THE CANON OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ART CATALOGUES OF EVIDENCE C: THE REAR ATTACK 7. CATALOGUE C: THE REAR ATTACK © Asia Haleem [Some references still to be checked] INTRODUCTION TO THE CATALOGUE Even though closely related to the distinctive Uruk Stance, it seemed necessary to filter out this compositional type from it in order to leave the character of the former clear-cut. The Rear Attack covers a rag-bag of variations but does include clusters of sub-types that are useful markers for particular countries at particular times, as is the case for the Kültepe, Syrian and Mitanni seals that are the focus of particular scrutiny. For arranging the items in chronological order we have followed the same procedures as for Catalogues A and B whereby we aim to head each catalogue entry with an item of known provenance alongside which others of less sure origin can be grouped. However, for the material in our chosen chronological focus of the first half of the 2M, there are many exceptions where we can only provide general context. As the accumulating witness of each successive catalogue reveals or confirms, using this data we draw up (as best we can) the usual Distribution Maps and Frequency Chart to arrive at further interesting conclusions. Ill.7- 1 Region forming the focus of discussion in the catalogue – BEYOND BABYLON: ART, TRADE AND DIPLOMACY IN THE SECOND MILLENNIUM BC 2008-09 Metropolitan Museum exhibition catalogue (N.Y.2008) to whose exhibits we sometimes refer For our Chronological Focus it is the high number of small seals and sealings from the first half of the Second Millennium 2M using the Rear Attack that leads us to concentrate on the background history of a diffuse region THE CANON OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ART AND THE CALENDAR 1 PDF processed with CutePDF evaluation edition www.CutePDF.com THE CANON OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ART CATALOGUES OF EVIDENCE C: THE REAR ATTACK forming a continuum (obvious in the map above) between Old Babylon, Old Assyria, Old Syria and Old Anatolia in the first half of that millennium (2000-1500) during the Middle Bronze Age, in parallel with Egypt’s Middle Kingdom. Thus, compared with the monumental treatment given to the Uruk Stance at Persepolis the Rear Attack material is mostly seen on very small items associated with the notable City States of Babylon, Aššur, Mari, and Kültepe (though archaeologically we have barely any record at all for the former two for this particular period). Further sites such as Ebla, Qatna and Bylos help to fill in the gaps in the territory -– in fact occasional material findspots extend as far as Cyprus, Crete, Mycenae and even in the end Delphi, stretching the focus of interest westwards along the same Northern parallel (see map above). We will include the slightly later seals of Nuzi and late Alalakh under our Chronological Focus since they directly reflect the changing fortunes of the Khabur triangle, fought over by the kings of Mari and Babylon and then the Mitanni and the Hittites. Each ruler knew that with this area secured, links East and West were kept open – though not until the advent of the Neo-Assyrians, who actually lived within the centre of gravity of this geo-political zone, was permanent and firm rulership established in the 1M. The material from these two sites may be seen as the last gasp of earlier trends rather than a central part of the wholesale changes that came about around the Mediterranean in the second half of the millennium - dealt with in the Chronological Focus for Catalogue E: the Forward Attack – partly overlapping with the Amarrna Period. Just before that the markedly different historical factors accompanying the rise of the Hyksos in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period followed by the New Kingdom deserve separate attention as centres of activity moved down in latitude to the Southern Levant, centring on Palestine and South Syria in interaction with Egypt. Although an integral part of the Second Millennium, overall we focus separately on the Minoans, Mycenaeans and Aegean in general in the Chronological Focus for Catalogue D, which overlaps chronologically with both Catalogues C and E. We need to concentrate on the Second Millennium over three catalogues partly because of controversies concerning ancient world chronologies highlighted by Peter James in Treasures of Darkness (1994) and David Rohl’s trilogy, A Test of Time (1995), Legend (1998) and Lords of Avaris (2007) of which more in the appropriate section. Suffice it to note here that the Second Millennium is buffered at either end by the First Intermediate (FIP) and Second Intermediate Periods (SIP) which, they argue, are the main areas of the problem - since allocated too many centuries by historians - leading to cross-dating anomalies when comparing events and artefacts across civilisations. We will try to insert rough alternative dating in our Chronological Tables for this and the other two Catalogues, but with the main task in hand of pinning down the Canon of Ancient Near Eastern Art, to avoid confusion we have tended to simply use the dates given by cataloguers and scholars in individual works (they, too, in any case oscillate between High, Middle and Low Chronologies!), so that in the end we must leave it to the reader to make their preferred dating adjustments if they feel they cannot agree with the ones we have gone along with. Our preoccupation in pursuing the content of these seals centre around known political alliances and trade networks - and it is the huge documentary archives of Kültepe and Mari in particular which provide us with many THE CANON OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ART AND THE CALENDAR 2 THE CANON OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ART CATALOGUES OF EVIDENCE C: THE REAR ATTACK textual insights into artefactual imagery - within which the Rear Attack sometimes plays a significant part. A great deal about social hierarchies and sub-hierarchies (both public and private) and their associated sealing practices, is looked at in the coming pages, and it is a matter of teasing it out more strongly when it comes to making sense of the lion and prey group. It appears from traders’ correspondence that at first they were trading in the immediate Diyala districts around Aššur but then started to move further afield into Northern Syria as far as the Taurus mountains and then moved to what is now the Konya plain beyond1. The entrepôt of Kültepe and its own indigenous trading network in eastern Anatolia was so far away from their home town of Aššur that to all intents and purposes, without the need to conquer the citadel (Ālum) above it militarily, the Kārum below it was run unofficially as a colonial outpost of Aššur. However, there were continual small-scale power struggles between the different centres of authority that we can consider later in order to try to understand who the people are that appear on the seals of this time. Though we cannot map known itineraries for their journeys across North Syria between Aššur and Kültepe, from merchants’ letters naming the many small villages where they made successful business deals on the way, it is possible to work out sections of routes taken. Although a variety of goods was traded, the staple that made trading so successful was the import into N Syria of textiles and tin, the latter a vital ingredient in the manufacture of bronze. Hallo2 has given intriguing linguistic insights into the origin of words used for merchants in the original sources. The earliest attested word for them is Sumerian tibira, equated in cuneiform texts with the Akkadian tamkāru, and related to gurgurru meaning craftsman, often given with the logogram for metalworker in particular. ‘What this implies is an early association of trading with itinerant metal-workers, a situation familiar, for example, from the Irish tin-smiths or tinkers of later European history’. It seems absolutely plausible that from such beginnings on the part of individuals a new career with a diversity of products would slowly emerge as the age-old law of demand was responded to. Hallo mentions another linguistic link between the verb makāra, referring to the use of silver in business transactions, and tamkāra referring to the person doing so, though later tamkāra became associated with pejorative mentions of grasping merchants holding on tight to their purse full of money. It is probably from complaints in the texts about merchants using two sets of scales (with low weights to sell and high weights to buy) that the idea of Justice represented by a pair of scales began, since it is at this point that on rare occasions they appear in seal iconography (Ratt-18) associated with the idea of weighing out the even scales of Justice by the God Shamash. Because they travelled across boundaries merchants were often used as unofficial agents and informants by political powers, and both Hallo (ibid.) and Sasson in BEYOND BABYLON (2008) cite myths and other textual references pointing to this. Thus as time went by merchants could rise above their usual status (Ill.7- 28), classing them with soldiers and craftsmen, and in the fullness of time during the late 2M it is known from particular cases that they could become rich enough to buy land from a king short of cash. 1 P Garelli Les Assyriens en Cappadoce Paris 1963 2 W Hallo ‘Trade and Traders in the Ancient Near East: Some New Perspectives’ in xxx THE CANON OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ART AND THE CALENDAR 3 THE CANON OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ART CATALOGUES OF EVIDENCE C: THE REAR ATTACK DEFINITION OF THE REAR ATTACK IN REAL-LIFE CAT BEHAVIOUR The Rear Attack, like the Uruk Stance, shows an attack on its prey by the lion from behind, but it is not distinctively aggressive.