Introduction to Ancient Near East “Mesopotamia”

The very first civilizations to live together in large, organized cities emerged in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China. In this class we are going to study both Mesopotamia and Egypt and will begin with Mesopotamia. We will study several periods of Ancient Near Eastern art, we will begin with a study of Sumer and then look to Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria, Neo-Babylonia and finally Achaemenid Persia.

A frequent theme in the religions of early civilizations is the belief in the power of the natural world. Gods were often personifications of nature and natural forces such as moon, sun, fire or water. This is true of the Ancient Near Eastern cultures whose gods and goddesses were related to natural phenomena. Anu and Inanna are good examples of this trend.

We are going to focus on the following issues:

• The formation of belief systems that created a structure tying the sacred levels of being (gods, goddesses, supernatural forces) with the profane world of human beings.
• The exercise of power through rulership and the development of a system of government which regulates political relations
• The creation and development of an organized social order, for example the development of distinct social classes, distinguishable from one another by two related factors, wealth and occupation

The Prehistoric works of art we studied often had a universal quality and much was left in the realm of the theoretical in the absence of written records.  As we study the Ancient Near Eastern world, we will begin with Sumerian civilization, which gave us many fundamental civilizing tools, one of them paramount in terms of our understanding of the past — writing.

As we enter the historic phase of Ancient Near Eastern art we will evaluate the works of visual art in conjunction with written texts from the same epoch and thus build a stronger, more definite picture of this ancient worlds.  As we are able to assess the works with more accuracy the objects and buildings take on more specific identities and we can better gauge their intended functions.

What are the major functions of this ancient art?  There are two major functions that we can identify: one is religious and to to be understood within that religious context of ritual and worship. Also of great importance are those works that are intended to display power, either of individual (kings, priests etc.) and/or as narratives of events, real or transformed for reasons of propaganda.

In this section on the Ancient Near East we will examine the social, historical, and artistic developments between ca. 3500 BCE and 636 CE, in the “Fertile Crescent,” the vast regions known as Mesopotamia and Persia, located in the area of present-day Iraq and Iran. Sumerian art (ca. 3500-2332 BCE) includes enormous built temple platforms called ziggurats and the development of coherent visual narrative devices. Rulers of the Akkadians (ca. 2332-2150) were the first to assume divine attributes in artistic representations e.g. Naram-Sin, and artists of this period were innovators in bronze sculpture and landscape depictions. The Neo-Sumerian and Babylonian periods (ca. 2150-1600 BCE) witnessed the building of numerous temples and the enormous ziggurat at Ur. In the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods (ca. 900-539 BCE), elaborate fortified buildings were constructed that included depictions of guardian figures, reflecting the power of the period’s kings. A huge palace complex at Persepolis marks the height of artistic achievement in the Achaemenid period (ca. 559-330 BCE), while the defeat of the Sasanians by the Arabs marked the end of the New Persian Empire (224-636 CE).