What Exaggerated Size of Eyes in the Early Mesopotamian Art




Fertile Crescent
 Sumerian
Akkadian
Babylonian

Copper Age     5000 BCE - 3000 BCE
Statuary Age     3000 BCE - 1400 BCE
Atomic number 26 Age     1400 BCE - 1 CE

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Plaster Skulls
7000 BCE
Jericho
Form:  The skulls of people were separated from their bodies and covered over with plaster.  They were sculpted to wait like a  person before he or she had died.  The eyes were then inlayed with shells and pilus was painted onto the head and sometimes face in the example of a human being having a mustache.Iconography:  They may accept been icons of ancestors and used as fetish objects.  They may as well exist an icon of the people of Jericho's belief in an afterlife.  They were an icon of wisdom considering they were consulted on serious matters.
Context:  These heads mark the beginning of larger sculpture in the Nearly Eastward.  They were found under the floors of the houses in Jericho and were supposedly looked to for values and wisdom.

Catal Huyuk
vi,500 BCE - v,700 BCE
Anatolia, Turkey
Form:  This city has no streets.  The buildings are all attached and the entrances to the rooms were on the ceiling.  The houses were made of timber frames and mud brick, the insides were plastered.  There were platforms along the walls and shrines in many of the houses.  In these shrines were bulls horns, plastered breasts, wall paintings and animal heads.Iconography:  The plaster breasts found in the shrines are symbols of fertility and the bulls horns likewise found in the shrines are symbols of virility.  The style that the city was built in is iconographic of the need of the people for protection.  The shrines and dead people are an icon of the heavy influence of faith and possible ancestor worship.
Context:  Catal Huyuk's wealth was in the trade of obsidian which was a stone that was very useful in the making of weapons because it could easily exist made into a sharp point.  The buildings being fastened, with no doors or windows, formed a very protective outer wall that immune the people to ameliorate protect themselves.  The ceiling archway likewise provided the rooms with chimneys that immune the smoke from the fire to escape.  The houses were all of similar structure fifty-fifty though in that location sizes vary.  The platforms in the houses were used to perform the days activities and to sleep upon at night.  Dead people were buried beneath the floors and shrines were in one out of three houses.

Ziggurat of King Ur-Nammu 2100 BCE
mud brick with facing of red fired clay, each level 25' to l'
Ur, Republic of iraq
SumerianForm:  Overall the temple is built in 2 levels entirely of mud brick: in the lower level the bricks are joined together with bitumen, in the meridian level they are joined with mortar.
Co-ordinate to the Brittanica, "The ziggurat was always built with a cadre of mud brick and an outside covered with broiled brick. It had no internal chambers and was normally square or rectangular, averaging either 170 feet square or 125  170 anxiety (xl  50 metres) at the base. Approximately 25 ziggurats are known, being equally divided in number among Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria."  The walls bending slightly outward and there are three staircases of i hundred steps each.
Iconography:  Ziggurats symbolize a connection between the heavens and the earth.  The monumental size and shape propose that ziggurats are a blazon of man-made mountain.  In many cultures, religious leaders and figures ofttimes arise mountains every bit a ways to connect with a god or goddess.  In the ancient Greek organized religion in that location was Mount Olympus where the gods lived and in the Judeo Christian faith, Moses was given the tablets of the law on Mount Sinai.  Monuments of such a massive size most probably represent the power of the secular and religious rulers who commissioned them but in a more than general sense they are also evidence of the organized cohesive nature of Mesopotamian civilisation.
Context:  The temple was defended to the moon god Nanna and possibly used to communicate with him.  There used to be a temple at the very top of the ziggurat.  People would wait in the temple for the god to communicate with them.  The structure was used to intimidate enemies too.  The shape of the ziggurat may have arisen from the edifice on pinnacle of older buildings until it found this height but this ziggurat did non notice information technology'south shape that style.  The walls were slanted probably to forbid rain water from ruining the brick piece of work.
According to the Britannica,
No ziggurat is preserved to its original height. Rise was by an exterior triple stairway or by a screw ramp, but for most half of the known ziggurats, no means of ascent has been discovered. The sloping sides and terraces were often landscaped with trees and shrubs (hence the Hanging Gardens of Babylon). The best-preserved ziggurat is at Ur (modern Tall al-Muqayyar). The largest, at Chogha Zanbil in Elam, is 335 anxiety (102 m) square and eighty feet (24 g) high and stands at less than one-half its estimated original pinnacle. The legendary Tower of Babel has been popularly associated with the ziggurat of the great temple of Marduk in Babylon.The urban center of Ur, modernistic Tall Al-muqayyar, or Tell El-muqayyar, important city of ancient southern Mesopotamia (Sumer), situated about 140 miles (225 km) southeast of the site of Babylon and virtually 10 miles (xvi km) west of the present bed of the Euphrates River. In antiquity the river ran much closer to the city; the change in its form has left the ruins in a desert that in one case was irrigated and fertile land. The offset serious excavations at Ur were made after Globe War I by H.R. Hall of the British Museum, and as a result a joint trek was formed by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania that carried on the excavations nether Leonard Woolley's directorship from 1922 until 1934. Well-nigh every menstruum of the city'southward lifetime has been illustrated past the discoveries, and noesis of Mesopotamian history has been greatly enlarged.


Standard of Ur
2700 BCE
Ur, Iraq
Sumerian/MesopotamiaForm:  It is fabricated of wood, shells and rock.  The Standard of Ur is broken up into the war side, center left, and the peace side, top left.  The war side, on the bottom, features horse fatigued chariots running over people.  In the middle, the prisoners have been captured and are being lead.  On the pinnacle, the prisoners accept been striped naked and are being presented to a king effigy.  He is the largest figure in the piece and he is as well centered on the band.  On the bottom, of the peace side, men carry provisions.  In the middle they atomic number 82 animals, and on the meridian a banquet takes place where the rex figure is present again.  At this banquet there is a lyre player and a singer, they are shown in item on the bottom left.
Iconography:  These pieces are iconographic of the morals of the culture.  Long hair is iconographic of a singer.  Thehieratic calibration and placement of the rex figure are an icon of his ability.  The standards are icons of peace and state of war.
Context:  Anthropologist Edmund Leach thinks that we encounter the world in a binary fashion then that is why they have the peace and war standards.  More meaning tin can exist created, if it is used for demonstrative purposes, if there is something to compare an image against.  Scholars disagree every bit to weather the peace side banquet is a victory celebration or part of a cult ritual.

Sumerian Billy Caprine animal and Tree from Ur
20" Tall
Forest, gold, lapis lazuli
Form:  It is made out of wood, gold and lapps lazuli.  Great attending to detail has gone in to the making of this piece.  Each of the flowers have eight points and each little ruffle in the goats wool is depicted.Iconography:  Goats are symbols of fertility, power, and mans struggle with his animalistic side.  The tree may exist a symbol for the tree of life.  The goat may as well represent the fertility god Tammuz.
Context:  This is a tiny statue that was recovered at a imperial burying site at Ur.  This statue is part of a pair that were plant, both were crushed.  They may have been used as supports for an offer table.

Victory Stele of Naram-Sin
2300 BCE
limestone 6'6"
Susa, Iran
Akkadian
Form:  This is a low relief carving on limestone. The figures are all in composite form.Iconography:  Proportionately the primary figure of the king Naram Sin is exaggerated to emphasize his status.   When a figure'southward scale is emphasized in this manner information technology is referred to ashieratic calibration.  (You will also see this in Egyptian fine art.  Naram-Sins helmet is adorned with bull horns.  Since bulls are powerful and virile creatures the horns are associated with his physical power as warrior. horns on his head are also an icon for power and virility, also symbols of a king.  The stars or sun in the right mitt corner are symbols of divine support.  He's as well holding a newer kind of weapon in his left paw called a composite bow which could also represent the Akkadian armies innovative battle technology.
Context:  This commemorates Naram Sin's defeat of the Lullubi.  It is inscribed twice, in one case in honor of this event and again when information technology was taken as booty when someone captured the city where it stood.
"Originally this stele was erected in the town of Sippar, centre of the cult of the Sunday god, to the north of Babylon. lt was taken equally booty to Susa by an Elamite king in the twelfth century BC. lt illustrates the victory over the mountain people of western lran by Naram-Sin, quaternary rex of the Semite dynasty of Akkad, who claimed to exist the universal monarch and was deified during his lifetime. He had himself depicted climbing the mountain at the caput of his troops. His helmet bears the horns emblematic of divine power. Although it is worn, his confront is expressive of the platonic human being conqueror, a convention imposed on artists by the monarchy. The male monarch tramples on the bodies of his enemies at the foot of a peak; higher up information technology the solar disk figures several times, and the king pays homage to it for his victory." - Louvre

Caput of an Akkadian Ruler
(Sargon of Akkad?)
2200 BCE
Nineveh, Republic of iraq
Akkadian
Form:  Made from statuary, this portrait head was probably part of a larger work.  Perhaps a total figure.  The shape and proportions of the face up and head are naturalistic just the shape and texture of the eyebrows and hair are stylized in a geometric fashion.  Other stylizations or distortions occur in the exaggerated size of his eyes and olfactory organ.  These stylizations and exaggerations are attempts to idealizethis ruler and brand him more handsome or beautiful than he probably was according to the ideals of physical perfection in the ancient well-nigh east. Iconography:  In about cultures, dazzler and goodness are equated equally being i in the same thing.  Certainly the cultures of Mesopotamia felt this way as well.  Therefore the portraits beauty is also equated with Sargon's inner dazzler and or virtue.  His "virtuous" nature is symbolically enhanced past his beard.  Beards are icons of wisdom and because in social club to abound a beard ane needs to accept matured to appoint beyond childhood.  (This same idea is evidenced in several versions of the Arthurian legends in which although Rex Arthur was able to pull the sword from the stone, his brothers still refer to him as "beardless"  and therefore too inexperienced or young to rule.
Context:  This statue is non in its original land.  This head was once office of a complete statue that was vandalized.  The ears were mutilated, the eyes gouged out, and the ears and part of the beard broken off.  It has been vandalized (literally defaced) in society to dishonor the ruler it once represented.  Originally the eyes in this head would have been inlayed with precious and semiprecious stones.
The tearing down of effigy monuments to symbolize the destruction or alter in a government is common to every era.  When Usa troops "liberated" Iraq in 2004 many of the statues of Sadam Hussein were either defaced or torn downwardly from there pedestals.  In ancient Egypt, oftentimes older monuments constructed by previous pharaohs were recarved to resemble the newer rulers.

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Sargon the Slap-up of Akkad is the first in a long (and perhaps always-extending) line of people whose life is driven by conquest. He was the first emperor of the world's start empire. Withal, similar nearly of the people who followed him, his empire didn't last long.According to legend, Sargon's female parent was "changeling," significant a demon or a prostitute. He was probably born around 2350 BCE. He served as the loving cup-bearer of a king of the Sumerian city-state of Kish, simply the rex, sensing something divine in him, had Sargon killed. Sargon escaped the plot, rallied some tribesmen to his cause, and built a new city north of Sumer – Akkad. Sargon's career has soared always since. From Akkad, his armies blazed south to conquer Sumer, Kish and all. From the Persian Gulf, he made a northwestward sweep to Lebanon.
The Akkadian Empire was a very wealthy empire; it derived its wealth non just from plunder merely also from merchandise. Sumer was smack in the middle of the trade routes that connected the Indus Valley, Egypt, and Mediterranean civilizations. Akkad wasn't actually the first metropolis to relish the benefits of merchandise in the Mesopotamian region, and it wasn't going to be the final.
Sargon tried to keep his empire in the hands of his sons, just his successors lacked Sargon'southward power; the city-states of Sumer rebelled confronting Akkad, destroying the Akkadian Empire.
http://socscistudent.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/wh-the-story-of-sargon/
Statues from Tell Asmar
2,900 BCE - 2,600 BCE
made from painted gypsum
Tell Asmar, Iraq
SumerianForm:  The statues are made of gypsum and inlayed with shell and blackness limestone.  The men have long hair, beards, belts, and fringed skirts.  The women wear dresses that leave the right shoulder blank.  The eyes are exaggerated, while the hands are downplayed.
Iconography:  The figures are iconographic of real people not deities.  The large eyes may symbolize eternal wakefulness or the need to arroyo a god with an attentive gaze.  They are iconographic of the early religious practices of the Sumerians.
Context:  The were buried beneath the floor of a temple.  Donors may have commissioned these statues to be built in their image so that their prayers are forever being said to the gods.
Reconstruction of Statues from Tell Asmar
ii,900 BCE - 2,600 BCE
made from painted gypsum
Tell Asmar, Iraq
Sumerian
Museum of Natural History, NYC

Glossary

bi.tu.men n [ME bithumen mineral pitch, fr. Fifty bitumin-, bitumen] (15c) i: an cobblestone of Asia Small used in ancient times every bit a cement and mortar 2: any of diverse mixtures of hydrocarbons (as tar) often together with their nonmetallic derivatives that occur naturally or are obtained as residues later estrus-refining natural substances (as petroleum); specif: such a mixture soluble in carbon disulfide -- bi.tu.mi.ni.za.tion due north -- bi.tu.mi.nize vtcomposite view     A view of the human being body in Egyptian and Mesopotamian art in which several points of view of the homo body are merged into one.  Oftentimes the figure is depicted with the head, legs and arms in a profile point of view while the trunk of the figure is depicted in a frontal view.  The head which is depicted in a contour view often depicts the optics in a frontal view.  This is especially then in Egyptian art but in Mesopotamian art it is less consistent.  The purpose of the this signal of view is probably both symbolic and formal.  In terms of form, it is oft easier to depict parts of the body in profile.  This is certainly so in prehistoric art.
ef.fi.gy n, pl -gies [MF effigie, fr. L effigies, fr. effingere to form, fr. ex- + fingere to shape--more than at dough] (1539): an paradigm or representation esp. of a person; esp: a crude figure representing a hated person -- in figure : publicly in the class of an effigy
gyp.sum northward [L, fr. Gk gypsos] (14c) 1: a widely distributed mineral consisting of hydrous calcium sulfate that is used esp. as a soil amendment and in making plaster of paris
ide.al adj [ME ydeall, fr. LL idealis, fr. 50 thought] (15c) 1: existing every bit an archetypal idea 2 a: existing as a mental image or in fancy or imagination only; broadly: lacking practicality b: relating to or constituting mental images, ideas, or conceptions 3 a: of, relating to, or embodying an platonic b: conforming exactly to an ideal, constabulary, or standard: perfect--compare real 2b(iii) 4: of or relating to philosophical idealism ²platonic due north (15c) 1:a standard of perfection, beauty, or excellence two: one regarded every bit exemplifying an ideal and oft taken every bit a model for fauxthree: an ultimate object or aim of endeavor: goal 4: a subset of a mathematical ring that is airtight nether addition and subtraction and contains the products of whatever given chemical element of the subset with each element of the ring syn see model -- ide.al.less adj
pro.file n [It profilo, fr. profilare to draw in outline, fr. pro- forward (fr. 50) + filare to spin, fr. LL--more than at file] (ca. 1656) 1: a representation of something in outline; esp: a human head or face represented or seen in a side view 2: an outline seen or represented in sharp relief: contour three: a side or exclusive elevation: as a: a cartoon showing a vertical department of the basis b: a vertical section of a soil from the basis surface to the underlying unweathered material 4: a set of data often in graphic course portraying the pregnant features of something ; esp: a graph representing the extent to which an private exhibits traits or abilities as determined by tests or ratings 5: a curtailed biographical sketch 6: degree or level of public exposuresyn see outline ²profile vt pro.filed ; pro.fil.ing (1715) i: to correspond in contour or past a contour: produce (as past drawing, writing, or graphing) a profile of two: to shape the outline of past passing a cutter around -- pro.fil.er n

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