamassu" -- these figures that essentially guarded the gates,
and you would have to walk past as you moved into the structure,
presumably they're meant to be intimidating -- you can tell they have
these extensive
stylized beards, human faces, wings,
and then also the bull's body. They have five legs, so they look like they're moving
forward from the side, but
very strong and stoic if you look at them from the front.
There's some additional views, so you can see how they would work as gateway
figures, and also the scale of the figures.
In these citadels, you would have extensive decoration
in quite low relief that would indicate how powerful these rulers were,
and one of these propagandistic messages or storylines comes from
a low-relief sculpture that represents Ashurbanipal
hunting lions, and this dates all the way to 645-640 BCE,
and you can see him here -- he's fighting these lions -- and these lions have been
left behind -- they are fishing one off right here. Ashurbanipal looks very
determined,
and this comes from a history of
rulers killing animals to protect their people, but in this case
these are lions that have all been gathered together in an organized hunt,
and hunting was also a prerogative of the elite and the
wealthy, and so Ashurbanipal is demonstrating his power by the fact that
he can
gather all these lions together, and kill
all of them. There are many parts to this relief. They would have been picked out
in some color, so it would have be much easier to see. I know it's hard to see some of
the detail,
but here you can see Ashurbanipal, the chariot, and in then this lion
gripping onto his wheel. Another one where you can see
how the lions were caged up, and then released, and then you can see this
one's
stalking out -- looking quite ferocious,
and then here's one that has an arrow in it and
presumably losing some blood there,
so quite violent in its overall appearance but gives us a sense of the power
of Ashurbanipal, his ability as a hunter and a
fighter. And also the fact that he is able to
presumably protect his people. Finally, moving to the Achaemenid
Persian period, which was a dominant empire up until the point of
when Alexander the Great comes in. This empire is really
unprecedented up until this point in the class, where you can see that
it's extending into the area of India all the way over to Greece and
the Achaemenid Persians will be vilified by the Greeks for the fact that they come
in and try to invade
their territory, which we'll see in few weeks
in class. So the Achaemenid Persians are dominant for a few hundred years.
It starts off with Cyrus the Great, then moving into Darius I
and Xerxes, and Darius and Xerxes are very famous
again for the ancient Greek for the fact that they were coming in and invading,
so you can see just right up to the border there. We're going to focus in on
the palace at Persepolis -- this ceremonial palace
that's in the area of modern day Iran, and Persepolis survives
in pretty rough shape. You can see it here -- it was sacked by
Alexander the Great either purposefully or it may have been accidentally burned
down.
There's a number of different ideas, but there were large audience halls --
especially the Apadana was a large audience hall.
There are gateways that mimic the type of Lamassu gateways that we saw
in the Assyrian citadels. There are relief sculptures that show us
how everyone in the empire is getting along.
The Achaemenid Persians were taking over a vast area,
and so they controlled a lot of different people and
here in the reliefs, you can see that everyone's talking, getting along, holding
hands,
bringing offerings to the rulers, and we see
this from a lot of different areas [or regions], and these also would have been picked out in color
with more detail, but they are at a higher relief, so it's easier to see what's going
on.
Our final key work is just a relief of
Darius here seated with his footrest, with his throne,
Xerxes -- ready to take over, demonstrating that the dynasty is strong,
that there's someone that's coming after him [Darius I].
You can see the guards behind him and a figure that is slightly
bowing to him, so definitely demonstrating their power,
that they were very just. They are known as very good
rulers in order to be able to create an empire this extent and
organize it. They allowed a certain amount of religious freedom
which really was not seen previously.
And so as long as you swore allegiance to them as rulers, you were allowed to
follow different religions,
and so here we see them as looking very large, very strong, very good
rulers, which is a different that how the Greeks will represent them as we'll see
in a few weeks,
so keep this in mind as we move on to a later period in the class.