History of Art & Architecture

Ivory as a material has a unique and fascinating appeal by virtue of its rich warm colour and sheen. Since very early times, ivory has been synonymous with luxury, as witnessed in the Old Testament reference to Ahab's " house of ivory ", the epitome of luxurious living; in Amos' imprecation against the rich " that lie upon beds of ivory "; and in Ezekiel's lament for Tyre, perfect in beauty, where the very benches are made of ivory.' In addition, we are told that Solomon's royal throne was made of ivory, commissioned from Phoenician craftsmen who excelled in this art.2 Finally, the identification of ivory with luxury and hence corruption is clear in the Homeric allusion to the " Gate of Ivory ", through which dreams pass that mislead.3 The discovery of actual ivory objects more-or-less contemporary with the literary references during excavations of the Assyrian palaces at Nimrud in the mid-nineteenth century thus engendered great excitement.4 The pieces were not only beautiful in themselves; they also brought the ancient traditions to life. The esteem in which the ivories were held in their own time is clearly reflected in the many references by Assyrian kings to objects and tusks taken in booty or received as tribute, as well as in the care with which such transactions were represented on royal reliefs.5 Since the early excavations at Nimrud, a number of other sites in the Near East, such as Hasanlu, Khorsabad, Tell Halaf, Arslan Tash, Zincirli, Tell Tainat, Hama, and particularly Samaria, seat of Ahab and capital of ancient Israel,

In 1960, Robert H. Dyson, Jr. published a composite-paste cylinder seal found in level IVB at Hasanlu in Northwest Iran, and note d that "the rampant lion and bull (o n the seal) recall similar figures o n the silver cup" found at the site in 1958. 1 Subsequently , Edith Porada enumerated the qualities shared by the well-known gold bowl from HasanJu' and the silver cup. 2 In reference to the seal pu blished by Dyson , she suggested that it proba bly refresented a local style which would also include a decorated vase fragment of the same paste composition. With the discovery of the large quantity of ivory fragment s in Burned Building II at Hasanlu during the 1964 season, Oscar White Muscarella ob served that: "Many of the ivories appear to be the prod ucts of local craftsmen, since stylistic details are seen to be similar to th ose of o ther objects considered to be made locally, and because no immediate parallels are forthcoming from foreign centers. " 4 The notion of a "local style" at Hasanlu has since become enshrined in the literature. It is the purpose of the present article to examine (and to support) the validity of such a claim, and to attempt to view those qualities which characterize the Hasanlu local style in the perspective of the particular histo rical situation which pertained in Northwest Iran during the 9th century B.C. To pu rsue this top ic in the context of the present volume is especially satisfying, as the issues involved include aspects of culture history and process so much of interest to the Director of the Hasanlu Project, while at the same time , his initial observation on the seal and the silver cup reflects a sensitivity to visual material relevant to the art historian. 5 • • 5 My interest in the "local style" at Hasanlu grew out of a study of the copper/bronze horse 's breastplate (HAS. 74-24 l) found at the site in 1974. I am ve ry grateful to Dr. Dyson for his initial suggestion to work on the breastplate, as well as for his permission to pursue research on the local style once the breastplate was done. I trust he no w understands why I was so vague about where the eventual "loc al style" manuscript was to go.

In the Autumn of 195 9, I was permitted as an und ergraduate to participat e in a graduate seminar on Royal Ico nography taught by Edit h Porada at Columbia University. Th e topic I was given for this, my first class presentati on, was an investigation of the Ur III seals on which th e figure of a seated king was represe nte d. In th e afte rma th of th at present at ion, I was couns eled by a quote attributed to Leo Oppenheim the gist of which was that th e mark of the scholar is to be able to come back tim e and time again to th e same material with a fresh eye and an open mind. Thus, when provided with th e opp ortunity to contribute to th e present volume, it seeme d appropria te to tak e up on ce again th ose Ur III seals with seated king. In th at respect , it is hoped to be a tribute both to the teac hing of Edit h Porada, underscoring the important role of seminar presentations and research topics in the groo ming of young students, and to the scholarly work of Edith Porad a, a major portion of which has been concerne d with exte nding our und erstanding of th e cylinder seal as a source for and a conveyor of ancient Mesopotamian cult ure. • • • The present study, th en, is an invest igation of the icono graph y of th e 'presentatio n scene' wit h seated king: its component parts and associated roy al att ribu tes, an d its meaning when jux taposed with similar scenes conta ining seate d gods. It is argued that th e king fu nctions on a distinct, if parallel, plane from that of the gods, with th e cup held by most kin gs as a highly charged attribute ; that the realm in which the king' s role most closely echoes th e divine is in his role as giver and maintainer of justice; and that, in thi s sense, th e mod ern distinction betw een " worship" and" audi ence," ritual and civil peti tion , sacred and secular should not be impose d up on th e Mesopo tamian situatio n. It is ultimately suggested that th ese seals, far from being mechanically repetitive in a pejo rat ive sense, are rather standardized much in th e way of early coinage and later identity cards. By representing the king, they procl aim his ability to direct and maintain the sta te. And at th e same time, th e individual app roaching the king in the se ' presenta tion scenes'-presum ably th e seal owner himself, identified by nam e, offi ce and pat ron ymi c in the legend on most seals-is th en also esta blished within th e sta te system by virtue of his associa tio n wit h th e king. F or it must be rememb ered tha t not only th e indi viduals represented, bu t the seals th emselves, are agents of the system-artifacts of the bureaucratic and administrative net work , tha t serve to validate tran sactions at many levels. Imagery on th e seals, then, must be und erst ood not as independent or rand omly selec ted moti fs, bu t as motifs with a contex t: keyed to the functi on of the seals wit hin th e Ur I I I state .

In the initial charge to participants for the present colloquium on "Bronzeworking Centres of Western Asia c. 1000 BC-539 Be", we were asked to determine (a) whether one's particular area had a flourishing bronze-producing industry in the period, (b) what sort of material it was producing, and (c) how much of that material was being exported. In the case of North Syria, the evidence is strongly in support of conclusions that the region did indeed have a flourishing bronze industry; that, due to the incomplete nature of the archaeological record and the re-usable properties of bronze, probably only a partial typology of materials is possibla at this time, but there is nonetheless a considarable range of utilitarian and luxury goods being produced; and finally, that the distribution of these goods is sufficiently wide t~ suggest that North Syrian bronzes were not on! y being exported, but were highly valued throughout the ancient world.! In order to substantiate these claims, it will ba necessary to first, define the region wa would include within the boundaries of North Syria; second, identify the corpus, and within thet, the typological categories of North Syrian bronzes; and third, elucidate the evidence for reconstructing the economic factors involved in production and consumption of these bronzes.