HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: history of art

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Prof. Tallay Ornan

Coordinator Email: tallay.ornan@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Wednesday 12.00 noon - -13.00 p.m by appointment

Teaching Staff:
Prof Tallay Ornan

Course/Module description:
The course will discuss the concept of governmental rule and its message in Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East by focusing on the image of the individual standing at the top of the social order – the king (circa 3250-500 BC). We will examine the visual repertoire of the royal representations such as the king as a hunter, as subordinating a lion, as a combatant and super-hero, in a cultic ritual facing his god(s) or, presenting an offering to the divine and scrutinize the visual means and strategy(ies) selected for upgrading the royal image. With this regard, we will treat the issue of royal deification – what were its limitations in the ancient Near East?

Course/Module aims:
To confront the students with the complex issue of the representations of kings in the ancient Near East; to highlight the difference between the verbal (written) and pictorial modes of expressions regarding the presentation of the royal image.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
To thoroughly evaluate and analyze royal representations from Mesopotamia and other cultural-political entities in the ancient Near East.

Attendance requirements(%):
90

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Frontal lectures that include class discussions accompanied with Power Point

Course/Module Content:
*The king as a hunter
*The king and the lion: its submission and symbolism
*The as fighter: leading his army, trampling his enemy, holding a bow
*The king in cult: in nexus to the divine
*‘King of Justice’: Hammurabi king of Babylon
*Archetypal Mesopotamian kings: Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh in texts and pictures
*The royal female partner in late third millennium BC Mesopotamia
*Naram-Sin king of Akkad & the Ur 3 dynasty kings: what type of ‘god’ were they?
*The king as a mediator between his people and the gods
*The king as a lesser deity & and the fate of old royal statues
*The king – son of the gods
*The goddess Inanna/Ishtar and the Mesopotamian king
*The ‘sacred marriage’ of kings and goddesses – a literary metaphor or a cultic reality?
*What happened to the kings after they died?
*The royal female partner: evidence from the Hittite kingdom and north Syrian first millennium *city-states
*A King in the gate
*Royal statuary from the kingdom of Amon

Required Reading:
Alster, B. 1978, In defence of the authenticity of A Statue of Gudea, in J. Flemming ed., Statues of Gudea: Ancient and Modern, Copenhagen, 47-59.

Aruz, J. ed. 2003, Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus, New York and New Haven, CT.

Bahrani, Z. 2003, The Graven Image, Representation in Babylonia and Assyria, Philadelphia.

Bahrani, Z. 2008, Rituals of War: the Body and Violence in Mesopotamia, New York.

Barrelet, M. –T., 1974, La “figure du roi” dans l’iconographie et dans les textes depuis Ur-Nanše jusqu’à la fin de la Ire dynastie de Babylone, in P. Garelli ed., Le palais et la royauté, XIXe Rencontre Assyriologique International, Paris 29 juin–2 juillet 1971, Paris, 27–138.

Bernbeck, R., 2008, Royal Deification: An Ambiguation Mechanism for the Creation of Courtier Subjectivities., in N. Brisch ed., Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond (Oriental Institute Seminars 4), Chicago, 157-170.

Braun-Holzinger, E. A. 2007, Das Herrscherbild in Mesopotamien und Elam spätes 4. bis frühes 2. Jt. v. Chr. (AOAT 342), Münster.

Brisch, N. ed. 2008, Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond (Oriental Institute Seminars 4), Chicago.

Canby, J. V. 2001, The “Ur-Nammu” Stela (University Museum Monographs 110), Philadelphia.

Cooper, J. S. 1986, Sumerian and Akkadian Royal Inscriptions, I Presargonic Inscriptions (The American Oriental Society Translation Series I), New Haven, CT.

Cooper, J.S. 2008, Divine Kingship in Mesopotamia: A Fleeting Phenomenon, in N. Brisch ed., 261–65.

Feldman, M. H. 2010, Objects Agency? Spatial Perspective, Social Relations, and the Stele of Hammurabi, in S. R. Steadman and J. C. Ross eds., Agency and Identity in the Ancient Near East, New Paths Forward, London and Oakville, 148-165.

Fischer, C. 2002, Twilight of the Sun-God, Iraq 64,125–34.

George A.R. 2011, The Stele of Nebuchadnezzar II, in A.R. George (ed.), Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection (CUSAS 17), 153-169.

Hansen, D.P. 2002, Through the Love of Ishtar. Pp. 91–112, in Of Pots and Plans, in L. al-Gailani Werr, J. Curtis, H. Martin, A. MacMahon, J.
Oats, J. Reade eds., Papers on the Archaeology and History of Mesopotamia and Syria presented to David Oates in Honor of his 75th Birthday, London, 91-112.

Johansen, F. ed., 1978, Statues of Gudea: Ancient and Modern, Copenhagen.

Machinist, P. 2006, Kingship and Divinity in Imperial Assyria, in G. Beckman and T. J. Lewis eds., Text, Artifact, and Image: Revealing Ancient Israelite Religion, Providence, 152–188.

Michalowski, P. 2008, The Mortal Kings of Ur: A Short Century of Divine Rule in Ancient Mesopotamia, in N. Brisch ed., 33-45.

Millard A.R. 1980-1983, Königssiegel, Reallexikon der Assyriologie 6, 135-140.
Nadali, D. 2009–2010, Neo-Assyrian State Seals: An Allegory of Power, SAAB 18: 244.

Nigro, L. 1998, Two Steles of Sargon: Iconology and Visual Propaganda at the Beginning of Royal Akkadian Relief, Iraq 60, 85–102.

Ornan, T. 2005, Expelling Demons at Nineveh: On the Visibility of Benevolent Demons in the Palaces of Nineveh, Iraq 64 (Part One), 83–92.

Ornan, T. 2007, Who is Holding the Lead Rope? The Relief of the Broken Obelisk, Iraq 69, 59–72.

Ornan, T. 2007a. The Godlike Semblance of a King: The Case of Sennacherib’s Rock Reliefs, in J. Cheng and M.H. Feldman eds., Ancient Near Eastern Art in Context: Studies in Honor of Irene J. Winter by her Students, Leiden and New York, 161–78.

Ornan, T. 2012a, The Long Life of a Dead King: A Bronze Statue from Hazor in its Ancient Near Eastern Context, BASOR 366, 1–23.

Ornan, T. 2012b, The Role of Gold in Royal Representation: The Case of a Bronze Statue from Hazor, in R. Matthews and J. Curtis eds., Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 12 April–16 April 2010, the British Museum and UCL, London, vol. 2, Ancient & Modern Issues in Cultural Heritage, Colour & Light in Architecture, Art &
Material Culture, Islamic Archaeology, Wiesbaden, 445–58.

Ornan T. 2014, A Silent Message: Godlike Kings in Mesopotamian Art, in B. Brown & M. H. Feldman eds., Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art, Berlin, 569-593.
Postgate, N. and M.D. Roaf 1997, The Shaikhan Relief, Al-RĀFIDĀN 18, 143–56

Radner K. 2008, The Delegation of Power Bureau Seals, Persika 12, 481-515.

Root-Cool, M. 1979, The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art: Essays on the Creation of an Iconography of Empire, Leiden.

Russell J.M. 1993, Sennacherib’s Lachish Narratives, in P.J. Holliday ed., Narrative and Event in Ancient Art, Cambridge, 55-73.

Shaffer, A. and Wasserman, N. 2003, Iddi(n)-Sin, King of Simurrum: A New Rock-Relief Inscription and a Reverential Seal, ZA 93: 1–52.

Stronach, D. 2002, Icons of Dominions: Review Scenes at Til Barsip and Persepolis, Iranica Antiqua 37, 373-402.

Suter, C.E. 2000, Gudea’s Temple Buildings: the Representations of an Early Mesopotamian Ruler in Text and Image, Groningen.

Suter, C.E. 2010, Ur III Kings in Images: A Reappraisal, in H. D. Baker, E. Robson, G. Zoĺyomi, eds., Your Praise Is Sweet: A Memorial Volume for Jeremy Black from Students, Colleagues and Friends, London, 319-349.

Tigay, J.H. 2003, Divine Creation of the King in Psalms 2:6, in I. Eph’al, A. Ben-Tor, P. Machinist eds., Eretz-Israel 27, Hayim and Miriam Tadmor Volume, Jerusalem, *246–251.

Weissert, E. 1997, Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph in a Prism Fragment of Ashurbanipal (82-5-22,2), in S. Parpola & R.M. Whiting (eds.), Assyria 1995, Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project Helsinki, September 7-11, 1995, Helsinki, 339-358.

Westenholz, J. 2000, The King, the Emperor, and the Empire: Continuity and Discontinuity of Royal Representation in Text and Image, in B. Whiting ed., The Heirs of Assyria, Proceedings of the Opening Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project Held in Tvärminne, Finland, October 8–11, 1998 (Melammu Symposia I), Helsinki, 99–125,

Winter, I.J. 1985, After the Battle is Over: The Stele of the Vultures and the Beginning of Historical Narrative in the Art of the Ancient Near East, in H.L. Kessler and M. Shreve Simpson eds., Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Studies in the History of Art 16), Washington, 11-32.

Winter, I.J. 1986, The King and the Cup: Iconography of the Royal Presentation Scene on the Ur III Seals. Pp. 253–68, in M. Kelly-Buccellati ed., Insight through Images: Studies in Honor of Edith Porada (Bibliotheca Mesopotamia 21), Malibu, 253-268.

Winter, I.J. 1989, The Body of the Able Ruler: Toward an Understanding of the Statues of Gudea, in H. Behrens, D. Loding and M.T. Rotheds., Dumu-E2-Dub-Ba-A: Studies in Honor of Åke W. Sjöberg, Philadelphia, 573–83.

Winter, I.J. 1996, Sex, Rhetoric, and the Public Monument, in N. Boymel Kampen ed., Sexuality in Ancient Art: Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Italy, Cambridge, 11-26.

Winter, I.J. 1997, Art in Empire: The Royal Image and the Dimensions of Assyrian Ideology, in S. Parpola and R.M. Whiting eds., Assyria 1995, Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian
Text Corpus Project Helsinki, September 7–11, 1995 (The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project), Helsinki, 359–81.

Winter, I.J., 2008, Touched by the Gods: Visual Evidence for the Divine Status of Rulers in the Ancient Near East, in N. Brisch ed., 75-101.

Additional Reading Material:
Barnett R.D. & Falkner M. 1962, The Sculptures of Aššur-nasir-apli II (883-859 B.C.), Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 B.C.), Esarhaddon (681-669 B.C.) from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud, London.

Barnett, R. D., Bleibtreu, E., Turner, G. 1998, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, London.

Canepa, M. P. 2009, The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship Between Rome and Sasanian Iran, Berkeley.
Charpin, D. 2012, Hammurabi of Babylon, London.


George, A.R. 2003, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. Oxford.

Gradel, I. 2002, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion, Oxford and New York.

Magen, U. 1986, Assyrische Königsdarstellungen – Aspekte der Herrschaft, eine Typologie, Mainz.

Mieroop Van de, M. 2005, King Hammurabi of Babylon, A Biography, Oxford.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 20 %
Project work 80 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information: