On Art in the Ancient Near East – Vol. 2: From the Third Millennium BCE (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East)

561 Pages·2009·8.56 MB·English

by  Irene J. Winter

On Art in the Ancient Near East
Culture and History of the
Ancient Near East
Founding Editor
M. H. E. Weippert
Editor-in-Chief
Thomas Schneider
Editors
Eckart Frahm, W. Randall Garr, B. Halpern,
Theo P. J. van den Hout
VOLUME 34.2

On Art in the Ancient
Near East
Volume II
From the Third Millennium B.C.E.
Irene J. Winter
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2010
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
On the art in the ancient Near East / edited by Irene J. Winter.
p. cm. — (Culture and history of the ancient Near East, ISSN 1566-2055 ; v. 34)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17237-1 (hard cover : v. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-17499-3
(hard cover : v. 2 : alk. paper) 1. Middle East—Antiquities. 2. Art, Ancient—Middle
East. 3. Sculpture, Ancient—Middle East. 4. Visual communication—Middle East—
History—To 1500. 5. Social archaeology—Middle East. I. Winter, Irene.
DS56.O5 2009
709.39’4—dc22
2009020832
ISSN 1566-2055
ISBN 978 90 04 17499 3
Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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printed in the netherlands
VOLUME TWO
FROM THE THIRD MILLENNIUM B.C.E.
CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................ vii
Acknowledgments ....................................................................... xv
SCULPTURE AND THE EARLY STATE
Chapter Sixteen After the Battle is Over: The Stele of
the Vultures and the Beginning of Historical Narrative in
the Art of the Ancient Near East .......................................... 3
Chapter Seventeen Eannatum and the “King of Kiš”?:
Another Look at the Stele of the Vultures and
“Cartouches” in Early Sumerian Art ..................................... 53
Chapter Eighteen Women in Public: The Disk of
Enheduanna, the Beginning of the Offi ce of En-Priestess,
and the Weight of Visual Evidence ......................................... 65
Chapter Nineteen Sex, Rhetoric, and the Public
Monument: The Alluring Body of Naram-Sîn of Agade ....... 85
Chapter Twenty Tree(s) on the Mountain: Landscape
and Territory on the Victory Stele of Naram-Sîn
of Agade ................................................................................. 109
Chapter Twenty-One How Tall was Naram-Sîn’s Victory
Stele? Speculation on the Broken Bottom ........................... 133
Chapter Twenty-Two The Body of the Able Ruler: Toward
an Understanding of the Statues of Gudea .......................... 151
Chapter Twenty-Three ‘Idols of the King’: Royal Images
as Recipients of Ritual Action in Ancient Mesopotamia ..... 167
EXPERIENCING ‘ART’ AND ARTIFACT
Chapter Twenty-Four Representing Abundance: A Visual
Dimension of the Agrarian State ........................................... 199
vi contents
Chapter Twenty-Five Reading Ritual in the Archaeological
Record: Deposition Pattern and Function of Two Artifact
Types from the Royal Cemetery of Ur ................................. 227
Chapter Twenty-Six “Surpassing Work”: Mastery of
Materials and the Value of Skilled Production in Ancient
Sumer ...................................................................................... 271
Chapter Twenty-Seven The Aesthetic Value of Lapis Lazuli
in Mesopotamia .................................................................... 291
Chapter Twenty-Eight Agency Marked, Agency Ascribed:
The Affective Object in Ancient Mesopotamia ..................... 307
Chapter Twenty-Nine “Seat of Kingship”/“A Wonder to
Behold”: The Palace as Construct in the Ancient Near East .... 333
Chapter Thirty Opening the Eyes and Opening the
Mouth: The Utility of Comparing Images in Worship in
India and the Ancient Near East ........................................... 377
Chapter Thirty-One The Affective Properties of Styles:
An Inquiry into Analytical Process and the Inscription
of Meaning in Art History ..................................................... 405
VIEWING (IN) THE PAST AND THE PRESENT
Chapter Thirty-Two The Eyes Have It: Votive Statuary,
Gilgamesh’s Axe, and Cathected Viewing in the Ancient
Near East ................................................................................ 433
Chapter Thirty-Three Babylonian Archaeologists of The(ir)
Mesopotamian Past ................................................................. 461
Chapter Thirty-Four Exhibit/Inhibit: Archaeology, Value,
History in the Work of Fred Wilson ...................................... 481
Chapter Thirty-Five Change in the American Art Museum:
The (An) Art Historian’s Voice .............................................. 493
Chapter Thirty-Six Packaging the Past: The Benefi ts
and Costs of Archaeological Tourism .................................... 521
INTRODUCTION
The studies included in the present volume of collected essays range
from specifi c monuments of the third millennium b.c.e. to issues of
interpretation, understanding and ethics relevant to the third millennium
c.e. The initial preposition of the subtitle has been carefully selected,
as were the prepositions of the subtitle of Volume I and the overall
title to the two volumes combined. On Art in the Ancient Near East in the
main title places emphasis not upon a class of work called ‘Art’, as if
a given and unexamined category, but rather upon discourses about what
we call art as identifi ed within the cultural production of the ancient
Near East. The key preposition of the Vol. I subtitle, then, Of the First
Millennium b.c.e. . . ., implies that the studies included there purport to
speak historically about artistic production and consumption within
that time frame. The comparable preposition for the subtitle of Volume
II, however, signals a less-contained universe. From the Third Millennium
b.c.e. . . . purposely leaves open the sequence and consequences leading
from the historical period of early state formation in Mesopotamia to
both later periods within the tradition and the current era.
This conscious decision was based upon a desire to include in the
assemblage several articles the task of which was to interrogate how
works of ancient ‘art’ have been perceived and dealt with well beyond
the moment of their manufacture and subsequent usage within a single
cultural stream, toward issues of reception, both modern and post-
modern. The word play involved is not merely one of stylistic variation,
therefore; it marks a difference between the contents of Volume I and
Volume II, a part of which is the insertion of the author not only as
historian, but as critic.
As with Volume I, the articles of Volume II reveal a combination
of intellectual and disciplinary approaches—art history, archaeology,
anthropology and philology, infl ected by and engaged with current
theoretical and interpretive models. And yet they also mark something
of a shift. One could say that the studies included in Volume I are more
weighted toward archaeological inquiries into various media in their his-
torical setting, along with analysis of political ideology and economy as
manifest in the works and their distribution. Those included in Volume
II on the whole refl ect a more integrative bent, one that includes the