Art and Immortality in the Ancient Near East

Description

Discussions of apocalyptic thought and its sources in the ancient Near East, particularly Mesopotamia, have a long scholarly history, with a renewed interest and focus in the recent decades. Outside Assyriological scholarship as well, studies of the apocalyptic give significant credit to the ancient Near East, especially Babylonia and Iran, as potential sources for the manifestations of this phenomenon in the Hellenistic period. The emphasis on kingship and empire in apocalyptic modes of thinking warrants special attention paid to the regal art of ancient Mesopotamia and adjacent areas in its potential to express the relevant notions. In this book, Mehmet-Ali Ataç demonstrates the importance of visual evidence as a source for apocalyptic thought. Focusing on the so-called investiture painting from Mari, he relates it to parallel evidence from the visual traditions of the Assyrian Empire, ancient Egypt, and Hittite Anatolia. Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 3 Title page......Page 5 Copyright information......Page 6 Epigraph......Page 7 Table of contents......Page 9 List of Illustrastions......Page 12 Acknowledgments......Page 15 List of abbreviations......Page 17 Toward a Metaphysics of the Art of the Ancient Near East......Page 19 The Corpus of Images......Page 23 Questions of Text and Image......Page 26 Tammuz and Gilgamesh......Page 27 A Supra-Textual Language......Page 32 Conceptual Bases......Page 33 Conceptions of Sacral Time and Eschatology......Page 36 Defining Apocalyptic......Page 39 Out of Time, Out of History......Page 41 Artistic Production and “Regal Art”......Page 42 The Royal Destiny......Page 44 Art and the Apocalyptic......Page 45 One The “Investiture” Painting from Mari......Page 48 Archaeological Discovery and Architectural Setting......Page 51 The Mari Painting in the Context of the Art of the Ancient Near East......Page 53 The Affinity between Mari and Assyria......Page 58 Conceptions of Renewal in the Mari Painting......Page 59 Previous Interpretations......Page 60 Alternative Views......Page 63 A Critical Position......Page 66 The Ring and Rod: Beyond Legitimacy......Page 68 The Builder King......Page 72 The Flowing Vase: Beyond Fertility......Page 73 Aquatic Endlessness......Page 77 Ishtar and Ea......Page 79 An Aquatic Doorway......Page 80 The Central Panel: Beyond a Rectangular Frame......Page 81 Heaven in Earth......Page 84 The Mythical Quadrupeds: Beyond the Apotropaic......Page 89 The Blue Bird in Flight: The “Phoenix”?......Page 91 Ascent to Heaven......Page 94 Coloristic Symbolism......Page 96 Stairway to Heaven......Page 97 Three The Flood Myth as Paradigm......Page 99 A Note on Method......Page 100 The Ideal Enclosure and the Ideal Garden......Page 101 The Ideal Temple......Page 104 Numerological Symbolism......Page 106 A New Cosmic Order......Page 107 Flood Vision......Page 109 Defining Paradeigma......Page 110 The Mari Painting and the Assyrian “Sacred Tree”......Page 111 Postscript on Shamanic Lore in the Art of Ancient Mesopotamia......Page 116 Running Spirals as Symbolic Form......Page 120 The Ouroboric Serpent......Page 122 Primordial Chaos as Source of Periodic Destruction and Renewal......Page 123 Serpents, Streams, and Endless Time......Page 131 Neo-Sumerian Roots......Page 134 An Anatolian Ouroboros.?......Page 137 Temporal Cyclicality in Ancient Mesopotamia......Page 141 An Apocalyptic Perspective......Page 142 Defying Cyclicality through Ascent......Page 143 The Hittite Double Winged Disk......Page 146 Hittite Visual Formulations of Ascent......Page 152 Mountain and Water......Page 153 To Die is to Become a God......Page 155 Egyptian Roots......Page 156 Conceptions of Temporal and Astral Eternity......Page 159 Nothing Babylonian......Page 161 Conceptions of Apocalyptic Eschatology......Page 163 Closure to the Mari Painting......Page 166 Postscript: Why the Apocalyptic Would Have Been Esoteric......Page 167 Six The “Royal Destiny”:......Page 169 Description and Historical Framework......Page 170 Previous Interpretations and the Present Approach......Page 175 Paradisiac Implications......Page 176 The “Garden Scene” and its Intercultural Connections......Page 178 “The Charms of Tyranny”......Page 181 The Assyrian Queen Wearing the Mural Crown......Page 186 The Celestial City......Page 188 The Garden as a Transitional Extreme......Page 190 A Vergilian Model......Page 191 Ishtar and “Holy War”......Page 194 Closure to the “Garden Scene”......Page 195 Epilogue......Page 197 Introduction......Page 201 1 The “Investiture” Painting From Mari......Page 211 2 The Iconographic Analysis of The Mari Painting......Page 219 3 The Flood Myth as Paradigm......Page 228 4 The Semantics of The Frame of Running Spirals......Page 232 5 Implications Of Sacral Time and Eschatology......Page 238 6 The “Royal Destiny”: The “Garden Scene” of Ashurbanipal Revisited......Page 251 Epilogue......Page 263 Bibliography......Page 265 Index......Page 291