Burney Relief
Encyclopedia
The Burney Relief is a Mesopotamia
n terracotta plaque in high relief
of the Isin-Larsa- or Old-Babylon
ian period, depicting a winged, nude, goddess-like figure with bird's talons, flanked by owls, and perched upon supine lions. The relief is displayed in the British Museum
in London, which has dated it between 1800 and 1750 BCE. It originates from southern Iraq
, but the exact find-site is unknown. Apart from its distinctive iconography
, the piece is noted for its high relief and relatively large size, which suggests that is was used as a cult
relief, which makes it a very rare survival from the period. However, whether it represents Lilitu
, Inanna/Ishtar
, or Ereshkigal
, is under debate. The authenticity of the object has been questioned from its first appearance in the 1930s, but opinion has generally moved in its favour over the subsequent decades.
n dealer, who may have acquired the plaque in southern Iraq in 1924, the relief was deposited at the British Museum in London and analysed by Dr. H.J. Plenderleith
in 1933. However the Museum declined to purchase it in 1935, whereupon the plaque passed to the London antique dealer Sidney Burney; it subsequently became known as the "Burney Relief". The relief was first brought to public attention with a full-page reproduction in The Illustrated London News
, in 1936. From Burney, it passed to the collection of Norman Colville, after whose death it was acquired at auction by the Japanese collector Goro Sakamoto. British authorities, however, denied him an export license. The piece was loaned to the British Museum for display between 1980 and 1991, and in 2003 the relief was purchased by the Museum for the sum of £1,500,000 as part of its 250th anniversary celebrations. The Museum also renamed the plaque the "Queen of the Night Relief". Since then, the object has toured museums around Britain.
Unfortunately its original provenance
remains unknown. The relief was not archaeologically excavated, and thus we have no further information where it came from, or in which context it was discovered. An interpretation of the relief thus relies on stylistic comparisons with other objects for which the date and place of origin has been established, on an analysis of the iconography, and on the interpretation of textual sources from Mesopotamian mythology and religion
.
(1936), Pauline Albenda (2005) and in a monograph
by Dominique Collon, curator at the British Museum, where the plaque is now housed. The composition as a whole is unique among works of art from Mesopotamia, even though many elements have interesting counterparts in other images from that time.
) plaque
, 50 by 37 cm (19.7 by 14.6 in) large, 2 to 3 cm (0.78740157480315 to 1.2 in) thick, with the head of the figure projecting 4.5 centimetres (1.8 in) from the surface. To manufacture the relief, clay with small calcareous
inclusions was mixed with chaff
; visible folds and fissures suggest the material was quite stiff when being worked. The British Museum's Department of Scientific Research reports "it would seem likely that the whole plaque was moulded" with subsequent modelling of some details and addition of others, such as the rod-and-ring symbol
s, the tresses of hair and the eyes of the owls. The relief was then burnished and polished, and further details were incised with a pointed tool. Firing burned out the chaff, leaving characteristic voids and the pitted surface we see now; Curtis and Collon believe the surface would have appeared smoothed by ochre
paint in antiquity.
In its dimensions, the unique plaque is larger than the mass-produced terracotta plaques – popular art or devotional items – of which many were excavated in house ruins of the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian
periods.Such plaques are about 10 to 20 cm (3.9 to 7.9 in) in their longest dimension. Cf. the plaque AO 6501 at the Louvre, the plaque BM WA 1994-10-1, 1 at the British Museum, or an actual mould: BM WA 1910-11-12, 4, also at the British Museum (Curtis 1996)
The relief is overall in excellent condition. Originally it was received in three pieces and some fragments by the British Museum; after repair, some cracks are still apparent, in particular a triangular piece missing on the right edge, but the main features of the deity
and the animals are intact. The figure's face has damage to its left side, the left side of the nose and the neck region. The headdress has some damage to its front and right hand side, but the overall shape can be inferred from symmetry. Half of the necklace is missing and the symbol of the figure held in her right hand; the owls' beaks are lost and a piece of a lion's tail. A comparison of images from 1936 and 2005 shows that some modern damage has been sustained as well: the right hand side of the crown has now lost its top tier, and at the lower left corner a piece of the mountain patterning has chipped off and the owl has lost its right-side toes. However in all major aspects, the relief has survived intact for more than 3,500 years.
Traces of red pigment still remain on the figure's body that was originally painted red overall. The feathers of her wings and the owls' feathers were also colored red, alternating with black and white. By Raman spectroscopy
the red pigment is identified as red ochre, the black pigment, amorphous carbon ("lamp black") and the white pigment gypsum
. Black pigment is also found on the background of the plaque, the hair and eyebrows, and on the lions' manes.cf.
the color-scheme reconstruction on the British Museum page The pubic triangle and the areola
appear accentuated with red pigment but were not separately painted black. The lions' bodies were painted white. The British Museum curators assume that the horns of the headdress and part of the necklace were originally colored yellow, just as they are on a very similar clay figure from Ur. They surmise that the bracelets and rod-and-ring symbols might also have been painted yellow. However no traces of yellow pigment now remain on the relief.
, and bronze
sculptures of the time,cf. the Male Worshiper and Standing Female Figure in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
but not seen in other Mesopotamian clay sculptures. Her full lips are slightly upturned at the corners. She is adorned with a four-tiered headdress of horns, topped by a disk. Her head is framed by two braids of hair with the bulk of her hair in a bun in the back and two wedge-shaped braids extending onto her breasts.
The stylized treatment of her hair could represent a ceremonial wig. She wears a single broad necklace, composed of squares that are structured with horizontal and vertical lines, possibly depicting beads, four to each square. This necklace is virtually identical to the necklace of the god found at Ur
, except that the latter's necklace has three lines to a square. Around both wrists she wears bracelets which appear composed of three rings. Both hands are symmetrically lifted up, palms turned towards the viewer and detailed with visible life-, head- and heart lines, holding two rod-and-ring symbol
s of which only the one in the left hand is well preserved. Two wings with clearly defined, stylized feathers in three registers extend down from above her shoulders. The feathers in the top register are shown as overlapping scales (coverts
), the lower two registers have long, staggered flight feather
s that appear drawn with a ruler and end in a convex trailing edge. The feathers have smooth surfaces, no barbs were drawn. The wings are similar but not entirely symmetrical, differing both in the number of the flight feathersThe right wing has eight flight feathers, the left wing has seven. and in the details of the coloring scheme.The lower register of the right wing breaks the white-red-black pattern of the other three registers with a white-black-red-black-white sequence.
Her wings are spread to a triangular shape but not fully extended. The breasts are full and high, but without separately modelled nipples. Her body has been sculpted with attention to naturalistic detail: the deep navel, structured abdomen, "softly modeled pubic area"Albenda (2005) notes "a tiny vertical indentation" but Collon (2007b) clarifies that this is merely a missing flake over a repaired fracture. the recurve of the outline of the hips beneath the iliac crest
and the bony structure of the legs with distinct knee caps all suggest "an artistic skill that is almost certainly derived from observed study". A spur-like protrusion, fold or tuft extends from her calves just below the knee which Collon interprets as dewclaws. Below the shin, the figure's legs change into those of a bird. The bird-feet are detailedcf. image of the foot of an Indian falcon with three long, well separated toes of approximately equal length. Lines have been scratched into the surface of the ankle and toes to depict the scute
s and all visible toes have prominent talons. Her toes are extended down, without perspective foreshortening; they do not appear to rest upon a ground line and thus give the figure an impression of being dissociated from the background, as if hovering.
. D. Collon prefers an interpretation as the related Asiatic lion
and notes that a skin in the Natural History Museum
in London shows the distinctive whorl
in the mane that is often represented in Mesopotamian art (Collon 2005, 34), but also in Egyptian art (cf. Tutanhkamun headrest). Distinctly patterned tufts of hair grow from the lion's ears and on their shoulders, emanating from a central disk-shaped whorl
. They lie supine, their heads are sculpted with attention to detail, but a degree of artistic liberty in their form, e.g. regarding their rounded shapes. Both lions look towards the viewer and both have their mouths closed.
The owls shown are recognizable, but not sculpted naturalistically: the shape of the beak, the length of the legs, and details of plumage deviate from those of the owls that are indigenous to the region.Iraq's indigenous owls without ear-tufts include the Barn Owl (Tyto alba)
- this is the owl that D. Collon believes to be represented in the relief (Collon 2005, 36) - the Little Owl (Athene noctua lilith)
and the Tawny Owl(Strix aluco). Their plumage is colored like the deity's wings in red, black and white; it is bilaterally similar but not perfectly symmetrical. Both owls have one more feather on the right-hand side of their plumage than on the left-hand side. The legs, feet and talons are red.
The group is placed on a pattern of scales, painted black. This is the way mountain ranges were commonly symbolized in Mesopotamian art.
- Larsa
period, or slightly later to the beginning of the Old Babylonian
period.The relief is therefore neither Sumer
ian or Akkad
ian - that would have been even earlier - nor Assyria
n - that would located it to northern Mesopotamia. Frankfort especially notes the stylistic similarity with the sculpted head of a male deity found at Ur
, which Collon finds to be "so close to the Queen of the Night in quality, workmanship and iconographical details, that it could well have come from the same workshop." Therefore Ur is one possible city of origin for the relief, but not the only one: Edith Porada points out the virtual identity in style that the lion's tufts of hair have with the same detail seen on two fragments of clay plaques excavated at Nippur
.cf. Plates 142:8 and 142:10 in McCown 1978. By stratification with dated clay-tablets, one of these similar fragments has been assigned to the Isin-Larsa period (dates between 2000 and 1800 BCE), the other to the adjacent Old Babylonian period (dates between 1800 and 1700 BCE) (short chronology). And Agnès Spycket reported on a similar necklace on a fragment found in Isin
.
and Larsa
, an invasion by the Elamites, and finally the conquest by Hammurabi
in the unification in the Babylonian empire
in 1762 BCE.
300 to 500 years earlier, the population for the whole of Mesopotamia was at its all-time high of about 300,000. Elam
ite invaders then toppled the third Dynasty of Ur
and the population declined to about 200,000; it had stabilized at that number at the time the relief was made. Cities like Nippur
and Isin
would have had on the order of 20,000 inhabitants, Larsa
maybe 40,000, and Hammurabi's Babylon
grew to 60,000 by 1700 BCE. A well-developed infrastructure and complex division of labour is required to sustain cities of that size. The fabrication of religious imagery might have been done by specialized artisans: large numbers of smaller, devotional plaques have been excavated that were fabricated in molds.
Even though the fertile crescent
civilizations are considered the oldest in history, at the time the Burney relief was made other late bronze age
civilizations were equally in full bloom. Travel and cultural exchange were not commonplace, but nevertheless possible.cf. the Egyptian 12th dynasty story of Sinuhe
To the east, Elam
with its capital Susa
was in frequent military conflict with Isin, Larsa and later Babylon. Even further, the Indus Valley Civilization
was already past its peak, and in China, the Erlitou culture
blossomed. To the southwest, Egypt was ruled by the 12th dynasty
, further to the west the Minoan civilization
, centred on Crete with the Old Palace in Knossos
, dominated the Mediterranean. To the North of Mesopotamia the Anatolian Hittites
were establishing their Old Kingdom over the Hattians
; they brought an end to Babylon's empire with the sack of the city in 1531 BCE. Indeed, Collon mentions this raid as possibly being the reason for the damage to the right-hand side of the relief.
often with niches to both sides. According to Jacobsen that shrine could have been located inside a brothel (see below).
" (see image) shows how elaborate such sculptures could have been, even 600 to 800 years earlier. It is also not due to a lack of interest in religious sculpture: deities and myths are ubiquitous on cylinder seal
s and the few stele
s, kudurru
s and reliefs that have been preserved. Rather it seems plausible that the main figures of worship in temples and shrines were made of materials so valuable they could not escape looting during the many shifts of power that the region saw. The Burney relief is comparatively plain, and so survived. In fact, the relief is one of only two existing large, figurative representations from the Old Babylonian period. The other one is the top part of the Code of Hammurabi
which was actually discovered in Elamite Susa
where it had been brought as booty (see image).
A static, frontal image is typical of religious images intended for worship. Symmetric compositions are common in Mesopotamian art when the context is not narrative.A narrative context depicts an event, such as the investment of a king. There the king opposes a god and both are shown in profile. Whenever a deity is depicted alone a symmetrical composition is more common. However the shallow relief of the cylinder seal entails that figures are shown in profile, therefore the symmetry is usually not perfect. Many examples have been found on cylinder seals. Three-part arrangements of a god and two other figures are common but five-part arrangements exist as well. In this respect, the relief follows established conventions. In terms of representation, the deity is sculpted with a naturalistic but "modest" nudity, reminiscent of Egyptian goddess sculptures, which are sculpted with a well-defined navel and pubic region but no details; there, the lower hemline of a dress indicates that some covering is intended, even if it does not conceal. In a typical statue of the genre, Pharao Menkaura
and two goddesses, Hathor
and Bat are shown in human form and sculpted naturalistically just as in the Burney relief; in fact Hathor
has been given the features of queen Khamerernebty II (see image and article
). Depicting an anthropomorphic god as a naturalistic human is an innovative artistic idea that may well have diffused from Egypt to Mesopotamia, just like a number of concepts of religious rites, architecture, the "banquet plaques" and other artistic innovations previously. In this respect the Burney Relief shows a clear departure from the schematic style of the worshiping men and women that were found in temples from periods about 500 years earlier (see image). It is also distinct from the next major style in the region: Assyria
n art, with its rigid, detailed representations, mostly of scenes of war and hunting (see image).
The extraordinary survival of the figure type, though interpretations and cult context shifted over the intervening centuries, is expressed by the cast terracotta funerary figure of the first century BCE, from Myrina
on the coast of Mysia
in Asia Minor, where it was excavated by the French School at Athens, 1883; the terracotta is conserved in the Musée du Louvre (illustrated left).
Compared to visual artworks from the same time, the relief fits quite well with its style of representation and its rich iconography. The images below show earlier, contemporary and somewhat later examples of woman and goddess depictions.
recognizes literally thousands of deities and distinct iconographies
have been identified for about a dozen. Less frequently, gods are identified by a written label or dedication; such labels would only have been intended for the literate elites. In creating a religious object, the sculptor was not free to create novel images: the representation of deities, their attributes and context were as much part of the religion as the rituals and the mythology. Indeed, innovation and deviation from an accepted canon could be considered a cultic offense. The large degree of similarity that is found in plaques and seals suggests that detailed iconographies could have been based on famous cult statues; they established the visual tradition for such derivative works but have now been lost. It appears though that the Burney Relief was the product of such a tradition, not its source, since its composition is unique.
The frontal presentation of the deity is appropriate for a plaque of worship, since it is not just a "pictorial reference to a god" but "a symbol of his presence". Since the relief is the only existing plaque intended for worship, we don't know whether this is generally true. But this particular depiction of a goddess represents a specific motif: a nude goddess with wings and bird's feet. Similar images have been found on a number of plaques, a vase from Larsa and on at least one cylinder seal; they are all from approximately the same period in time. In all instances but one, the frontal view, nudity, wings and the horned crown are features that occur together; thus these images are iconographically linked in their representation of a particular goddess. Moreover, examples of this motif are the only existing examples of a nude god or goddess; all other representations of gods are clothed. The bird's feet have not always been well preserved, but there are no counter-examples of a nude, winged goddess with human feet.
. However, the specific depiction of the hanging wings of the nude goddess may have evolved from what was originally a cape.
, Ishtar
, and in later Babylonian images also Marduk
– and often extended to a king.
or with the male gods Shamash
or Ningirsu. In Mesopotamian art, lions are nearly always depicted with open jaws. H. Frankfort suggests that The Burney Relief shows a modification of the normal canon that is due to the lions being turned towards a worshipper: they might appear inappropriately threatening if their mouths were open.
. It is associated with gods who have some connection with mountains but not restricted to any one deity in particular.
at the time the relief was made, but Akkadian
was the spoken language; this article therefore uses the Akkadian name Ishtar for consistency, except where "Inanna" has been used by the authors whose sources are quoted. but almost immediately other arguments have been put forward:
" has become a staple of scholarly and popular writing on that subject. Authors such as R. Patai believe the relief to be the only extant depiction of a Sumerian female demon called lilitu and thus to define lilitu's iconography. Citations regarding this assertion lead back to H. Frankfort's 1936 paper. Frankfort himself based his interpretation of the deity as the demon Lilith on the presence of wings, the birds' feet and the representation of owls. He cites the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh
as a source that such "creatures are inhabitants of the land of the dead". In that text Enkidu's
appearance is partially changed to that of a feathered being, and he is led to the nether world where creatures dwell that are "birdlike, wearing a feather garment". This passage reflects the Sumerians' belief in the nether world, and Frankfort cites evidence that Nergal
, the ruler of the underworld, is depicted with bird's feet and wrapped in a feathered gown. However Frankfort does not himself make the identification of the figure with Lilith; rather he cites E. G. Kraeling (1937) instead. Kraeling "believes" that the figure "is a superhuman being of a lower order"; he does not explain exactly why. He then goes on to state "Wings [...] regularly suggest a demon associated with the wind" and "owls may well indicate the nocturnal habits of this female demon". He excludes Lamashtu
and Pazuzu
as candidate demons and states: "Perhaps we have here a third representation of a demon. If so, it must be Lilîtu [...] the demon of an evil wind", named ki-sikil-lil-laki-sikil-lil-la (Krealing) and ki-sikil-lil-la-ke (Albenda) appear to be mistaken readings of the original Sumerian passage from the Gilgamesh epos: ki-sikil lit. ki- earth-untouched/pure i.e. virgin or maiden, lil2 wind; breath; infection; phantom; -la- is gen. case marker and -ke4 erg. case marker, both are required by the grammatical context (in this passage: "kisikil built for herself") but the case markers are not part of the noun. (literally "wind-maiden" or "phantom-maiden", not "beautiful maiden", as Kraeling asserts (see below)). This ki-sikil-lil is an antagonist of Inanna (Ishtar) in a brief episode of the epic of Gilgamesh, which is cited by both Kraeling and Frankfort
as further evidence for the identification as Lilith. In this episode, Inanna's holy Huluppu tree is invaded by malevolent spirits. Frankfort quotes a preliminary translation by Gadd (1933): "in the midst Lilith had built a house, the shrieking maid, the joyful, the bright queen of Heaven". However modern translations have instead: "In its trunk, the phantom maid built herself a dwelling, the maid who laughs with a joyful heart. But holy Inanna cried." The earlier translation implies an association of the demon Lilith with a shrieking owl and at the same time asserts her god-like nature; the modern translation supports neither of these attributes. In fact, Gadd, the original translator, writes: "ardat lili (kisikil-lil) is never associated with owls in Babylonian mythology" and "the Jewish traditions concerning Lilith in this form seem to be late and of no great authority". That this initially misread single line of evidence was taken as virtual proof of the identification of the Burney relief with "Lilith" may have been motivated by the existence of a Hebrew demon "Lilith" which is given the epithet of a "screech owl" in the English Bible.
substantially revised this interpretation and identified the figure as Inanna
(Akkadian: Ishtar
) in an analysis that is primarily based on textual evidence. According to Jacobsen:
, the goddess of the underworld. This interpretation is based on the fact that the wings are not outspread and that the background of the relief was originally painted black. If this were the correct identification, it would make the relief (and by implication the smaller plaques of nude, winged goddesses) the only known figurative representations of Ereshkigal. Edith Porada, the first to propose this identification, associates hanging wings with demons and then states: "If the suggested provenience of the Burney relief at Nippur proves to be correct, the imposing demonic figure depicted on it may have to be identified with the female ruler of the dead or with some other major figure of the Old Babylonian pantheon which was occasionally associated with death." No further supporting evidence was given by Porada, but another analysis published in 2002 comes to the same conclusion. E. von der Osten-Sacken describes evidence for a weakly developed but nevertheless existing cult for Ereshkigal; she cites aspects of similarity between the goddesses Ishtar and Ereshkigal from textual sources – for example they are called "sisters" in the myth of "Inanna's descent into the nether world" – and she finally explains the unique doubled rod-and-ring symbol in the following way: "Ereshkigal would be shown here at the peak of her power, when she had taken the divine symbols from her sister and perhaps also her identifying lions".
A year later Frankfort (1937) acknowledged Van Buren's examples, added some of his own and concluded "that the relief is genuine". Opitz (1937) concurred with this opinion, but reasserted that the iconography is not consistent with other examples, especially regarding the rod-and-ring symbol. These symbols were the focus of a communication by Pauline Albenda (1970) who again questioned the relief's authenticity. Subsequently the British Museum performed thermoluminescence dating
which was consistent with the relief being fired in antiquity; but the method is imprecise when samples of the surrounding soil are not available for estimation of background radiation levels. A rebuttal to Albenda by Curtis and Collon (1996) published the scientific analysis; the British Museum was sufficiently convinced of the relief to purchase it in 2003. The discourse continued however: in her extensive reanalysis of stylistic features, Albenda once again called the relief "a pastiche of artistic features" and "continue[d] to be unconvinced of its antiquity".
Her arguments were rebutted in a rejoinder by Collon (2007), noting in particular that the whole relief was created in one unit, i.e. there is no possibility that a modern figure or parts of one might have been added to an antique background; she also reviewed the iconographic links to provenanced pieces. In concluding Collon states: "[Edith Porada] believed that, with time, a forgery would look worse and worse, whereas a genuine object would grow better and better. [...] Over the years [the Queen of the Night] has indeed grown better and better, and more and more interesting. For me she is a real work of art of the Old Babylonian period."
In 2008/9 the relief was included in exhibitions on Babylon at the Pergamon Museum
in Berlin
, the Louvre
in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York.
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
n terracotta plaque in high relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
of the Isin-Larsa- or Old-Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
ian period, depicting a winged, nude, goddess-like figure with bird's talons, flanked by owls, and perched upon supine lions. The relief is displayed in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
in London, which has dated it between 1800 and 1750 BCE. It originates from southern Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, but the exact find-site is unknown. Apart from its distinctive iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
, the piece is noted for its high relief and relatively large size, which suggests that is was used as a cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
relief, which makes it a very rare survival from the period. However, whether it represents Lilitu
Lilith
Lilith is a character in Jewish mythology, found earliest in the Babylonian Talmud, who is generally thought to be related to a class of female demons Līlīṯu in Mesopotamian texts. However, Lowell K. Handy notes, "Very little information has been found relating to the Akkadian and Babylonian view...
, Inanna/Ishtar
Inanna
Inanna, also spelled Inana is the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare....
, or Ereshkigal
Ereshkigal
In Mesopotamian mythology, Ereshkigal was the goddess of Irkalla, the land of the dead or underworld. Sometimes her name is given as Irkalla, similar to the way the name Hades was used in Greek mythology for both the underworld and its ruler.Ereshkigal was the only one who could pass judgment and...
, is under debate. The authenticity of the object has been questioned from its first appearance in the 1930s, but opinion has generally moved in its favour over the subsequent decades.
Provenance
Initially in the possession of a SyriaSyria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n dealer, who may have acquired the plaque in southern Iraq in 1924, the relief was deposited at the British Museum in London and analysed by Dr. H.J. Plenderleith
Harold Plenderleith
Harold Plenderleith was a Scottish art conservator and archaeologist.-Biography:Harold Plenderleith was born in Scotland on 19 September 1898....
in 1933. However the Museum declined to purchase it in 1935, whereupon the plaque passed to the London antique dealer Sidney Burney; it subsequently became known as the "Burney Relief". The relief was first brought to public attention with a full-page reproduction in The Illustrated London News
Illustrated London News
The Illustrated London News was the world's first illustrated weekly newspaper; the first issue appeared on Saturday 14 May 1842. It was published weekly until 1971 and then increasingly less frequently until publication ceased in 2003.-History:...
, in 1936. From Burney, it passed to the collection of Norman Colville, after whose death it was acquired at auction by the Japanese collector Goro Sakamoto. British authorities, however, denied him an export license. The piece was loaned to the British Museum for display between 1980 and 1991, and in 2003 the relief was purchased by the Museum for the sum of £1,500,000 as part of its 250th anniversary celebrations. The Museum also renamed the plaque the "Queen of the Night Relief". Since then, the object has toured museums around Britain.
Unfortunately its original provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
remains unknown. The relief was not archaeologically excavated, and thus we have no further information where it came from, or in which context it was discovered. An interpretation of the relief thus relies on stylistic comparisons with other objects for which the date and place of origin has been established, on an analysis of the iconography, and on the interpretation of textual sources from Mesopotamian mythology and religion
Mesopotamian religion
Mesopotamian religion refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Sumerian and Akkadian peoples living in Mesopotamia that dominated the region for a period of 4200 years from the fourth millennium BC to approximately the 3rd century AD...
.
Description
Detailed descriptions were published by Henri FrankfortHenri Frankfort
Henri 'Hans' Frankfort was a Dutch Egyptologist, archaeologist and orientalist.-Biography:Born in Amsterdam, Frankfort studied history at the University of Amsterdam and then moved to London, where in 1924, he took an MA under Sir Flinders Petrie at the University College. In 1927 he gained a...
(1936), Pauline Albenda (2005) and in a monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
by Dominique Collon, curator at the British Museum, where the plaque is now housed. The composition as a whole is unique among works of art from Mesopotamia, even though many elements have interesting counterparts in other images from that time.
Physical aspect
The relief is a terracotta (fired clayClay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
) plaque
Plaque
Plaque or placque may refer to:* Commemorative plaque, a flat ornamental plate or tablet fixed to a wall, used to mark a significant event, person, etc.* Memorial Plaque, issued to next-of-kin of dead British military personnel after World War I...
, 50 by 37 cm (19.7 by 14.6 in) large, 2 to 3 cm (0.78740157480315 to 1.2 in) thick, with the head of the figure projecting 4.5 centimetres (1.8 in) from the surface. To manufacture the relief, clay with small calcareous
Calcareous
Calcareous is an adjective meaning mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate, in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines.-In zoology:...
inclusions was mixed with chaff
Chaff
Chaff is the dry, scaly protective casings of the seeds of cereal grain, or similar fine, dry, scaly plant material such as scaly parts of flowers, or finely chopped straw...
; visible folds and fissures suggest the material was quite stiff when being worked. The British Museum's Department of Scientific Research reports "it would seem likely that the whole plaque was moulded" with subsequent modelling of some details and addition of others, such as the rod-and-ring symbol
Rod-and-ring symbol
The Rod and ring symbol is a symbol that is depicted on Mesopotamian stelas, cylinder seals and reliefs. It is held by a god or goddess and in most cases is being offered to a king who is standing, often making a sacrifice, or otherwise showing respect...
s, the tresses of hair and the eyes of the owls. The relief was then burnished and polished, and further details were incised with a pointed tool. Firing burned out the chaff, leaving characteristic voids and the pitted surface we see now; Curtis and Collon believe the surface would have appeared smoothed by ochre
Ochre
Ochre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...
paint in antiquity.
In its dimensions, the unique plaque is larger than the mass-produced terracotta plaques – popular art or devotional items – of which many were excavated in house ruins of the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian
First Babylonian Dynasty
The chronology of the first dynasty of Babylonia is debated as there is a Babylonian King List A and a Babylonian King List B. In this chronology, the regnal years of List A are used due to their wide usage...
periods.Such plaques are about 10 to 20 cm (3.9 to 7.9 in) in their longest dimension. Cf. the plaque AO 6501 at the Louvre, the plaque BM WA 1994-10-1, 1 at the British Museum, or an actual mould: BM WA 1910-11-12, 4, also at the British Museum (Curtis 1996)
The relief is overall in excellent condition. Originally it was received in three pieces and some fragments by the British Museum; after repair, some cracks are still apparent, in particular a triangular piece missing on the right edge, but the main features of the deity
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
and the animals are intact. The figure's face has damage to its left side, the left side of the nose and the neck region. The headdress has some damage to its front and right hand side, but the overall shape can be inferred from symmetry. Half of the necklace is missing and the symbol of the figure held in her right hand; the owls' beaks are lost and a piece of a lion's tail. A comparison of images from 1936 and 2005 shows that some modern damage has been sustained as well: the right hand side of the crown has now lost its top tier, and at the lower left corner a piece of the mountain patterning has chipped off and the owl has lost its right-side toes. However in all major aspects, the relief has survived intact for more than 3,500 years.
Traces of red pigment still remain on the figure's body that was originally painted red overall. The feathers of her wings and the owls' feathers were also colored red, alternating with black and white. By Raman spectroscopy
Raman spectroscopy
Raman spectroscopy is a spectroscopic technique used to study vibrational, rotational, and other low-frequency modes in a system.It relies on inelastic scattering, or Raman scattering, of monochromatic light, usually from a laser in the visible, near infrared, or near ultraviolet range...
the red pigment is identified as red ochre, the black pigment, amorphous carbon ("lamp black") and the white pigment gypsum
Gypsum
Gypsum is a very soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is found in alabaster, a decorative stone used in Ancient Egypt. It is the second softest mineral on the Mohs Hardness Scale...
. Black pigment is also found on the background of the plaque, the hair and eyebrows, and on the lions' manes.cf.
Cf.
cf., an abbreviation for the Latin word confer , literally meaning "bring together", is used to refer to other material or ideas which may provide similar or different information or arguments. It is mainly used in scholarly contexts, such as in academic or legal texts...
the color-scheme reconstruction on the British Museum page The pubic triangle and the areola
Areola
This article is about the breast tissue. For the entomology term, see the glossary of Lepidopteran terms. For an artistic cloud motif, see aureola. For the cactus feature, see Areole....
appear accentuated with red pigment but were not separately painted black. The lions' bodies were painted white. The British Museum curators assume that the horns of the headdress and part of the necklace were originally colored yellow, just as they are on a very similar clay figure from Ur. They surmise that the bracelets and rod-and-ring symbols might also have been painted yellow. However no traces of yellow pigment now remain on the relief.
The female figure
The nude female figure is realistically sculpted in high-relief. Her eyes beneath distinct, joined eyebrows are hollow, presumably to accept some inlaying material – a feature common in stone, alabasterAlabaster
Alabaster is a name applied to varieties of two distinct minerals, when used as a material: gypsum and calcite . The former is the alabaster of the present day; generally, the latter is the alabaster of the ancients...
, and bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
sculptures of the time,cf. the Male Worshiper and Standing Female Figure in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
but not seen in other Mesopotamian clay sculptures. Her full lips are slightly upturned at the corners. She is adorned with a four-tiered headdress of horns, topped by a disk. Her head is framed by two braids of hair with the bulk of her hair in a bun in the back and two wedge-shaped braids extending onto her breasts.
The stylized treatment of her hair could represent a ceremonial wig. She wears a single broad necklace, composed of squares that are structured with horizontal and vertical lines, possibly depicting beads, four to each square. This necklace is virtually identical to the necklace of the god found at Ur
Ur
Ur was an important city-state in ancient Sumer located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate...
, except that the latter's necklace has three lines to a square. Around both wrists she wears bracelets which appear composed of three rings. Both hands are symmetrically lifted up, palms turned towards the viewer and detailed with visible life-, head- and heart lines, holding two rod-and-ring symbol
Rod-and-ring symbol
The Rod and ring symbol is a symbol that is depicted on Mesopotamian stelas, cylinder seals and reliefs. It is held by a god or goddess and in most cases is being offered to a king who is standing, often making a sacrifice, or otherwise showing respect...
s of which only the one in the left hand is well preserved. Two wings with clearly defined, stylized feathers in three registers extend down from above her shoulders. The feathers in the top register are shown as overlapping scales (coverts
Covert (feather)
A covert feather on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts, which as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail.- Wing-coverts :...
), the lower two registers have long, staggered flight feather
Flight feather
Flight feathers are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges while those on the tail are called rectrices . Their primary function is to aid in the generation of both thrust and lift, thereby...
s that appear drawn with a ruler and end in a convex trailing edge. The feathers have smooth surfaces, no barbs were drawn. The wings are similar but not entirely symmetrical, differing both in the number of the flight feathersThe right wing has eight flight feathers, the left wing has seven. and in the details of the coloring scheme.The lower register of the right wing breaks the white-red-black pattern of the other three registers with a white-black-red-black-white sequence.
Her wings are spread to a triangular shape but not fully extended. The breasts are full and high, but without separately modelled nipples. Her body has been sculpted with attention to naturalistic detail: the deep navel, structured abdomen, "softly modeled pubic area"Albenda (2005) notes "a tiny vertical indentation" but Collon (2007b) clarifies that this is merely a missing flake over a repaired fracture. the recurve of the outline of the hips beneath the iliac crest
Iliac crest
-External links: - "Superficial muscles of the gluteal region and posterior thigh." - "Anterior Abdominal Wall: Osteology and Surface Anatomy " - "The Back, Posterior View" * *...
and the bony structure of the legs with distinct knee caps all suggest "an artistic skill that is almost certainly derived from observed study". A spur-like protrusion, fold or tuft extends from her calves just below the knee which Collon interprets as dewclaws. Below the shin, the figure's legs change into those of a bird. The bird-feet are detailedcf. image of the foot of an Indian falcon with three long, well separated toes of approximately equal length. Lines have been scratched into the surface of the ankle and toes to depict the scute
Scute
A scute or scutum is a bony external plate or scale, as on the shell of a turtle, the skin of crocodilians, the feet of some birds or the anterior portion of the mesonotum in insects.-Properties:...
s and all visible toes have prominent talons. Her toes are extended down, without perspective foreshortening; they do not appear to rest upon a ground line and thus give the figure an impression of being dissociated from the background, as if hovering.
The animals and background
The two lions have a male mane, patterned with dense, short lines; the manes continue beneath the body.D. Opitz (1936) interprets this mane pattern as depicting the indigenous Barbary lionBarbary Lion
The Barbary lion , also known as the Atlas lion or Nubian lion, is a subspecies of lion that became extinct in the wild or extinct in the 20th century....
. D. Collon prefers an interpretation as the related Asiatic lion
Asiatic Lion
The Asiatic lion also known as the Indian lion, Persian lion and Eurasian Lion is a subspecies of lion. The only place in the wild where the lion is found is in the Gir Forest of Gujarat, India...
and notes that a skin in the Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
in London shows the distinctive whorl
Hair whorl
A hair whorl is a patch of hair growing in the opposite direction of the rest of the hair. Hair whorls occur in most hairy animals, on the body as well as on the head. Hair whorls, also known as crowns, swirls, trichoglyphs, or cowlicks, can be either clockwise or counterclockwise in direction of...
in the mane that is often represented in Mesopotamian art (Collon 2005, 34), but also in Egyptian art (cf. Tutanhkamun headrest). Distinctly patterned tufts of hair grow from the lion's ears and on their shoulders, emanating from a central disk-shaped whorl
Hair whorl
A hair whorl is a patch of hair growing in the opposite direction of the rest of the hair. Hair whorls occur in most hairy animals, on the body as well as on the head. Hair whorls, also known as crowns, swirls, trichoglyphs, or cowlicks, can be either clockwise or counterclockwise in direction of...
. They lie supine, their heads are sculpted with attention to detail, but a degree of artistic liberty in their form, e.g. regarding their rounded shapes. Both lions look towards the viewer and both have their mouths closed.
The owls shown are recognizable, but not sculpted naturalistically: the shape of the beak, the length of the legs, and details of plumage deviate from those of the owls that are indigenous to the region.Iraq's indigenous owls without ear-tufts include the Barn Owl (Tyto alba)
Barn Owl
The Barn Owl is the most widely distributed species of owl, and one of the most widespread of all birds. It is also referred to as Common Barn Owl, to distinguish it from other species in the barn-owl family Tytonidae. These form one of two main lineages of living owls, the other being the typical...
- this is the owl that D. Collon believes to be represented in the relief (Collon 2005, 36) - the Little Owl (Athene noctua lilith)
Little Owl
The Little Owl is a bird which is resident in much of the temperate and warmer parts of Europe, Asia east to Korea, and north Africa. It is not native to Great Britain, but was first introduced in 1842, and is now naturalised there...
and the Tawny Owl(Strix aluco). Their plumage is colored like the deity's wings in red, black and white; it is bilaterally similar but not perfectly symmetrical. Both owls have one more feather on the right-hand side of their plumage than on the left-hand side. The legs, feet and talons are red.
The group is placed on a pattern of scales, painted black. This is the way mountain ranges were commonly symbolized in Mesopotamian art.
Date and place of origin
Stylistic comparisons place the relief at the earliest into the IsinIsin
Isin was an ancient city-state of lower Mesopotamia about 20 miles south of Nippur at the site of modern Ishan al-Bahriyat in Iraq's Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate.-History:...
- Larsa
Larsa
Larsa was an important city of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu. It lies some 25 km southeast of Uruk in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of the modern settlement Tell as-Senkereh or Sankarah.-History:According to...
period, or slightly later to the beginning of the Old Babylonian
First Babylonian Dynasty
The chronology of the first dynasty of Babylonia is debated as there is a Babylonian King List A and a Babylonian King List B. In this chronology, the regnal years of List A are used due to their wide usage...
period.The relief is therefore neither Sumer
Sumer
Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....
ian or Akkad
Akkad
The Akkadian Empire was an empire centered in the city of Akkad and its surrounding region in Mesopotamia....
ian - that would have been even earlier - nor Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
n - that would located it to northern Mesopotamia. Frankfort especially notes the stylistic similarity with the sculpted head of a male deity found at Ur
Ur
Ur was an important city-state in ancient Sumer located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate...
, which Collon finds to be "so close to the Queen of the Night in quality, workmanship and iconographical details, that it could well have come from the same workshop." Therefore Ur is one possible city of origin for the relief, but not the only one: Edith Porada points out the virtual identity in style that the lion's tufts of hair have with the same detail seen on two fragments of clay plaques excavated at Nippur
Nippur
Nippur was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind," ruler of the cosmos subject to An alone...
.cf. Plates 142:8 and 142:10 in McCown 1978. By stratification with dated clay-tablets, one of these similar fragments has been assigned to the Isin-Larsa period (dates between 2000 and 1800 BCE), the other to the adjacent Old Babylonian period (dates between 1800 and 1700 BCE) (short chronology). And Agnès Spycket reported on a similar necklace on a fragment found in Isin
Isin
Isin was an ancient city-state of lower Mesopotamia about 20 miles south of Nippur at the site of modern Ishan al-Bahriyat in Iraq's Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate.-History:...
.
Geopolitical context
A creation date at the beginning of the second millennium BCE places the relief into a region and time in which the political situation was unsteady, marked by the waxing and waning influence of the city states of IsinIsin
Isin was an ancient city-state of lower Mesopotamia about 20 miles south of Nippur at the site of modern Ishan al-Bahriyat in Iraq's Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate.-History:...
and Larsa
Larsa
Larsa was an important city of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu. It lies some 25 km southeast of Uruk in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of the modern settlement Tell as-Senkereh or Sankarah.-History:According to...
, an invasion by the Elamites, and finally the conquest by Hammurabi
Hammurabi
Hammurabi Hammurabi Hammurabi (Akkadian from Amorite ʻAmmurāpi, "the kinsman is a healer", from ʻAmmu, "paternal kinsman", and Rāpi, "healer"; (died c...
in the unification in the Babylonian empire
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
in 1762 BCE.
300 to 500 years earlier, the population for the whole of Mesopotamia was at its all-time high of about 300,000. Elam
Elam
Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province, as well as a small part of southern Iraq...
ite invaders then toppled the third Dynasty of Ur
Lament for Ur
The Lament for Ur, Lamentation over the city of Ur or Prayer for Ur is a Sumerian lament composed around the time of the fall of Ur to the Elamites and the end of the city's third dynasty The Lament for Ur, Lamentation over the city of Ur or Prayer for Ur is a Sumerian lament composed around the...
and the population declined to about 200,000; it had stabilized at that number at the time the relief was made. Cities like Nippur
Nippur
Nippur was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind," ruler of the cosmos subject to An alone...
and Isin
Isin
Isin was an ancient city-state of lower Mesopotamia about 20 miles south of Nippur at the site of modern Ishan al-Bahriyat in Iraq's Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate.-History:...
would have had on the order of 20,000 inhabitants, Larsa
Larsa
Larsa was an important city of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu. It lies some 25 km southeast of Uruk in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of the modern settlement Tell as-Senkereh or Sankarah.-History:According to...
maybe 40,000, and Hammurabi's Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
grew to 60,000 by 1700 BCE. A well-developed infrastructure and complex division of labour is required to sustain cities of that size. The fabrication of religious imagery might have been done by specialized artisans: large numbers of smaller, devotional plaques have been excavated that were fabricated in molds.
Even though the fertile crescent
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent, nicknamed "The Cradle of Civilization" for the fact the first civilizations started there, is a crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia. The term was first used by University of Chicago...
civilizations are considered the oldest in history, at the time the Burney relief was made other late bronze age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
civilizations were equally in full bloom. Travel and cultural exchange were not commonplace, but nevertheless possible.cf. the Egyptian 12th dynasty story of Sinuhe
Story of Sinuhe
The Tale of Sinuhe is considered one of the finest works of Ancient Egyptian literature. It is a narrative set in the aftermath of the death of Pharaoh Amenemhat I, founder of the 12th dynasty of Egypt, in the early 20th century BC. It is likely that it was composed only shortly after this date,...
To the east, Elam
Elam
Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province, as well as a small part of southern Iraq...
with its capital Susa
Susa
Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers....
was in frequent military conflict with Isin, Larsa and later Babylon. Even further, the Indus Valley Civilization
Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that was located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of what is now mainly modern-day Pakistan and northwest India...
was already past its peak, and in China, the Erlitou culture
Erlitou culture
The Erlitou culture is a name given by archaeologists to an Early Bronze Age urban society that existed in China from 2000 BCE to 1500 BCE. The culture was named after the site discovered at Erlitou in Yanshi, Henan Province...
blossomed. To the southwest, Egypt was ruled by the 12th dynasty
Twelfth dynasty of Egypt
The twelfth dynasty of ancient Egypt is often combined with Dynasties XI, XIII and XIV under the group title Middle Kingdom.-Rulers:Known rulers of the twelfth dynasty are as follows :...
, further to the west the Minoan civilization
Minoan civilization
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
, centred on Crete with the Old Palace in Knossos
Knossos
Knossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
, dominated the Mediterranean. To the North of Mesopotamia the Anatolian Hittites
Hittites
The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia.They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c...
were establishing their Old Kingdom over the Hattians
Hattians
The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the land of Hatti in present-day central part of Anatolia, Turkey, noted at least as early as the empire of Sargon of Akkad , until they were gradually displaced and absorbed ca...
; they brought an end to Babylon's empire with the sack of the city in 1531 BCE. Indeed, Collon mentions this raid as possibly being the reason for the damage to the right-hand side of the relief.
Religion
The size of the plaque suggests it would have belonged in a shrine, possibly as an object of worship; it was likely set into a mud-brick wall. Such a shrine might have been a dedicated space in a large private home or other house, but not the main focus of worship in one of the cities' temples, which would have contained representations of gods sculpted in the round. Mesopotamian temples at the time had a rectangular cellaCella
A cella or naos , is the inner chamber of a temple in classical architecture, or a shop facing the street in domestic Roman architecture...
often with niches to both sides. According to Jacobsen that shrine could have been located inside a brothel (see below).
Art history
Compared with how important religious practice was in Mesopotamia, and compared to the number of temples that existed, very few cult figures at all have been preserved. This is certainly not due to a lack of artistic skill: the "Ram in a ThicketRam in a Thicket
The Ram in a Thicket is one of a pair of figures excavated in Ur, in southern Iraq, and which date from about 2600-2400 BC. One is currently exhibited in the Mesopotamia Gallery in Room 56 in the British Museum in London; the other is in the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia,...
" (see image) shows how elaborate such sculptures could have been, even 600 to 800 years earlier. It is also not due to a lack of interest in religious sculpture: deities and myths are ubiquitous on cylinder seal
Cylinder seal
A cylinder seal is a cylinder engraved with a 'picture story', used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. Cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary site of Susa in south-western Iran and at the early site...
s and the few stele
Stele
A stele , also stela , is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab...
s, kudurru
Kudurru
Kudurru was a type of stone document used as boundary stones and as records of land grants to vassals by the Kassites in ancient Babylonia between the 16th and 12th centuries BCE. The word is Akkadian for "frontier" or "boundary"...
s and reliefs that have been preserved. Rather it seems plausible that the main figures of worship in temples and shrines were made of materials so valuable they could not escape looting during the many shifts of power that the region saw. The Burney relief is comparatively plain, and so survived. In fact, the relief is one of only two existing large, figurative representations from the Old Babylonian period. The other one is the top part of the Code of Hammurabi
Code of Hammurabi
The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating to ca. 1780 BC . It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay...
which was actually discovered in Elamite Susa
Susa
Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers....
where it had been brought as booty (see image).
A static, frontal image is typical of religious images intended for worship. Symmetric compositions are common in Mesopotamian art when the context is not narrative.A narrative context depicts an event, such as the investment of a king. There the king opposes a god and both are shown in profile. Whenever a deity is depicted alone a symmetrical composition is more common. However the shallow relief of the cylinder seal entails that figures are shown in profile, therefore the symmetry is usually not perfect. Many examples have been found on cylinder seals. Three-part arrangements of a god and two other figures are common but five-part arrangements exist as well. In this respect, the relief follows established conventions. In terms of representation, the deity is sculpted with a naturalistic but "modest" nudity, reminiscent of Egyptian goddess sculptures, which are sculpted with a well-defined navel and pubic region but no details; there, the lower hemline of a dress indicates that some covering is intended, even if it does not conceal. In a typical statue of the genre, Pharao Menkaura
Menkaura
Menkaure was a pharaoh of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt who ordered the construction of the third and smallest of the Pyramids of Giza. His name means "Eternal like the Souls of Re"...
and two goddesses, Hathor
Hathor
Hathor , is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of love, beauty, music, motherhood and joy. She was one of the most important and popular deities throughout the history of Ancient Egypt...
and Bat are shown in human form and sculpted naturalistically just as in the Burney relief; in fact Hathor
Hathor
Hathor , is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of love, beauty, music, motherhood and joy. She was one of the most important and popular deities throughout the history of Ancient Egypt...
has been given the features of queen Khamerernebty II (see image and article
Menkaura
Menkaure was a pharaoh of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt who ordered the construction of the third and smallest of the Pyramids of Giza. His name means "Eternal like the Souls of Re"...
). Depicting an anthropomorphic god as a naturalistic human is an innovative artistic idea that may well have diffused from Egypt to Mesopotamia, just like a number of concepts of religious rites, architecture, the "banquet plaques" and other artistic innovations previously. In this respect the Burney Relief shows a clear departure from the schematic style of the worshiping men and women that were found in temples from periods about 500 years earlier (see image). It is also distinct from the next major style in the region: Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
n art, with its rigid, detailed representations, mostly of scenes of war and hunting (see image).
The extraordinary survival of the figure type, though interpretations and cult context shifted over the intervening centuries, is expressed by the cast terracotta funerary figure of the first century BCE, from Myrina
Myrina (Mysia)
Myrina , was one of the Aeolian cities on the western coast of Mysia, about 40 stadia to the southwest of Gryneion. Its site is believed to be occupied by the modern Sandarlik at the mouth of the Koca Çay....
on the coast of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
in Asia Minor, where it was excavated by the French School at Athens, 1883; the terracotta is conserved in the Musée du Louvre (illustrated left).
Compared to visual artworks from the same time, the relief fits quite well with its style of representation and its rich iconography. The images below show earlier, contemporary and somewhat later examples of woman and goddess depictions.
Iconography
Mesopotamian religionMesopotamian religion
Mesopotamian religion refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Sumerian and Akkadian peoples living in Mesopotamia that dominated the region for a period of 4200 years from the fourth millennium BC to approximately the 3rd century AD...
recognizes literally thousands of deities and distinct iconographies
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
have been identified for about a dozen. Less frequently, gods are identified by a written label or dedication; such labels would only have been intended for the literate elites. In creating a religious object, the sculptor was not free to create novel images: the representation of deities, their attributes and context were as much part of the religion as the rituals and the mythology. Indeed, innovation and deviation from an accepted canon could be considered a cultic offense. The large degree of similarity that is found in plaques and seals suggests that detailed iconographies could have been based on famous cult statues; they established the visual tradition for such derivative works but have now been lost. It appears though that the Burney Relief was the product of such a tradition, not its source, since its composition is unique.
Frontal nudity
Horned crown
The horned crown - usually four-tiered - is the most general symbol of a deity in Mesopotamian art. Male and female gods alike wear it; In some instances "lesser" gods wear crowns with only one pair of horns, but the number of horns is not generally a symbol of "rank" or importance. The form we see here is a style popular in Neo-Sumerian times and later, earlier representations show horns projecting out from a conical headpiece.Wings
Winged gods, other mythological creatures and birds are frequently depicted on cylinder seals and steles from the 3d millennium all the way to the Assyrians. Both two-winged and four-winged figures are known and the wings are most often extended to the side. Spread wings are part of one type of representation for IshtarIshtar
Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex. She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate north-west Semitic goddess Astarte.-Characteristics:...
. However, the specific depiction of the hanging wings of the nude goddess may have evolved from what was originally a cape.
Rod and ring symbol
This symbol may depict the measuring tools of a builder or architect or a token representation of these tools. It is frequently depicted on cylinder seals and steles, where it is always held by a god – usually either ShamashShamash
Shamash was a native Mesopotamian deity and the sun god in the Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian pantheons. Shamash was the god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Sumerian Utu...
, Ishtar
Ishtar
Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex. She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate north-west Semitic goddess Astarte.-Characteristics:...
, and in later Babylonian images also Marduk
Marduk
Marduk was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to...
– and often extended to a king.
Lions
Lions are chiefly associated with IshtarIshtar
Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex. She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate north-west Semitic goddess Astarte.-Characteristics:...
or with the male gods Shamash
Shamash
Shamash was a native Mesopotamian deity and the sun god in the Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian pantheons. Shamash was the god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Sumerian Utu...
or Ningirsu. In Mesopotamian art, lions are nearly always depicted with open jaws. H. Frankfort suggests that The Burney Relief shows a modification of the normal canon that is due to the lions being turned towards a worshipper: they might appear inappropriately threatening if their mouths were open.
Owls
No other examples of owls in an iconographic context exist in Mesopotamian art, nor are there textual references that directly associate owls with a particular god or goddess.Mountains
A god standing on or seated on a pattern of scales is a typical scenery for the depiction of a theophanyTheophany
Theophany, from the Ancient Greek , meaning "appearance of God"), refers to the appearance of a deity to a human or other being, or to a divine disclosure....
. It is associated with gods who have some connection with mountains but not restricted to any one deity in particular.
Identification
The figure has initially been identified as a depiction of Ishtar (Inanna)Inanna is the Sumerian name and Ishtar the Akkadian name for the same goddess. Sacral text was usually written in SumerianSumerian language
Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer, which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism...
at the time the relief was made, but Akkadian
Akkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
was the spoken language; this article therefore uses the Akkadian name Ishtar for consistency, except where "Inanna" has been used by the authors whose sources are quoted. but almost immediately other arguments have been put forward:
Lilitu
The identification of the relief as depicting "LilithLilith
Lilith is a character in Jewish mythology, found earliest in the Babylonian Talmud, who is generally thought to be related to a class of female demons Līlīṯu in Mesopotamian texts. However, Lowell K. Handy notes, "Very little information has been found relating to the Akkadian and Babylonian view...
" has become a staple of scholarly and popular writing on that subject. Authors such as R. Patai believe the relief to be the only extant depiction of a Sumerian female demon called lilitu and thus to define lilitu's iconography. Citations regarding this assertion lead back to H. Frankfort's 1936 paper. Frankfort himself based his interpretation of the deity as the demon Lilith on the presence of wings, the birds' feet and the representation of owls. He cites the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much...
as a source that such "creatures are inhabitants of the land of the dead". In that text Enkidu's
Enkidu
Enkidu is a central figure in the Ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. Enkidu was first created by Anu, the sky god, to rid Gilgamesh of his arrogance. In the story he is a wild-man raised by animals and ignorant of human society until he is bedded by Shamhat...
appearance is partially changed to that of a feathered being, and he is led to the nether world where creatures dwell that are "birdlike, wearing a feather garment". This passage reflects the Sumerians' belief in the nether world, and Frankfort cites evidence that Nergal
Nergal
The name Nergal, Nirgal, or Nirgali refers to a deity in Babylon with the main seat of his cult at Cuthah represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim. Nergal is mentioned in the Hebrew bible as the deity of the city of Cuth : "And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal"...
, the ruler of the underworld, is depicted with bird's feet and wrapped in a feathered gown. However Frankfort does not himself make the identification of the figure with Lilith; rather he cites E. G. Kraeling (1937) instead. Kraeling "believes" that the figure "is a superhuman being of a lower order"; he does not explain exactly why. He then goes on to state "Wings [...] regularly suggest a demon associated with the wind" and "owls may well indicate the nocturnal habits of this female demon". He excludes Lamashtu
Lamashtu
In Mesopotamian mythology, Lamashtu was a female demon, monster, malevolent goddess or demigoddess who menaced women during childbirth and, if possible, kidnapped children while they were breastfeeding. She would gnaw on their bones and suck their blood, as well as being charged with a number of...
and Pazuzu
Pazuzu
In Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, Pazuzu was the king of the demons of the wind, and son of the god Hanbi. He also represented the southwestern wind, the bearer of storms and drought.- Iconography :...
as candidate demons and states: "Perhaps we have here a third representation of a demon. If so, it must be Lilîtu [...] the demon of an evil wind", named ki-sikil-lil-laki-sikil-lil-la (Krealing) and ki-sikil-lil-la-ke (Albenda) appear to be mistaken readings of the original Sumerian passage from the Gilgamesh epos: ki-sikil lit. ki- earth-untouched/pure i.e. virgin or maiden, lil2 wind; breath; infection; phantom; -la- is gen. case marker and -ke4 erg. case marker, both are required by the grammatical context (in this passage: "kisikil built for herself") but the case markers are not part of the noun. (literally "wind-maiden" or "phantom-maiden", not "beautiful maiden", as Kraeling asserts (see below)). This ki-sikil-lil is an antagonist of Inanna (Ishtar) in a brief episode of the epic of Gilgamesh, which is cited by both Kraeling and Frankfort
Henri Frankfort
Henri 'Hans' Frankfort was a Dutch Egyptologist, archaeologist and orientalist.-Biography:Born in Amsterdam, Frankfort studied history at the University of Amsterdam and then moved to London, where in 1924, he took an MA under Sir Flinders Petrie at the University College. In 1927 he gained a...
as further evidence for the identification as Lilith. In this episode, Inanna's holy Huluppu tree is invaded by malevolent spirits. Frankfort quotes a preliminary translation by Gadd (1933): "in the midst Lilith had built a house, the shrieking maid, the joyful, the bright queen of Heaven". However modern translations have instead: "In its trunk, the phantom maid built herself a dwelling, the maid who laughs with a joyful heart. But holy Inanna cried." The earlier translation implies an association of the demon Lilith with a shrieking owl and at the same time asserts her god-like nature; the modern translation supports neither of these attributes. In fact, Gadd, the original translator, writes: "ardat lili (kisikil-lil) is never associated with owls in Babylonian mythology" and "the Jewish traditions concerning Lilith in this form seem to be late and of no great authority". That this initially misread single line of evidence was taken as virtual proof of the identification of the Burney relief with "Lilith" may have been motivated by the existence of a Hebrew demon "Lilith" which is given the epithet of a "screech owl" in the English Bible.
- Isaiah 34:13 Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches. 14 And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird (lilit or lilith) settles and finds for herself a resting place. 15 There the owl nests and lays and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow; indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate. (ESV)
Ishtar
50 years later, Thorkild JacobsenThorkild Jacobsen
Thorkild Jacobsen was a renowned historian specializing in Assyriology and Sumerian literature.He was one of the foremost scholars on the ancient Near East.-Biography:...
substantially revised this interpretation and identified the figure as Inanna
Inanna
Inanna, also spelled Inana is the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare....
(Akkadian: Ishtar
Ishtar
Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex. She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate north-west Semitic goddess Astarte.-Characteristics:...
) in an analysis that is primarily based on textual evidence. According to Jacobsen:
- The hypothesis that this tablet was created for worship makes it unlikely that a demon was depicted. Demons had no cult in Mesopotamian religious practice since demons "know no food, know no drink, eat no flour offering and drink no libation."cf. line 295 in "Inanna's descent into the nether world" Therefore "no relationship of giving and taking could be established with them";
- The horned crown is a symbol of divinity, and the fact that it is four-tiered suggests one of the principal gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon;
- Inanna was the only goddess that was associated with lions, for example a hymn by En-hedu-ana specifically mentions "Inanna, seated on crossed (or harnessed) lions"Jacobsen quotes Inana C, line 23 and the motif of Inana standing on lions is well attested from seals and plaques (cf. the image of Ishtar, above);
- The goddess is depicted standing on mountains. According to text sources, Inanna's home was on Kur-mùsh, the mountain crests. Iconographically, other gods were depicted on mountain scales as well, but there are examples in which Inanna is shown on a mountain pattern and another god is not, i.e. the pattern was indeed sometimes used to identify Inanna.;
- The rod-and-ring symbol, her necklace and her wig are all attributes that are explicitly referred to in the myth of Inanna's descent into the nether world.
- Jacobsen quotes textual evidence that the Akkadian word eššebu (owl) corresponds to the Sumerian word ninna, and that the Sumerian DDingirDingir is a cuneiform sign, most commonly the determinative for "deity" although it has related meanings as well. As a determinative, it is not pronounced, and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript "D" as in e.g. DInanna...
nin-ninna (Divine lady ninna) corresponds to the Akkadian Ishtar. The Sumerian ninna can also be translated as the Akkadian kilili, which is also a name or epithet for Ishtar. Inanna/Ishtar as harlot or goddess of harlots was a well known theme in Mesopotamian mythology and in one text, Inanna is called kar-kid (harlot) and ab-ba-[šú]-šú, which in Akkadian would be rendered kilili. Thus there appears to be a cluster of metaphors linking prostitute and owl and the goddess Inanna/Ishtar; this could match the most enigmatic component of the relief to a well known aspect of Ishtar. Jacobsen concludes that this link would be sufficient to explain talons and wings, and adds that nudity could indicate the relief was originally the house-altar of a bordello.
Ereshkigal
In contrast, the British Museum does acknowledge the possibility that the relief depicts either Lilith or Ishtar, but prefers a third identification: Ishtar's antagonist and sister EreshkigalEreshkigal
In Mesopotamian mythology, Ereshkigal was the goddess of Irkalla, the land of the dead or underworld. Sometimes her name is given as Irkalla, similar to the way the name Hades was used in Greek mythology for both the underworld and its ruler.Ereshkigal was the only one who could pass judgment and...
, the goddess of the underworld. This interpretation is based on the fact that the wings are not outspread and that the background of the relief was originally painted black. If this were the correct identification, it would make the relief (and by implication the smaller plaques of nude, winged goddesses) the only known figurative representations of Ereshkigal. Edith Porada, the first to propose this identification, associates hanging wings with demons and then states: "If the suggested provenience of the Burney relief at Nippur proves to be correct, the imposing demonic figure depicted on it may have to be identified with the female ruler of the dead or with some other major figure of the Old Babylonian pantheon which was occasionally associated with death." No further supporting evidence was given by Porada, but another analysis published in 2002 comes to the same conclusion. E. von der Osten-Sacken describes evidence for a weakly developed but nevertheless existing cult for Ereshkigal; she cites aspects of similarity between the goddesses Ishtar and Ereshkigal from textual sources – for example they are called "sisters" in the myth of "Inanna's descent into the nether world" – and she finally explains the unique doubled rod-and-ring symbol in the following way: "Ereshkigal would be shown here at the peak of her power, when she had taken the divine symbols from her sister and perhaps also her identifying lions".
Authenticity
The 1936 London Illustrated News feature had "no doubt of the authenticity" of the object which had "been subjected to exhaustive chemical examination" and showed traces of bitumen "dried out in a way which is only possible in the course of many centuries". But stylistic doubts were published only a few months later by D. Opitz who noted the "absolutely unique" nature of the owls with no comparables in all of Babylonian figurative artefacts. In a back-to-back article, E. Douglas Van Buren examined examples of Sumerian art, which had been excavated and provenanced and she presented examples: Ishtar with two lions, the Louvre plaque (AO 6501) of a nude, bird-footed goddess standing on two Ibexes and similar plaques, and even a small haematite owl, although the owl is an isolated piece and not in an iconographical context.A year later Frankfort (1937) acknowledged Van Buren's examples, added some of his own and concluded "that the relief is genuine". Opitz (1937) concurred with this opinion, but reasserted that the iconography is not consistent with other examples, especially regarding the rod-and-ring symbol. These symbols were the focus of a communication by Pauline Albenda (1970) who again questioned the relief's authenticity. Subsequently the British Museum performed thermoluminescence dating
Thermoluminescence dating
Thermoluminescence dating is the determination, by means of measuring the accumulated radiation dose, of the time elapsed since material containing crystalline minerals was either heated or exposed to sunlight...
which was consistent with the relief being fired in antiquity; but the method is imprecise when samples of the surrounding soil are not available for estimation of background radiation levels. A rebuttal to Albenda by Curtis and Collon (1996) published the scientific analysis; the British Museum was sufficiently convinced of the relief to purchase it in 2003. The discourse continued however: in her extensive reanalysis of stylistic features, Albenda once again called the relief "a pastiche of artistic features" and "continue[d] to be unconvinced of its antiquity".
Her arguments were rebutted in a rejoinder by Collon (2007), noting in particular that the whole relief was created in one unit, i.e. there is no possibility that a modern figure or parts of one might have been added to an antique background; she also reviewed the iconographic links to provenanced pieces. In concluding Collon states: "[Edith Porada] believed that, with time, a forgery would look worse and worse, whereas a genuine object would grow better and better. [...] Over the years [the Queen of the Night] has indeed grown better and better, and more and more interesting. For me she is a real work of art of the Old Babylonian period."
In 2008/9 the relief was included in exhibitions on Babylon at the Pergamon Museum
Pergamon Museum
The Pergamon Museum is situated on the Museum Island in Berlin. The site was designed by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann and was constructed in twenty years, from 1910 to 1930. The Pergamon houses original-sized, reconstructed monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York.
See also
- Religions of the Ancient Near EastReligions of the Ancient Near EastThe religions of the ancient Near East were mostly polytheistic, with some early examples of primitive monolatry , Ashurism and Monism...
- Mesopotamian mythology
- History of Mesopotamia
External links
- The Queen of The Night (ME 2003-7-18,1 at the British MuseumBritish MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
) - Nude Winged Goddess (AO 6501 at the LouvreLouvreThe Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
) - "Ishtar Vase" from Larsa (AO 17000 at the LouvreLouvreThe Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
)