Tallay Ornan 1995, The Transition from Figured to Nonfigured (BLMJ), 39-56

THE TRA.NSITION FROM FIGURED TO NON-FIGURED REPRESENTATIONS IN FIRST MILLENNIUM MESOPOTAMIAN

GLYPTIC'

TALLA Y ORNAN

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Mesopotamian gods and goddesses were regarded as anthropomorphic figures, and were depicted as such at least from the beginning of the third millennium B.C.E. The same idea is reflected in the Bible, according to which man was made in the likeness of God, his creator .

. :::::: My aim here is twofold: ~ to show that, in contrast to the above trend, during certain periods in Mesopotamian history man was in~ii~~d to hid~ or reject the artistic rep~esentai:ion of his deities in human form; and Cb) to suggest that this J..ilesDp.Qtamian conception is linked to the tendency to avoid human depiction,

~ ,I i' \ -,,, of the ,.....divin~, as manifest in west-Semitic iconography in general and in the Hebrew glyptic in particular. I wish to .stress that I am dealing here with artistic phenomena only, and hence my conclusions are confined to the sphere of the visual arts.

'The objects used to demonstrate this particular trend of avoiding anthropomorphic representations of gods are cylindeI: aJ:!d stamP seals, which became popular in Babylonia in the sixth and fifth centuries B.c.E. and which were first observecL as a group by Joachim Menant.2 On these seals, the worshipper stands in front of his gods, represented by their symbols rather than in their human form (e.g. Fig. '1). This stands in contrast both to the basic conception of the deity as having a human form and to the typical Mesopotan1ian scene where the mortal

I ,

i j

I I

I Fig. 1: Neo-Babylonian cylinder seal

of Nergal-zer-ibni.

faces his anthropomorphic god - as can be seen for example on the rock relief from north-eastern Iraq depicting Iddin-Sin, king of Simurrum, dating from the early second millennium (Fig. 2), or on a later example, a Neo-Assyrian drilled-style cylinder seal which belonged to Belu-asaredu the majordomo, found in Israel (fig. 3). '

Compositions in which the divine symbol replaced the anthropomorphic figure became dominant in the glyptic of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E., and were most popular on stamp seals, usually

I The paper is part of a Ph.D. thesis, currently being written under the supervision of Professor Pirhiya Beck of Tel Aviv University'.

2 Menant 1886: 131ff.

39

T. ORNAN

Fig. 2: Rock relief of Iddin-Sin, king of Simurrum (Israel Museum 71.73.248).

Fig. 3: Neo-Assyrian cylinder seal of Belu-asaredu, majordomo. .

3

Fig. 4: Neo-Babylonian stamp seal depicting a worshipper in 4 front of divine symbols (Israel Museum, Hahn Voss Collection 65-356).

made of pale blue, whitish or grey chalcedony (Fig. 4).' The most frequent depiction on these seals is of a worshipper standing in front of the marru, the schematized spade symbol of the god Marduk, and the writing stylus, symbol of the god Nabu. 4 Marduk was the chief god of Babylonia, and the scribe god Nabu was regarded as his son from the Kassite period onwards. Their great popularity -both were regarded as "national gods" - can be explained by the growing power of Babylonia after the fall of Assyria.

The two hundred years in which the popularity of these seals reached its peak witnessed tremendous political change and historical upheavals in Mesopotamia, from the fall of Assyria and the shift of power to Babylonia, to the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great and the establishment of the Achaemenid empire. These events. and the fact that political changes are not necessarily parallel tP cultural ones, may have contributed to the fapt that the modern terms used for the periods involved are sometimes given different meanings by different scholars.s For the purposes of this

3 Delapone 1920: Pis. 6:2-7; 54:18-30; 1923: Pis. 90:9: 92:9-36; 120:1; Moongat 1940: Nos. 751, 753-754: Porada 1948: 95,99-98, Nos. 781-787. 795-810; Legrain 1951: PI. 38: 656-663: Buchanan and Moorey 1988: 56-57, Nos. 380-401.

4 Seidl 1989: 120-121. 124. 5 Zettler 1979: 257. note I; Klengel-Brandt: 335.

40

THE TRANSITION IN FIRST MILLENNIUM MESOPOTAMIAN GL YPTIC

discussion, the term Neo-Babylonian is used to refer to a period parallel to the Neo-Assyrian period, which ended in 612 B.C.E. The term Late Babylonian is applied to the period of Babylonian sovereignty after the fall of Nineveh, from the later years of Nabopolassar onwards, but, as a cultural signifier, it should still be used for the period after the Persian conquest of Babylon in 538 B.C.E.

As already noted, these seals are usually dated to the sixth and fifth centuries,6 although the same phenomenon was also apparent at least in the first half of the seventh century, as shown on impressions stamped on tablets from Nimrud (Fig. 5 - not before 666 B.C.E.; Fig. 6 - after 648 B.C.E.; and Fig. 7 - 615 B.C.EV Other impressions from Nimrud may even indicate that these scenes appeared as early as the eighth century during the reign of Sargon.s

They were certainly still popular in the fifth century, as they appear on an impression from Babylon from the year 433/2 B.C.E. at the time of Artaxerxes 1.9 The theme also appears (infrequently according to Zettler)!O among the impressions of the Murashu archive from Nippur, dated up to 405/4 B.C.E. The fact that this type of composition was not found among the Wadi ed-Daliyeh bullae!! and probably not among those from Daskyleion in Turkey indicates that the depiction of a worshipper standing in front of divine emblems had died out by the turn of the fourth century B.C.E.J2--··----

At first glance it may seem that the replacement of the divine figure with its non-human manifestations during the last centuries of the Assyrian empire, mainly in the short, intense period of the Late Babylonian empire. is a rather new and even "alien" trend in the history of Mesopotamian iconography: as has already been indicated, the ~{esopotamians basically conceived of their gods as anthropomorphic in shape. However, a closer look into the different media of Mesopotamian works of art reveals that

6 Porada 1948: 95. 7 See also Buchanan and Moorey 1988: 57. 8 Herbordt 1992: 83, 110. 9 Klengel-Brandt 1969: 329, PI. 42:4. 10 Zettler 1979: 260. 11 Leith 1990. 12 Balkan 1959; Kaptan-Bayburtluoglu 1990.

Fig. 5: Seal impression on tablet from Nimrud.

Fig. 6: Seal impression on tablet from Nimrud.

Fig. 7: Seal impression on tablet from Nimrud.

\

41

Fig. 8: Neo-Babylonian stele depicting king Nabonidus.

T.ORNAN

Fig. 9: Boundary stone of Marduk-apla-iddina II (721-710 B.C.E.).

the phenomenon of omitting the divine figure was not infrequent, at least in the first millennium B.C.E

The depiction of a mortal shown only with the symbols of his gods is not exclusive to cylinder and stamp seals of the Late Babylonian period, but is also found on some Babylonian monuments. The theme depicted on these stelae reflects the same conception with regard to the absent anthropomorphic god. Only the arrangement of the symbols is different, as they are shown above the mortal rather than in front of him. The mortal in these stelae is usually the king, as, for example, in Fig. 8, where he is identified with Nabonidus, king of Babylonia, who ruled between 556 and 539. The same pictorial theme, depicting the king facing his subordinate, with the divine symbols shown above and with no traces of the divine figure, is seen on Babylonian boundary stones of the first millennium, as for example on the Marduk-apla-iddina II monument (Fig. 9). It seems that anthropomorphic depictions of the god were missing not only from Babylonian seals and stelae, but also from the architectural decoration programme of the main buildings of Babylon attributed to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. Thus the decoration of the throne room faqade in Nebuchadnezzar's southern palace consists entirely of animal and floral motifs: schematized palm trees and a row of striding lions with up-turned tails (Fig. 10). The same lions, this time with tails turned downwards, symbolizing Ishtar, appear again in the Processional Way that connected the Ishtar Gate with the

42

THE TRANSITION IN FIRST MILLENNIUM MESOPOTAMIAN GLYPTIC

Fig. 10: Throne-room fa9ade of Nebuchadnezzar's southern palace.

Fig. 11: A snake-dragon muS/JuS§u of Marduk, from the Ishtar Gate, Babylon.

temple tower complex of Etemenanki and the EsagiJa shrine. 13 The motifs chosen to decorate the Ishtar Gate were again all non-human: the snake-dragon mus/Jussu of Marduk (Fig. 11) and the bull, symbol of the storm god. It should be noted that both the Ishtar Gate and

urban features of the city, but as components of the cultic buildings of Babylon; this was the route of the procession of the gods, headed by Marduk and the king, that took place during the cuItic events of the akitu, the Babylonian New Year festival. 14 The fact that the architects of Nebuchadnezzar also preferred to depict the divine in a non-anthropomorphic fashion is a manifestation of the same phenomenon apparent on the seals.

It should be stressed here that despite the tendency to "hide" depictions of anthropomorphic gods in Babylonia, the basic conception of the god .was anthropomorphic, as is seen throughout Mesopotamian civilisation. This is evident not only on the provincial stelae of Shamas-res-usur found in Babylon, 15 but also on the two large lapis lazuli cylinder seals dedicated to the gods which depict Marduk and Adad in their fully elaborated anthropomorphic form (Figs. 12, 13), A fascinating Neo--

13 Marzahn 1992: 9, 32, 43. 14 Ibid .• 43-46. 15 Borker-Klahn 1982: 218-219, No. 231.

43

T. ORNAN

Fig. 12: Marduk, from a votive cylinder seal.

Fig. 13: Adad, from a votive cylinder seal.

Fig. 14: Shamash and his emblem, from the Sippar Tablet.

44

THE TRANSITION IN FIRST MILLENNIUM MESOPOTAMIAN GLYPTIC

Babylo. ·In· example, where the anthropomorphic god is shown together with its non-human symbol, may be seen in the scene depicted on the Sippar Tablet, dating from the reign of Nabu-apla-iddina II (870 B.C.E.) and commemorating the rebuilding of the temple of Shamash (Fig. 14). The anthropomorphic depiction of the god here has other archaic features, as observed by Frankfort: the way in which the high priest grasps the hand of the king; the presence of the interceding goddess; the costumes of the gods; the ring and rod carried by Sham ash; and the two bull men who accompany him.16 However, a number of details, such as the difference in size between the enthroned god and the three small figures who attend him, betray the fact that the depiction was executed in the first millennium. Moreover, the central motif of the composition, to which all the other participants turn, is the solar disc, deoicted in a manner quite alien to earlier Mesopotamian tradition. The sun emblem's important role here is also evident from the accompanying text, which relates that after the destruction wrought by the Sutu invaders in the eleventh century, the king Simbar-shipak had replaced1? the anthropomorphic statue of the god with the nipbu, the divine symbol of Shamash. 18

It may be argued that the central place assigned to the nipbu in this example not only reflects the actual events that took place, but is in accord with the conspicuous role of the divine emblem, as seen in the art of the Neo-Babylonian period. Thus, while the gods in the Neo- and Late-Babylonian periods continued to be shown in human form, non-anthropomorphic representations were often preferred.

The anthropomorphic visual conception of the divine was of course also predominant in Assyrian art, as is clearly evident from various Assyrian monuments and a number of smaller objects (e.g. Fig. 15). One group, however, namely the royal Assyrian stelae, is notable for the substitution of divine symbols for the divine figure. In these stelae the king is shown gesturing towards the symbols of his gods, depicted on the upper part of the monument (Figs. 16, 17), and the anthropomorphic god is almost totally absent.19 These stelae are attributed to the reigns of most of the Neo-Assyrian kings, beginning with Ashurnasirpal II. The same pictorial theme appears on officials' monuments, as seen on a stela of the Assyrian official Bel-harran-bel-usur from Tell Abta, probably dating from the mid­eighth century.20 It is also visible on Aramaean monuments such as the stele of hr rkb, where the divine entity is again represented only by its symbol.21

The common denominator of the Babylonian seals and the royal Neo-Assyrian, provincial and Aramaean stelae is that the mortal confronts the emblem of his god rather than its anthropomorphic representation.

Looking at the Neo-Assyrian stelae, one may go even further and observe that although the divine entity keeps its supreme place on the upper part of monuments - an indication of rank and importance in Mesopotamian art - it has quite clearly been reduced in size in relation to the dimensions of the humans shown. In other words, while one cannot speak of a decline of the divine

16 Frankfort 1970: 202, Fig. 231. 17 King 1912: 121 (No. 36). 18 Brinkman 1976. 19 Borker-Klahn 1982: Nos. 135-137, 148, 161, 163-165, 171. 173, 175,202-204,216-218. An exception to this can be seen

on the Esarhaddon stelae from Til Barsib and Zincirli (ibid., Nos. 218-219), where anthropomorphic gods mounted on animals are shown.

20 Ibid., 219, No. 232. 21 Orthman 1975: No. 358b.

45

Fig. 15: The god Assur, from a glazed brick from

the city of Assur.

T.ORNAN

Fig. 16: Assurnasirpal II and divine emblems, on a stele from Nimrud.

Fig. 17: Reconstructed stele of Tiglath-Pileser III

(Israel Museum 74.49.96).

presence,22 one may point to an increase in the status of the mortal in Assyrian art, represented by the king. This conclusion should not surprise us if we look at the political background and the function of monumental art in the Assyrian empire. As has been shown by Winter,23 Assyrian monumental art and palace decoration served as a propaganda tool, conveying the state message. The size of the king's figure reflects his increase in power and represents the growing state and empire. Thus in the North-West Palace in Nimrud, the double image of Assurnasirpal is shown over and over again as the largest figure in the scene, while his partly-human god - admittedly still up there supervising - is much smaller. 24 This is in contrast to older examples of Mesopotamian art, where the divine figures and mortals were given almost the same dimensions (cf. Fig. 2).25

This explanation for the replacement of the divine figure by its emblems and for the increase in the size of the king's image in Assyrian monumental art does not, however, account for the phenomenon on the Babylonian seals with which this paper began. One has to search elsewhere in Mesopotamian art for the explanation of the Babylonian preference. Indeed, examples where the

22 Winter 1981: 20-2l. 23 Ibid., 32. 24 Ibid., 20. 25 Cf. the Hammurabi stela, or the wall painting from Mari depicting Zimrilim facing lshtar; Strommenger 1964: Nos. 159, 165.

A larger depiction of the divinity is also evident in the third millennium; cf. the Eannatum stele; Winter 1985: 13, 16.

46

THE TRANSITION IN FIRST MILLENNIUM MESOPOTAMIAN GL YPTIC

Fig. 18: Old Babylonian cylinder seal depicting a worshipper in front of Adad's

emblem and a naked goddess.

Fig. 19: Divine emblems in a sanctuary, from a fourteenth century seal.

divine fonn is missing or replaced by its· non-anthropomorphic representation can be found

throughout the history of Mesopotamian art, as the following second millennium examples demonstrate.

The scene of a mortal gesturing to a divine emblem rather than to a divine figure is evident in some ..... ~. Old Babylonian seals, as for example in Fig. 18, where the worshipper is gesturing towards the

lightning fork mounted on a bull in the centre and a naked anthropomorphic goddess is seen on the right. The theme appears again on a unique fourteenth century cylinder depicting a ritual being

performed before two divine symbols within a structure (Fig. 19). Similar scenes appear on a seal impression from Assur, where the king is shown in front of a temple fa9ade in which only the dog

Fig. 20: A king gesturing towards the dog of Gula, on a seal impression from Assur.

Fig. 21: A pedestal within a shrine, on a seal impression from Assur.

of Gula is seen, and on another impression where two goat-fish of Ea flank the fa9ade of the temple. In neither case is a divine figure depicted (Figs. 20, 21). From the same period (the reign of Tukulti­Ninurta I), comes the well-known example of the gypseous pedestal found in Assur, on which the double figure of the king(?) is gesturing toward a stylus and a tablet (Fig. 22).26 The omission of the

26 Seidl 1989: 125.

47

T.ORNAN .... :l':

Fig. 22: The pedestal of Tukulti-Ninurta II from Assur.

Fig. 23: Cylinder seal depiCting a worshipper in frout of a sacred

building.

Fig. 24: Cylinder seal depicting a worshipper in front of a sacred

building.

divine figure is also evident on two cylinder seals from Assur and Babylon27 showing a· mortal in front of sacred buildings, probably ziggurats (Figs. 23, 24).

The most intensive use of divine emblems, however, is seen on the kudurru,the Kassite boundary stones .of the Middle Babylonian period, in the second half of the second millennium~ Here, the embJems are. organized in order' of their importance, from the higher registers to the lower ones (e.g. Fig:" 25), and, as Ursula Seidl has indicated, the symbol· has superseded the anthropoTl1.2x£.h!£~ depiction· of the divine.28 This corrspicuolistiseof emblems 6n the Kassite kudurru may thus serve

27 Usually dafed to thelate second millennium;cf. Moortgat 1940; 139, Nos. 591-592, but see Oates 1991: 124, Fig. 83; 177, Fig, 125.

28 Seidl 1989: 195.

48

THE TRANSITION IN FIRST MILLENNIUM MESOPOTAMIAN GL YPTIC

Fig. 25: Boundary stone of Melishipak.

'. .

as a precedent for the Late Babylonian preference for symbols. an observation made as early as last century by Menant.29 At the sarr?e time, it is important to note- that anthropomorphic deities, usually Gula. the goddess of ~~~ling. dooccur from time to time on the kudurru. 30

Gula's place in a rather low register on the kudurru, and the fact that she is shown in her anthropomorphic form only on second -millennium monuments (replaced in the first millennium by a rarer standing female deity?! confirm the conclusion that the tendency to avoid anthropomorphic divine representations was prevalent on these ~onuments.

The iconographic tendency dem~>nstrated -here should not, however, be looked upon as an "alien" offspring of Mesopotamian art. As has been suggested by Jacobsen, the earlier representations o( divIne phenomena in Mesopotamia were basically non-anthropomorphic. Only in the third millen­nium, he states, did the iIDthropomorpli.ic deity become more popular than other types of representation:32 "The victory of the human form was not easy or rapid and for long periods not complete ... ".33 In the light of this observation and the evidence of the Late Babylonian seals and earlier examples discussed here, it could be suggested that the victory of the anthropomor­phic deity was never complete in Mesopotamian iconography, as shown by the emblematic representations of the divine throughout the different periods of Mesopotamian art.

The extreme manifestation of the tendency to avoid anthropomorphic representations of gods in Babylonia, as' on the Kassite kudurru and the Late Babylonian seals, occurred in periods when Babylonia achieved political supremacy. This may suggest that we are dealing with an artistic

" phenomenon peculiar to Babylonia.34

Having established the existence of a non-anthropomorphic visual concept of the divine, mainly seen in first millennium iconography, we now tum to another contemporary group of artefacts in which the same concept is evident, namely Hebrew seals and sealings. I have argued elsewhere35 that the choice of designs selected to decorate Aramaic, Hebrew, Ammonite and Moabite seals suggests a general tendency to avoid the depiction of anthropomorphic gods. This is particularly apparent on the Hebrew seals and sealings from the late eighth to the fifth centuries B.C.E., where anthropomorphic gods are very rarely shown.36

29 .Menant 1886. 30 See· for example the kudurru of Nebuchadnezzar I (1125-1104 B.C.E.); Seidl 1989: 43. 31 Ibid., 197. 32 Jacobsen 1970: 16-18. 33 Ibid., 17. 34 Even if one accepts the Assyrian glyptic inspiration on the kudurru (Matthews 1990: 83). the fact remains that the

kudurru have been found only in Babylonia. or as Babylonian loot in Susa; Grayson 1971. 35 Oman 1993. 36 Sass 1993: 232-236. 244.

49

T.ORNAN

i !

One can discern five ways in which the depiction of anthropomorphic gods is avoided on the . inscribed West Semitic seals (excluding Phoenician seals): 1. On Aramaic cylinder seals, only semi­

divine hybrid beings are usually shown, mainly in contest or atlantid scenes (e.g. Fig. 26).31 2. When mortals are shown in front of their gods, mainly on Aramaic stamp seals, the divine presence is represented' by emblems, as on the Neo-Babylonian seals (e.g. Fig. 27). 3. There is a tendency, mainly in Ammonite and Moabite but also on Hebrew and Aramaic seals, to depict only the worshippers, without even the symbols 'to' which they pray (e.g. Fig 28).38 4. Figurative elements are eliminated in favour of floral and geometric forms (Figs. 29, 30). 5. The seal bears nothing but the inscription itself (Fig. 31). The last two types are particularly popular among Hebrew seals: about half of Jhe known examples have no other decoration than the pattern composed of the legend.39

The conneqion suggested here between the Mesopotamian non-anthropomorphic visual approach and West Semitic, in particular Hebrew, iconography -is on two levels .. F;t.r8t. in Hebrew myth, as reflected in the Bible, the divine is conceived in human form, like the basic Mesopotamian conception of gods and goddesses. Sec:~!!g, in spite of this, there is a tendency in both realms of iconography, although at different levels, to avoid the depiction of anthropomorphic gods. Thus, the Hebrew attitude towards the depiction of the divine should not be regarded as exceptional in the art of the ancient Near East.40 As has been shown, this tendency never totally disappeared from Mesopotamian art, being revived especially on the kudurru of the Middle Babylonian period and on the stamps and cylinders of the Late Babylonian period. The close proximity in time of the Late Babylonian avoidance of anthropomorphic depictions of gods and the elimination of the divine figure from Hebrew glyptic art may point to a common source. The fact that Mesopotamian art _ reveals similar features in certain earlier periods suggests that it was. a Mesopotamian convention that was followed by the West Semitic or Hebrew seal-«utter, who took it to an extreme.

Fig. 26: Cylinder seal of mrbrk. Fig. 27: Stamp seal of m's.

37 There are a few exceptions, e.g. the seals of 'I'mI', /brq/ brq'bd .'tr-smn, or yp'h(] mpsr; Bordreuil 1993: 77, 81, Nos. 5, 6, 8. .

38 Oman 1993: 68-72. 39 B. Sass, personal communication. 40 See most recently Mettinger 1994: 172, 176.

50

BIBLE LANDS MUSEUM JERUSALEM PUBLICATIONS NO.1

SEALS AND SEAl,ING .' IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SYMPOSIUM HELD ON

SEPTEMBER 2, 1993

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL

EDITED BY JOA1~ GOODNICK WESTENHOLZ

[:] BIBLE LANDS MUSEUM JERUSALEM

~

.<