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IMAGES OF POWER: ANCIENT NEAR EAST: FOCUS (Akkadian and Babylonian) ONLINE ASSIGNMENT: http://smarthistory.khanacademy.o rg/victory-stele-of-naram-sin.html TITLE or DESIGNATION: Victory Stele of Naram-Sin CULTURE or ART HISTORICAL PERIOD: Akkadian DATE: 2254-2218 B.C.E. MEDIUM: pink sandstone ONLINE ASSIGNMENT: http://smarthistory.khanacad emy.org/law-code-stele-of- king-hammurabi.html TITLE or DESIGNATION: Stele of Hammurabi with Law Code CULTURE or ART HISTORICAL PERIOD: Ancient Babylonian DATE: c. 1792-1750 B. C. E. MEDIUM: basalt IMAGES OF POWER: ANCIENT NEAR EAST: SELECTED TEXT (Akkadian and Babylonian) ART of the ANCIENT NEAR EAST Online Links: Naram-Sin of Akkad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Code of Hammurabi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Translation of the Code of Hammurabi - Wikisource Ishtar Gate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Victory Stele of Naram-Sin – Smarthistory Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi - Smarthistory Sargon the Great rose from obscure origins to become cupbearer to the king of Kish. Rebelling, he built the city of Akkad and proclaimed himself king. After defeating the king of Uruk, he conquered the rest of Sumer. Sargon built a unified Akkadian state but respected the traditions of the conquered peoples, especially the culture of the Right: Head of an Sumer. Akkadian ruler He conquered Upper Mesopotamia and the Amorites in Syria, and created an empire that ranged from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. A later king, Naram-Sin, brought the empire of Akkad to its zenith. He was the first Mesopotamian king to claim divinity, as well as the first to be called “King of the Four Quarters”. Victory Stele of Naram-Sin (from Susa, Iran), 2254-2218 BCE, pink sandstone Naram-Sin was the third successor and grandson of King Sargon of Akkad. Under Naram-Sin the Akkadian Empire reached its zenith. He was the first Mesopotamian king known to have claimed divinity for himself. Naram-Sin's famed victory stele depicts him as a god-king (symbolized by his horned helmet) climbing a mountain above his soldiers, and his enemies, the defeated Lullubi. Although the stele was broken off at the top when it was stolen and carried off by the Elamites, it still strikingly reveals the pride, glory, and divinity of Naram- Sin. The stele broke from tradition by using successive diagonal tiers, rather than a horizontal format, to communicate the story to viewers. Naram Sin’s routed enemies fall, flee, die, or beg for mercy. The king stands alone, far taller than his men. His troops march up the mountain behind him in orderly files, suggesting the discipline and organization of the king’s forces. The enemy, by contrast, is in disarray. He is shown nearly twice the size of his soldiers, as gods (here represented only by their symbols in the sky) had previously been distinguished from mortals. He clasps a veritable arsenal of weaponry- spear, battleaxe, bow and arrow- and the grand helmet that crown his head sprouts horns, an attribute heretofore reserved for gods. Art historian Irene Winter has gone even further, pointing to the eroticized pose and presentation of Naram-Sin, to the alluring display of a well- formed male body. In ancient Mesopotamian culture, male potency and vigor were directly related to mythical heroism and powerful kingship. The artist has included identifiable native trees along the mountain pathway to heighten the sense that this portrays an actual event rather than a generic battle scene. Before Naram-Sin, both along the right side of the stele and smashed under his forward striding leg, are representations of the enemy, in this case the Lullubi people from eastern Mesopotamia (modern Iran). One diminutive adversary has take a fatal spear to the neck, while companions behind and below him beg for mercy. The focus of the composition is Naram-Sin, who appears as god-hero-king, his divinity signaled by his horned helmet, his heroic magnificence suggested by the perfection of his body, and his role as gallant king and warrior intimated by his stance with one foot slightly raised, crushing the broken bodies of the defeated enemy. Because Naram-Sin was now considered both god and king, it was no longer necessary to separate the terrestrial and divine worlds and relegated them to different sides of the stele. The text- unfortunately fragmentary- situates the battle. Although the stele was broken off at the top when it was stolen and carried off by the Elamites, it still strikingly reveals the pride, glory, and divinity of Naram-Sin. The stele broke from tradition by using successive diagonal tiers, rather than a horizontal format, to communicate the story to viewers. It is six feet and seven inches tall, and made from pink sandstone. The stele was found at Susa. A similar bas-relief depicting Naram-Sin was found a few miles northeast of Diyarbekir (in present-day eastern Turkey). The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain who was a semi-nomadic Semitic invader from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little Surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi’s empire a century later (r. 1792-1750 BCE). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BCE when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites. Stele with law code of Hammurabi (Susa, Iran), c. 1780 BCE, basalt The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human- sized stone stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man. One nearly complete example of the Code survives today, on a diorite stele in the shape of a huge index finger. It is located in the Louvre. At the top is a representation in high relief of Hammurabi in the presence of Shamash, the flame-shouldered sun god. The king raises his hand in respect. The god extends to Hammurabi the rod and ring that symbolize authority. The symbols are builders’ tools – measuring rods and coiled rope – and connote the ruler’s capacity to build the social order and to measure people’s lives, that is, to render judgments and enforce the laws spelled out on the stele. The collection of Hammurabi’s judicial pronouncements is inscribed on the Susa stele in Akkadian in 3,500 lines of cuneiform characters. Hammurabi’s laws governed all aspects of Babylonian life, from commerce and property to murder and theft to marital infidelity, inheritances, and the treatment of slaves. Hammurabi is of great historical importance as the author of the oldest surviving code of laws. Its declared aim was to “cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, that the strong might not oppress the weak”, although, in fact, one of its chief concerns was to protect money-lenders from defaulting borrowers, for whom rigorous penalties were prescribed. This code is inscribed on a stele under a relief of Hammurabi standing before the enthroned sun god at penalties were prescribed. This code is inscribed on a stele under a relief of Hammurabi standing before the enthroned sun god at the summit of a holy mountain or ziggurat- a perfect illustration of the semi-divine status of the priest-king, to whom the god, himself in human form, delivers the laws. That the stone takes the form of a phallus, an obvious symbol of male dominance, is perhaps no coincidence. Before Hammurabi there is no known equivalent attempt to organize a legal system and to put it down in writing. Punishments depended on the gender and social standing of the offender. Shamash wears the four-tiered, horned headdress that marks him as a god and a robe that bares one shoulder and ends in a stiff, flounced skirt. Hammurabi faces Shamash confidently, his hand raised in a gesture of greeting. Any suggestion of familiarity in the lack of distance is offset by the formality of the pose. The smaller, earthly law enforcer remains standing in the presence of the much larger divine judge, seated on his ziggurat throne. The Code is inscribed in the Akkadian language, using cuneiform script. Various copies of portions of the Code of Hammurabi have been found on baked clay tablets, some possibly older than the celebrated stele now in the Louvre. Though the stated purpose of Hammurabi’s laws was to protect the weak from the strong, they also maintained traditional class distinctions: the lower classes were more severely punished for crimes committed against the upper classes than vice versa. There was no intent to create social equality in the protection of the weak, or in the expressed concern for orphans and widows, but rather to maintain the continuity and stability of society. The Neo-Babylonian Empire or the Chaldean Empire was a period of Mesopotamian history which began in 626 BCE and ended in 539 BCE During the preceding three centuries, Babylonia had been ruled by their fellow Akkadian speakers and northern neighbors. Neo-Babylonian rulers were deeply conscious of the antiquity of their heritage, and pursued an arch-traditionalist policy, reviving much of their ancient Sumero-Akkadian culture. Even though Aramaic had become the everyday tongue, Akkadian was restored as the language of administration and culture.
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