This book is the first in ten years to present a comprehensive survey of art and architecture in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, northeast Syria and southeast Turkey), from 8000 BCE to the arrival of Islam in 636 CE. The book is richly illustrated with c. 400 full-colour photographs, and maps and time charts that guide readers through the chronology and geography of this part of the ancient Near East. The book addresses such essential art historical themes as the origins of narrative representation, the first emergence of historical public monuments and the earliest aesthetic commentaries. It explains how images and monuments were made and how they were viewed. It also traces the ancient practices of collecting and conservation and rituals of animating statues and of architectural construction. Accessible to students and non-specialists, the book expands the scope of standard surveys to cover art and architecture from the prehistoric to the Roman era, including the legendary cities of Ur, Babylon, Nineveh, Hatra and Seleucia on the Tigris.
Author(s): Bahrani Zainab
Publisher: Thames Hudson
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 376
Tags: Ancient Near Easten Art, Mesopotamia
Cover
Contents
Introduction. Becoming art
Mesopotamia in art history
Influence on artists
Innovation and creativity in Mesopotamian art
The approach of this book
1. The search for origins: Mesopotamia and the cradle of civilization
Early archaeology in Mesopotamia
Archaeology and photography
The emergence of art: Prehistoric Mesopotamia
Time and chronologies
2. Uruk: The arts of civilization
Architecture
Anu Precinct
Eanna Precinct
Sculpture
Cult statues: Imagining the invisible
Votive offerings: The essence of beings and things
Public monument: The spur of rock in the city
Seals: The mark of identity
Writing: The beginning of history
Archaeology and history: The Uruk phenomenon
Mythic history
Enki and the world order
“Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta”
3. Early dynastic Sumer: Images for the people, temples for God
Sculpture: The votive image
The portrait as text and substitute images
Metalwork
Architecture
Architectural ritual
4. Early dynastic Sumer: Art for eternity
The art of death: The royal cemetery of Ur
Royal tombs and the afterlife
The goat in the thicket statues
The royal standard of Ur
Music for death
The Mari treasure
Inventing the public monument
Seals and sealings
Iconography and style
Cutting and using steals
5. Art of the Akkadian Dynasty
Royal monuments and sovereign power
Connoisseurship and archaeology
Portraiture and identity: The royal image
Lost-wax casting
Assailing the images
Images of royal women
Non-royal works
Architecture
Cylinder seals
Chronology and iconography
6. Gudea: Royal portraits and the lifespan of images
The emergence of portraiture
Statues and the forms of representation
Images of Gudea, Prince of Lagash
Images and texts of the Lagash dynasty
Texts: Building a house for the god
The function and lifespan of images
7. The third dynasty of Ur
Architecture
The Ziggurat at Ur
The sacred precincts
Sculpture
Foundation figures
Stele of Ur-Namma
Representations of Shulgi
Other sculptures
Regional art
Cylinder seals
8. The age of Hammurabi
The Codex Hammurabi
Portrait sculpture and vital images
Kanesh, an Assyrian trading colony in Anatolia
The palace at Mari
The discovery of Mari
The beginnings of aesthetic discourse
Life and clay: Terra-cotta images
9. Kassite and Assyrian art at the end of the Bronze Age
Kassite art and the question of style
Architecture
The Amarna Archive
The Kudurru
Middle Assyrian art
Sculpture and narrative
Texts and seals
A seal collection from Thebes
Image wars
Cult statues
The travels of the statue of Bel-Marduk
10. Assyrian art: Narrative and empire
Nimrud
The Neo-Assyrian Empire
Wall reliefs
Dur Sharrukin
Nineveh
Sennacherib at Lachish
The North Palace of Ashurbanipal
The library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh
11. Assyrian art in context
Art in death: Royal tombs of the Assyrian queens
Ivories from the empire
Monuments in place
Rock reliefs: Landscape as the terrain of kingship
Cylinder seals
12. Babylonian art
Babylonian sculpture: Looking to the past
Babylon: The city as a work of art
Babylon, the center of the world
Calligraphic texts
Cylinder seals
13. Achaemenid Persian art
Babylon
The Cyrus Cylinder
The city of Babylon
Pasargadae
Mesopotamian rock-cut tombs and reliefs
The Bisotun Relief
Persepolis
Naqsh-i-Rustam
Sculpture
Applied arts and luxury objects
Cylinder seals
The end of the Persian empire
14. Alexander in Babylon and Hellenism in Mesopotamia: Seleucid and Parthian art
Hellenism in the art of Mesopotamia
Seleucia on the Tigris
Burials
Continuity and change
Mesopotamian arts under the Parthian-Arsacid rule
Hatra and the Mesopotamian legacy
Interacting with the past
The end of an era: Sassanian Empire and the rise of Islam
Epilogue. The past in the present
Glossary
Further reading
Sources of illustrations
Index
