Some rarer depictions

[darkl2030]

I thought I might post some somewhat obscure depictions from mesopotamian art that most of you are unlikely to have seen before. This first one is absolutely unique in Mesopotmian art, and it is exceedingly ancient. It was found in the bottomost, earliest levels of the site of Mari on the middle Euphrates bend, ED I times. Many scholars believe this city, nearly perfectly circular in shape, was founded as a completely new settlement at this time, probably by the Kishite state. However, the context in which it was found indicates this object itself is probably even older than that, and was already in this time kept as a sort of treasure or heirloom. It appears to have been repaired in ancient times, and was found along with an "Eye Idol," one of those E.T.-like figurines that were found in large quanities at the site of Tell Brak in northern mesopotamia, dating to around 3500-3200. So this peice probably dates to that time if not even older. This object is pretty big by the way, maybe 2 feet tall or so I think.

So, I'd invite the members to take a look, and give some guesses as to who/what this object might be a represntation of, any other observations, comments, etc. Note I am being very delibrately vague about who or what I think this object is actually depicting, but obviously it is related to the topic that us4-he2-gal2 has proposed to be discussed . So please, I'm interested to hear your interpretations based on appearance alone. After that I have another cool rare picture to show, but that one should be a little more obvious what it is .

Attachments:

[sheshki]

Wow, thats a very pretty piece! Thanks for sharing it. Maybe this is an early form of Inana or a fertility goddess in general. What do i see:

-a face, big eyes, made of 7 circles, looks like a depiction of the sun; eyebrows together, a symbol of beauty in the near east, a nose, a vulva is visible, and lots of goats (which remind me of goats on pottery from the khafaje region), interesting here are the two pairs of goats eating from a tree (Andrea can surely say more about this feature...). The ornament on top and bottom are almost identical, maybe a depiction of grain...wild guess
Wonderful piece...now i want the other one!

[darkl2030]

Well, its probably not Inanna. While Inanna is a goddess of fertility in the sense of being a goddess of sex, she is NOT a mother goddess at all, and never has any children or a permanent spouse (the one exception being Shara son of the localized Inanna of Zabalam). You are astute to point out the goats, given the large horns certainly wild/mountain goats (sumerian darah) rather than the mere domestic goat (mash2/uz3). This is the clue that what you have identified as grain is actually probably a standardized depiction of mountains. That should be a better clue as to who we're looking at, I think a while back you and Bill were discovering her "Omega" symbol among the archaic city seals.

I hadn't noticed that there were precisely 7 circles and that very well might have some significance. Also good job noticing the unibrow, it is very striking that this is already present at such an early date, and in fact this continues to be featured in art all the way down to the end of mesopotamian civilization, from the famous Inanna of Warka Mask to Gudea statues to the Lamassu's from Ashurnasirpal's palace. And yes, there is a clear vulva, but I'm sure you must have also noticed that if you view it as a face, the vulva can be a mouth. And if you view it as a vulva, the eyes can be breasts! So the peice is really operating on three different levels, there is a face, a womans torso, and a mountain all at once. Really very amazing.

[darkl2030]

Well, unfortunately I do not have a photo of this next object, only a drawing, but it is a very good drawing. I do have for some reason a zoomed in photo of the real thing, but I will try to find an actual photo. This fragment of a circular stele originally with multiple scenes/panels only came to light very recently, within the past twenty years, and I have never really seen it on the internet at all. This image is really quite breathtaking and I think it is immediately apparent who and what is being depicted. But tell me what you see .

Attachments:

[darkl2030]

This is the zoomed in part, I will try to get the photo of the whole thing. But notice how these folk are depicted and see if you can tell anything about them. Had to shrink the picture it a little because the file was too big to upload.

Attachments:

[sheshki]

First of all, thats a wonderful picture! Would be a nice tattoo
Well, i see a female deity, looking very much Inanna like, holding 3 male Gods, one, who sits left from her, by the wrist, the other two by ropes through the nose. Infront of each god on the right, whose bodies are mountains and who both hold a bowl with fruits in it (surely depicting some sort of tribute), is a human figure depicted, standing on a building, probably a temple. These human figures also have the problem that someone attached a rope to their nose
Interesting here is the fact that at least one of them has very special looking boots. I have seen similar things in Hittite art. Furthermore there is a water-goddess who whorships the central goddess just for fun. The block both gods on the left part sitting on floats on water, and there is also some sort of relief showing a ziggurat, or maybe just a stairway.
Why im not sure if it is Inanna is the fact that i can see only one arrow coming out of her shoulders, the rest looks like plants to me. Would be nice to see a clearer image of her throne, could be a lion she sits on, which could indicate that it is Inanna.
So all in all the scene is depicting the victory over some mountain people and their gods.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Darkl:




Thanks very much for these posts - some very interesting stuff! In this post I am responding to your first post and the item and the hints you gave toward it' s interpretation.


I must say, I have never seen an item like quite this, and I did take a class on Mesopotamian art last semester 0_0 Granted, we didn' t focus on Mari much but I think this item is arguably unqiue. Do you have a museum number or information about it current where abouts?

While I didn't recognize what this item may be representing at first, short of the pubic triangle, the interpration suggested seems reasonable.


It's not abundantly obvious from many discussions of Mesopotamian theology, but the heraldic animal of Ninhursag would appear to be the stag - and I think the animals on this item could just as well be stags as goats. You can see the affiliation of Ninhursag and the stag by the famous plaque that adorned the Ninhursag Temple at Tell Ubaid -





The cross hatch pattern as symbolizing the mountains was frequently discussed in class and pointed out often in different Mesopotamian art - on the lower garment of the Kassite mountain gods for example. I didn't recognize it on this item as the cross hatch seems less structured then elsewhere - but it' s a possible interpretation. Ninhursag of course is associated with the mountains, or at least piles of rocks, in Sumerian myth.



And so far as her status as goddess of fertility this is accurate - as I recall, Steinkeller interpreted at one point the Kesh city seal as EN2+.ŠAG4 or " the womb of birth incantations" ; otherwise, one may see it as the Omega sign of Ninhursag. Kesh being her city.


In any case, the interpretation here would benefit from a study of the theology at Mari I'm sure Neat piece.

[darkl2030]

Apr 11, 2012 21:08:42 GMT -5 Salmu said:

I refuse to discuss any notion of a 'mother goddess' here as there is no iconography referencing maternal traits and it is an outdated notion that one avoids usage of unless faced with a breastfeeding figure (I see no baby or any other indications of maternity, like pregnancy).

Thanks for the reply and bibliography, Andrea. I would like to reply to the assertion quoted above, as it will prove quite important for our upcoming discussion of the role of goddesses in the early Mesopotamian pantheon.

While the notion of a mother goddess may indeed be seen as "outdated" among feminists or Neo-Wiccans, from the perspective of the ancient Mesopotamian textual record, such an assertion is as shocking as it is unfounded. Ancient mesopotamian religion provides us with a plethora of mother goddesses (or perhaps, many different names for essentially the same goddess), among them Nintud (whose name means Lady-birth), Mami (="mommy"), Ninmah, Ninhursag, Damgalnuna, Namma, Aruru, Gatumdug, Belet-ili, Mullissu (Ninlil), just to name a few off the top of my head. Moreover, a very large portion of incantations and magical texts from all periods deal with easing pregnancy and birth and thus feature these goddesses. It would seem that this type of goddesses remained extremely popular throughout Mesopotamian history, especially among the lower classes. I think its easy to imagine why, since pregnancy and childbirth was of universal importance and difficulty (before modern medicine) among all social classes. In fact, as us4-he2-gal2 has pointed out, one of the earliest peices of evidence allowing us to say anything specific at all about a deity, come from the archaic city seals and the writing for Kesh of en2-cag4, "birth incantations."

In ancient times, the most important social role for women of all classes was to provide male heirs for the household--this is well illustrated by a law in the code of Hammurabi where a man is entitled to a refund of his bride price if his deceased wife has failed to bear him children, but is not entitled to such a refund if she did in fact bear him children prior to her passing. In light of this fact the extreme popularity of birth goddesses and birth incantations makes perfect sense, and even today various Saints of forms of Virgin Mary fulfill a very similar role among Catholics as did the mesopotamian birth/mother goddesses.

Ishtar-Inanna, goddess of sex and war, is a very different deity, and her cult was essentially an elite one. Among goddesses in Mesopotamia she is absolutey unique (except for possibly related Ishara, which is yet another matter), and to dscribe her is an exceedingly complicated and difficult task. But what is clear is that she is kept quite clearly seperate from the mother/birth goddesses. We must make a distionciton here between a "fertility" (=mother) goddess and a goddess of sexual lust. Hence Inana is called "prostitute," while I'm sure it would be anathema to ascribe such a title to Mami or Nintud. I should also note that, while everyone assumes Ishtar and Inanna are the same deity, in ultimate origin this is certainly not the case. There are in fact indications that "Ishtar" may have originally been a male war god who was later syncretized in some way with Urukean Inanna. A very interesting peice of evidence in this connection is an ED or early sargonic plaque depicting a "bearded Ishtar," which I am still trying to obtain a picture of. All this of course begs a whole new question, exactly what we know about Inana of Uruk times and whether or not she was already a "war godess" at this point, aside from her already at this time well established astral identity. On the other hand, we must be careful when faced with West Semitic goddesses whose names appear to share an etymology with "Ishtar," Astarte, Asherah, etc., we cannot assume they are merely another "version" of Ishtar given the quite different (and in many ways simpler) religious history of that region. It would seem in most respects that these goddesses function essentially as consorts of the local chief divinity (El, Baal, or whoever) and are essentially mother godesses.

As for the art peice in question, there is nothing at all present in the iconography--no astral, overt sexual, or warlike elements--to support a link to Inanna, who at this point was certainly relegated to the south, this art peice predating the appearence of Akkadian Ishtar which likely dates to the ED I period and the rise of the Kishite state. As for elements connected to materinity and fertility, I believe they are quite obvious. The breasts, which were not seen as having anything to do with "sex" as in the 20th century and beyond but were seen as connected with pregnancy and the providing of milk to the young), and the vagina or birth canal, which in incantations functions metonymically for the womb (i.e., when the woman experiences pain her womb often it is called for a poulstice to be applied to the vulva). Obviously the ancient artists wouldn't have been able to draw a picture of a womb, but when they draw a big dowards pointing triangle that, it is assured that the "womb" is what is meant (and this may in fact be the ultimate origin of the SHAG4 sign). An emphasized female pubic region in ancient art generally refers to birth, not to sex. As for the common depictions of naked females without any elements of divinity (crown, wings, etc.), these are not goddesses but rather depictions of humans, and functioned almost certainly as magical devices to help bring foster healthy pregnancy. This was likely the same function of the so-called "Venus" fat-lady figurines from neolithic art.

Given the presence of possible mountain motifs, the stags (which us4-he2-gal2 is VERY astute to point out, this had actually been mentioned in class but I had forgotten about this), the general shape of the object as suggesting a mountain, and the clearly emphasized maternal organs, I would identify this as a depiction of Ninhursag. The multiple valences with which this art plays (face, body, mountain) may in fact be connected with how one might originally "see" a "woman" in the face of a mountain.

The "feminine," motherly aspect of creation features importantly in creation myths such as in Atra-hasis, where Nintud fashions humans out of clay (though it is neccesary for the male creative element, Enki, to provide the quickening spark to this clay creation). Note its absence, however, in Enuma Elish, foreshadowing the expungence of the feminine aspect of creation in later monotheistic tradition.

[us4-he2-gal2]

W e l l




Let me interject a few observations / qualifications into the discussion thus far - that is the discussion of personal qualities.


- First of all, you're both excellent and knowledgeable commentators and I think your very different angles will make for useful contrast in this summers discussion of early Mesopotamian theology (as the question of goddesses will be central).



As regards the perceived personal slights above, let me acknowledge those but delineate borders on these so that good academic discussion keeps going:

Andrea, you are not a feminist scholar and I think myself, darkl and everyone else reading see genuine learning and scholarship in these last posts. However, even though you are not a feminist scholar and so are objective, you (let us say falsely) assume the trappings of one when you:
a) cite Joanna Stuckey, who is a friend of Frayne's and whose work I have had to spell check etc. in that past; and who I know is a feminist scholar/ extremely sympathetic to feminist ideas.
b) Pointing out that some of us are more qualified to talk about birth than others because some of us are women etc. etc. Soo feminist *seeming*
c) seem unbelievable fiesty when your annoyed. And impressively feisty when your not.

But yes - you are not a feminist scholar despite these false positives which one may get.


So there is no right or wrong party here only areas that we, as a board, can refine - for example just as Andrea's stance may seem feminist at first and turn out not to be, I recall that my first reaction to Steinkeller's notion about early theology was to associate it with the claims of early matriarchy - an association that will probably turn out to be hasty. Feminist scholarship shouldn't be embraced certainly, but neither should the spectre of feminist scholarship intrude on our interpretations of unrelated data.


As far as the suggestion to cite sources goes, it should be noted that no one on this thread has really cited sources in the way intended in board policy - but that's okay. That's something we can all work toward. The idea is that if you put an idea of a scholar up and then fill in your opinions based around that, it also keeps things from becoming too personal and clouded with personal jibes - discussion should usually aim to be about the biggest and best ideas in the field, so we can all weigh those, instead weighing in on each other - of course, putting in our own suggestions is great to when the occasion is there, but it's important to remain passive.


Now I will have to examine this second picture soon

[darkl2030]

If you reread my post, Andrea, you will see that at no point did I call YOU a feminist or Neo-Wiccan, rather these designations were directed at the ideas you expressed. You are no doubt very qualified to discuss these matters, however, I cannot mince words when replying to the assertion that mother goddesses were rare or of little importance in ancient Mesopotamia. I don't need to cite any sources when I list the several mother goddesses known from texts because this is really quite basic. Whether or not the image we are dealing with is a mother goddess is a more complex matter, as you have astutely shown. But to deny the existence and importance of mother goddesses in general is simply foolish when we are faced with names like Nintud and Mami, and their epithets like "ummu awiltim," the mother of mankind. This doesn't mean I'm calling you foolish; I'm calling the idea foolish. Many very intelligent and respected scholars such as Thorkild Jacobsen have held ideas that are now considered by many scholars to be foolish.

I grealty appreciate and thank you for the rest of your contributions regarding this topic, and I will continue to consider them. The matter of how to interprete breast and vaginal imagery in art is certainly a complicated one and the same answer may not hold true in all cases, but I thank you for articulating your own particular perspect. I also apologize for not regularly citing any sources, I don't really have time to reference everything I say here to something in print and most of what I type is ad hoc and my participation here is mostly just for fun. Unfortunately, I don't have a museum number or any other information for this object, I got the photo from a powerpoint presentation from class. I asked my teacher about it yesterday and he said it was basically unpublished, appearing only in a catalog, and has never been properlys tudied. I don't know whether the catalog he mentioned includes the photo or if this is his own personal photo or what. He said he'd try to get me more information when he had time but he's pretty busy preparing for a talk he's giving in Tehran in two weeks.

However, if you do want one citation, I actually can cite an identification of this peice as of Ninhursag, as a "personal comment" from Steinkeller.

[darkl2030]

NOW... as for the second picture. Well, I guess I am being a little silly here playing "20 questions," but no one seems to have gotten this yet. Look at the seated male figure. Specifically, his hat. Its not the normal crown of divinity. And there is another, much more famous peice of art where this same fellow is depicted with the same hat. I'm pretty sure this peice is unprovenanced, by the way, and its really only this hat that lets us tie it to a specific historical context.

[sheshki]

Now that you mention it, i had a feeling that the hat looks familiar. It looks like Naram-Sins on the famous stele. So its probably not a god caught by the goddes, but it is Naram-Sin, and holding his arm by the wrist probably means he was led by the goddess to victory.

[Salmu]

For the benefit of the group I can provide more details on the object of contention, the advantages of being an archaeological researcher.

Alabaster cultic stele, dated (by context) to the Late Uruk (3500-3000 period), dimensions 35,3 x 18,5 x 1,6 cm, from Mari, Syria. Currently on loan to an exhibition of Syrian material touring Canada, but originally held by the Deir ez Zor/Dayr al-Zawr museum in eastern Syria.

It is from relatively recent excavations at Mari (1997) and is unpublished.

Darkl you are welcome to your opinion on mother goddesses

[darkl2030]

Here is an interesting article from a while back about the provenience (or lack thereof) of the "Rosen" limestone fragment depicting Naram-Sin and Ishtar www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/international/middleeast/02ANTI.html?pagewanted=all

[us4-he2-gal2]

So this is not exactly a the right thread for this but not sure where to put it:

This is a drawing by Seton Lloyd OIP 58 figure 159. Lloyd was an important Mesopotamian archaeologist of the 30s,40s,50s. This drawing depicts his conception of the inner cella of a Early Dynastic temple. This particular temple is fairly simplistic and represents archaeological data from the so called "single shrine temple" at Tell Asmar (anceint Eshnunna). The placement of the divine statue on the platform in the inner sanctum is hypothetical as no intact divine statues have ever been recovered, but the team that dug the Diyala region temples, to include Lloyd, have made a good case for this reconstruction.


Archaeology test next week - studying for these is always stressful but informative

[us4-he2-gal2]

The Alabaster Stele from Mari

Another Analysis of TH97.154

***** EDIT: April 11th - Updates are being made in subsequent posts below that will qualify the information originally presented in this post. Specifically, I have been made aware of addition scholars who have discussed the piece and its connections with goddess imagery. *****












At the top of this thread Darkl2030 brought an amazing piece from Mari to our attention, TH97.154, the alabaster stele from Mari. The item is currently stored at the Deir ez Zor museum in Syria. It was excavated by J. C. Margueron and his team, who had dug at Mari since 1979. Whether it should properly be termed a "stele" may be a matter of some debate, and it is sometimes simply labeled an "incised slab". The difficulty in finding the correct terminology signals that the piece is in fact quite unusual throughout the range of Mesopotamian art. While I have recently developed my own ideas about the item, I will first give an overview of the relevant literature (that I am aware of).


According to all of the sources considered to date, and those to follow below, there are a number of important elements in the imagery of TH97: a) two large "eyes" consisting of concentric circles sometimes termed "oculus symbolism." Some comment that they look solar. b) A female pubic triangle c) antlered animals which may be goats or stags d) styled birds e) a repeating pattern on the top and bottom of the item consisting of cross-hatched triangles which may symbolize mountains (as darkl2030 was saying).




Current literature on TH97.154




1. #106 in Art of the First Cities (AoFC): In the masterful Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus edited by Joan Aruz, 2003, TH97.154 is taken up on page 163 (catalog number 106). Click here for a scan of that page. We can observe that the AoFC gives the date of the object as "early third millennium" despite the fact that it was found underneath the altar of Ninhursag which dates to 2300 B.C. This is because the object was actually found in a favissa pit probably dates back earlier (see Fortin, below). AoFC makes no attempt to identify the deity depicted by the object (if it indeed depicts a deity) but provides a good description of the visual on face of the item. As for comparable media they state: "similar schematic representations of the female form are found only on stone figurines from the Levant, the Aegean area, and western Anatolia." I will suggest otherwise below.



2. Entry #295 Syria, land of Civilizations: In May 2000, the Museum of Civilization in Quebec (Canada) held a special exhibit of Syrian antiquities, to include TH97. Michel Fortin, an archeaologist attached to the museum with experience digging in Syria (although not at Mari itself) oversaw the production of the exhibition catalog, the book which itemized and described the major pieces of the exhibition. Click here for a scan of entry 295. Fortin's most important comment, I believe, relates to the dating of the favissa pit that the item was found in: "The excavators considered that this favissa was a sort of foundation deposit, buried beneath a temple to mark its rebuilding. This seems probable, since the cult-related installations at the temple of Ninhursag have been dated to about 2300 BC, while the shapes of the ceremonial vessels in the deposit indicates that they date from acround 3000 BC." So basically, when a temple required a rebuilding, the ancients could not simply throw out the old cult items, as they were sacred. They would instead bury them in a special pit on the sacred ground itself (a pit experts to a "favissa" pit). Since TH97 was found in this pit below the altar, it probably belongs then to the older temple, and to whatever divine being that temple was connected to.



3. Schuhmacher, Some Reflections about an Alabaster Stele from Mari (Syria) and its Possible Relations to the Western Mediterranean. (CuPAUAM 39, 2013, pp. 07-20): Thomas Schuhmacher wrote an article in 2013 examining TH97.154 and, particularly, its iconography and form. His article may downloadeded here. His main proposal is that the item from Mari can be most directly linked with slate slabs and ceramics from the Iberian peninsula (which is modern day Spain, Portugal and so forth). I will grant that there is a surprising resemblance between the eye imagery and the presence of the female pubis on the Chalcolithic (=extremely early) Iberian artifacts and with that on TH97.154. I am not totally convinced, however, and the evidence for contact between these ancient cultures is meager at best. Schuchmacher mentions additional details about the history of Mari that are worth considering here, namely, that the Mari I phase ended around 2700 when the site was abandoned. A second phase, Mari II at around 2500, resulted in the rebuilding of the entire city (to include the temple) and it may have been at this juncture that TH97.154 was found by the ancients and deposited in the favissa. Schuchmucher states on page 9:

According to the radiocarbon and TL- dates available, Mari I was abandoned about 2700 BC. But it was not until 2550/2500 BC that a completely new city was built. So there are arguments supporting the idea of the excavators, that the stele was uncovered when the second city was built and it ritual character was recognized or it received a special meaning because of its hazardous discovery. Therefore the stele was deposited in the pit under the temple of Mari II. In consequence we date the stele -in accordance with the excavators- to the beginning of the third millennium BC.

Another important observation made by Schuchmacher is that there are in fact a few iconographic parallels from Mesopotamia that accord quite well with our piece. These pieces come from the site of Ashur and were published in Andrea 1977 (Das Weidererstandene Assur):

The age of the objects is unfortunately not determinable, but on stylistic grounds they have been associated with Ashur's earliest occupation phase. Schuhmacher states that unlike TH97.154, which is nearly 2 feet in height, the Ashur fragments are some 5 cm. Despite the difference in scale, one might notice the iconographical correspondence: the concentric circle "eyes," the "eyebrows" with "rays?" , the style of the "nose" and what may be stags (?) and cross-hatched mountain patterning at the top (?).












Ninhursag or the goddess Asherah?








As for my own suggestion about TH97.154, I believe there are interesting parallels between the iconography of the piece and of iconography that has been attributed to the goddess Asherah. Asherah is a West Semitic goddess who is argued (by some scholars) to have been the spouse of YHWH in early Israelite religion. I read about this theory in some detail for a class I recently took - William Dever's work "Did God Have a Wife?" was an assigned textbook. Asherah is best known from Ugaritic literature where her name is spelt ʾAthiratu.


While reading through Dever's book, I came across imagery that he presents as depicting the goddess Asherah/ʾAthiratu - this imagery comes from the Levant (Syria and the Holy Land) in the second millennium BC, and so predates the arrival of the Israelites. Generally, it is ascribed to the Canaanite religions.

The above images were obtained from William Dever's 2005 work (pages 226,277 and 163 respectively). To begin with, the "ewer" was found in a favissa pit from LB age Lachish (about 1300). It is inscribed with a dedication "Mattan: an offering for may Lady Elat." While Mattan was probably the name of the offerer, Elat is the feminine form of the Canaanite god El - in this period, Asherah was the wife of El, and is sometimes called Elat. In another pit from the same temple, the second item, the goblet, was found. Ruth Hestrin was first to notice and to suggest that the imagery of the ewer and the goblet is closely related - in the former two rampant wild goats flank a tree, in the latter two rampant goats flank (what is taken to be) the female pubic triangle. Dever credits Hestrin for being the first to suggest that the tree and the pubic triangle symbolize the same thing in the world of ANE symbolism - the fertility of a mother god. The final image I have added is a picture of a scene painted on a pithos from the site of Kuntillet ʿAjrud in Isreal, and dates to around 800 BC. On the rim of this "pithos a" in an inscription: "I blessed you by Yahweh oof Samaria and by his Asherah." It would be in keeping with the earlier imagery from Lachish if we were to interpret the wild goats and the tree as symbolizing Asherah.






Tentative Suggestion:





As can be seen, the imagery from Lachish seems to have strong affinities from that seen at Mari in TH97.154 (and possibly, also Ashur). The common theme is mainly this: two horned animals (stags or goats) appear on either side of the female pubic triangle - and also on either side of stylized tree. A close look at TH97.154 will demonstrate that both themes are present. So the question might be posed, did the imagery of the Ninhursag cult influence that of the later Asherah cult? Asherah was known in Mesopotamia as Ashratu, and was said to the be the spouse of Amurru, the god of the Western Semites (the Amorites). She is usually said to be first attesting in OB godlists from the reign of Hammurabi, but Dijkstra (a Biblical scholar) claims that she occurs already in an Ur III godlist (Dijkstra Only One God...2001 pg. 86). Another possibility, perhaps less likely, might be raised: Asherah in one form or another may have been a mother goddess stretching back into remote antiquity, predating the arrival of the Sumerian Ninhursag in Mari. Mari as an important and ancient center straddling Mesopotamia and the early west Semitic world may be one place where the cult of such a goddess can be expected to have taken root. Could the symbolism evident in TH97.154 belong to Asherah?

[us4-he2-gal2]

Notice: After reviewing the above post, Andrea has brought it to my attention that specialists in art history and goddess mythology have already made a connection between the Lachish imagery and the TH97.154. Thank you for Andrea. Particularly the work by a scholar named Ziffer seems to be on topic. So there it is - yet another idea that somebody else actually came up with.



More to come on the Ziffer.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Reviewing: Ziffer 2010, Western Asiatic Tree Goddesses

[/i][/div]






As mentioned in the post immediately above, Andrea has proved numerous reference to works which examine the Albaster Stele from Mari, TH97.154, the object from the Ninhursag temple. These scholars, generally from the art history or goddesses study schools, have already recognized an emerging pattern of iconograhpy here, that involving the female pubic triangle and the tree, or the female pubic triangle and the stags. Once such scholar is Irita Ziffer.


In reading over Ziffer's 2010 article, the author's core interpretation is: "Most probably trees were associated with female deities, as both the tree and the female bear fruit, and therefore are conceived as symbols of fertility, abundance and nourishment as well as carnal love." I suppose this is fairly self evident when we are talking about a thematic pairing of the female pubic triangle and a tree. The body of the article is the presentation of artifacts with relevant iconography and a brief discussion of each. I was most impressed by the presentation of the following pieces from ED Ur:








Concerning the above, the author has commented: "An abbreviated version of the Mari stele are two Early Dynastic III pottery stands from Ur, one showing two triangles beside a tree and what looks like a reed emblem and a comb, the other stand having a tree incised along its stemmed foot that rises above several such triangles (Fig. 2a, b)."


Ziffer goes on to mention numerous other examples of the pubic triangle and tree imagery, including the pieces from Lachish discussed above. While this does confirm that it is academically viable to put these items in the same iconographical continuum, Ziffer does now attempt to explain what it means that such imagery was in Mari in the ED period and then much later at Lachish. For example, was it the same goddess of the same notion of female divinity at play here? Hopefully I will be able to point to further analysis on reading more of Andrea's sources.