The Gebel el-Arak Knife
Mar 2, 2009 7:58:45 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Mar 2, 2009 7:58:45 GMT -5
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Reviewing:
Constructing Context: The Gebel el-Arak Knife
Greater Mesopotamian and Egyptian Interaction in the Late Fourth Millennium B.CE.
By: Holly Pittmann
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Holly Pittman's 23 page article is contained in the volume entitled The Study of the Ancient Near East in the 21st Century. This ambitious examination of the knife handle in question, a predynastic Egyptian knife handle carved out of ivory and decorated with designs which seem peculiarly Mesopotamian, is an examination saturated with insight and intrigue - it is Pittman's goal not only to examine the knife, but to demonstrate modern and refined techniques of contextualization. What is the context behind these designs? In this case, this also leads to very interesting discussion of early cross-cultural contacts between the two relevant civilizations, and I have found many inroads to comparisons which have eluded my attention up until the present.
Because this is a new avenue of reading and research at enenuru, I have made the most I can out of my review and have attempted to extract and present as much of the article as is feasible; Pittman undertakes to demonstrate what contextual research can do for her contribution to studies in the 21st century, and this turns out to be a fair amount. Some biographical information about the author, a member of the University of Pennsylvania faculty, is available here. Lastly, I have included at the bottom a running list of bibliographical references which may facilitate further reading on the subject.
Pittman:
"My focus is not solely on the Gebel el-Arak knife, but rather on a number of related bits of evidence, both artistic and artifactual, that when chained together inform our thinking about the nature of the interaction between the two contiguous, complex worlds of Egypt and Greater Mesopotamia during the latter part of the fourth Millennium B.C.E"
- Greater Mesopotamia -
A term the Pittman uses through the article is "Greater Mesopotamia". The term generally isn't found on enenuru because we tend to focus on Mesopotamia proper rather intensely, but Greater Mesopotamia refers to the areas outside Mesopotamia which are nonetheless under the cultural influence of Mesopotamia proper - because we are looking at the at the archaic period for the material to follow, Greater Mesopotamia would refer to neighbors under the influence of Uruk in the Uruk period (approx 3200 B.C). The term Greater Mesopotamian for this period Pittman says "is used here in a general sense to convey the apparently unified culture of Sumer and Elam during this period." (Italics my own).
As a side note, it is interesting to learn of the cultural sharing of Elam and Sumer during this early period (whether it was result of hostilities or peaceful influence). Besides the military exchanges and the transfer of Snake gods from east to west, the presence of Ziggurats early in Elam, and the contested middle ground of Susa which must have been a diffusion point, I have briefly noted other indicators of this sharing - I have taken a chart from the book "The Uruk World System" (Guillermo Algaze 1993) which displays a side by side comparison of material culture from the Mesopotamian alluvial plain and the Susiana plains (which lay between Susa and Elam). Please click here to view that chart. Surely the fascinating similarities demonstrates the Uruk culture creeping east in this formative period. Further study would likely elucidate Pittman's remark on the "apparently unified culture of Sumer and Elam during this period." But for now, and on this thread, the focus lies west.
- The Gebel al-Arak Knife -
Age, Properties, and Provenance/
The knife in question was purchased in Cairo for the Louvre Museum in 1914 and allegedly it was found at the Gebal el-Arak site in upper Egypt. It is 28 cm long and has a curved flint bald and a decorated ivory handle - the way the blade was sharpened through chipping allows the author to assign the item a very early age (prehistoric - despite some dispute on this topic) and examination of the figures carved in the ivory handle, the structure of the bodies, the treatment of horns, the presentation of human figures etc., allows her to assert Egyptian craftsmanship (and not proto-elamite as some have stated.)
The carved figural scenes on the handle/
Turning to the handle itself (see above) Pittman observes that the obverse has a "discernible narrative": Two rows of combatants, followed by two rows of vanquished enemies in between high prowed boats. However, it is the reverse which is very interesting and at the top is "one of the most striking Mesopotamian borrowings, the image of the "priest-king" figure, familiar on works of protoliterate date from sites of late Uruk date. On the knife handle this figure is shown in a heraldic posture dominating two very large flanking, rampant lions." Beneath this is a "hunting episode."
- The State and Progress of Comparison -
Two Schools on the significance of Egyto-Mesopotamian exchange/
The suggestively Mesopotamian look of the imagery found on this knife handle, and the fact it that it depicts some battle scenery, led to the knife being used in a theory put forth by some early Egyptologists called the "Pharonic race" theory. This theory basically proposes the existence of an invasion force which invaded Egypt at some very early point and was responsible for the emergence of the Pharonic state - this theory has, as Pittman explains, been definitively rejected by scholars, however an inadvertent consequence is that the knife, originally used for to reinforce the "Pharonic race" theory, has now been underplayed. The rejection of the Pharonic race theory seems to have led most Egyptologists to the conviction that there was no meaningful borrowing from any outside source, including Sumer. That is one school of thought. Pittman explains a second school of thought acknowledges that contact with Sumer must have been important - among these scholars are listed Fischer 1989, Rice 1990; Hoffman 1991; and Wenke 1991.
It is added that for the most part, attempts to analysis evidence of Egypto-Mesopotamian borrowing has been undertaken primarily by "Mesopotamianists, because the unequivocal manifestations suggest that the influence was essentially one way, from Mesopotamia to Egypt." Scholars who have interpreted this sort of evidence include Frankfort 1924, 1941; Kantor 1942, 1944, 1952, 1965, 1992; Boehmer 1974a, 1974b
Points of cultural contact/
For those who do interpret a influence from Mesopotamian culture, the question becomes where and how was this influence transmitted. While the idea of invasion of some sort is overturned, current thinking instead notes that both cultures had hinterlands (spheres of influence) around them, neighboring cultures which were under their influence and from which they received raw materials. The current interpretation is that "contact between Egypt and Mesopotamia essentially resulted from the overlapping of their hinterlands in the region of Syria and the Levant. (see here Kantor 1965; Hennassy 1967; Tessier 1987; Moorey 1987, 1990; and Kantor 1992). It should be noted that the "cultural filters" of the hinterlands results in some "distortion" however. Pittman states that the knife is one of the few objects to directly reflect this contact, although there are other mediums...
Other Mediums/
Pittman: Other material clues which reflect contact between Mesopotamia and Egypt during the protoliterate phase are other objects having.."
Visual Imagery: "Notable are other knife handles and slate palettes (Asselberghs 1961: pls. 43-52, 122-23, 127-28, 168-69)
Architectural Features: "For example, both cultures share mud-brick architecture with niched facades. The clay cones and niched walls found at the site of Buto in the Nile Delta are further evidence of architectural borrowing (see von der Way 1987, 1992)
Imported Items: Cylinder Seals, in particular, are an example of imported items (see Kantor 1952; Podzoeski 1988).
Shared Ceramic Types: Kantor 1965, 1992
- What kind of Influence is Proposed? -
The author remarks that in his 1974 work, Boehmer had "amply demonstrated" that the borrowed images on the Gebel el-Arak knife were not unique to protoliterate Egypt - "appropriated motifs appear on other ivory and bone objects, including typologically-similar knife handles and combs, as well as on stone cosmetic palettes."
At this point it interesting to refer to a discussion Rose and I once had on the occurrence of a Serpopard, or a Mus hussu, on the back of the Narmer Palette. Dated to around 3100 BC it is supposed to have some of the earliest hieroglyphics and some of the earliest depictions of an Egyptian king. While the palette is too big to be a personal cosmetics palette, one theory apparently is that it was used to grind cosmetics for use on divine statues - in any case on its reverse appears pictured an incredibly distinct composite animal:
The Narmer Palette/Protoliterate Mus Hussu
In the above, I have made a picture which displays on the left (A) the reverse of the Narmer palette, which features what Egyptologists refer to as a "Serpopard", and, on right (B), an image of the protoliterate Uruk period Mus hussu, the same creature which later appears in altered form on the Gudea cup (thanks to Madness, via the Ningishzida thread for the above image.) Here is a clear example of what Pittman is getting at.
Images which are distinct in the period of Mesopotamian culture are given as serpo-felines (above), the lion-griffin, animals acting as human, the "priest-king" figure and his posture as master of animals, the snake twist surrounding the rosette, and animals distinctive body patterning. "Boats with high prows and the man with the rope also belong to this category."
Explosion of Symbolic technology/
Pittman's emphasizes that the important source for cultural influence in this formative period is the culture of the Late Uruk phase, that is UrukIVa, a point in which the direct influence coming from the southern city itself spread to its widest point, from Susa, and possibly Elam, to Mesopotamia and "into Syria and, through the Habur region, eastern Anatolia."
Interestingly, Pittman explains the late Uruk phase is characterized by, among other things, "an explosion in the use of Symbolic technology." She continues: "This technology used imagery, aides-de-memoire, and abstract numbers to mediate increasingly complex human relations and to store vital information.
Pittman:
Administrative control was accomplished through the cylinder seals, clay sealings, and the technology of sealing administration.
"By the Uruk IVa period a system for numerical notation and protocuneiform scripts were used on a wide scale for the administration of a labor-intensive economy. [See Nissen, Damerow and England 1993]. During the same period a full-blown system of representational imagery and the compositional principals for deploying it were developed. The visual arts of Mesopotamia are best known during this period through the glyptic. On the few preserved large-scale monuments, many of the same themes found in the glyptic arts are depicted. "
Although Pittman doesn't mention this specifically, I am inclined to think the medium of Archaic Standards would fit well with this explanation of the explosion of Symbolic technology - in the Archaic Standards, Emblems and Cult Symbols thread (and its corresponding enenuru.net version) we have considered briefly the similarity between the Archaic Uruk period Sumerian Standards, and standards seen in representations from the time of Narmer approximately. See the below graphic from Szarzyriska (1996) (and Sheshki has also pointed out to me standards are visible on the back of the Narmer palette.)
Possible means of Transmission of information techniques in point form/
[/li][li][/color]Through ancient seal impressions
[/li][li][/color]On clay sealings used to seal jars that we shipped to Egypt from the Levant or Upper Mesopotamia
[/li][/ul]
(On the last possibility the author adds further "Remember that we are certain that on of the important ideas borrowed from Mesopotamia by Egyptian administrators was the practice of marking the clay closing devices of jars with engraved cylinder seals. The Egyptians practiced this in precisely the same manner as did the Mesopotamians, to mark the contents of large containers with commodities, names, and related information. (Williams 1977: 135-40)
- Specific Early Contact Points -
Pittman: "The earliest evidence for contact is date to the Gerzean phase, at the moment defined in archaeological terms as Nagada IIb. This equation is based on the presence of an imported Mesopotamian stamp seal in an Egyptian grave of that date [Moorey 1987:37; Podorski 1988:263]. Cylinder Seals from Mesopotamia were found in graves dated to the Nagada IIb-d phase [Moorey 1987:37; Podorski 1988]. The objects that carry the borrowed imagery are dated (according to typological and stylistic parallels) to between the late Gerzean period (Nagada IIc, d) and Dynastic I, a period estimated to be about 250 years. [The knives are somewhat earlier than the palettes, which certainly extend as late as the reign of Narmer (Moorey 1987: 39)]."
As the author had stated earlier: "Administrative control was accomplished through the cylinder seals, clay sealings, and the technology of sealing administration." She continues "Information storage and dissemination were also accomplished through "images and [more importantly] visual formulae," which eventually were developed by the Egyptians into the hieroglyphic script." Pittman's approach does not focus on the meaning of the imagery itself, either in Mesopotamia or in Egypt, but "rather on the different formal ways in which the imagery was used." She attempts to isolate what kinds ideas pertaining to the storage and sharing of information may have been transmitted from Mesopotamia.
Pittman:
"The Egyptians never slavishly or mindlessly copied. Rather, they lifted specific images of compositional formulas and inserted them into what are purely Egyptian visual constructs."
Individual design elements: New images clearly of Mesopotamian influence, which contrast strongly with the earlier Egyptian art (as scene on white line art of funerary pottery) include
[/li][li][/color] abundant lions and bulls (which had not appear before in Egyptian art)
[/li][li][/color] fantastic images i.e composite animals*
[/li][/ul]
*Regarding this last image, Pittman says the proof that the use of fantastic images are borrowed from Mesopotamia lies in that "the only examples [for this period] are directly copied from Mesopotamian prototypes. As Henry Fischer argues, the earliest composite creatures to appear in Egyptian art are the three composite creatures [the serpo-feline, lion griffin and animals acting as human] that are undeniable appropriations from the Mesopotamian repertory." The significance and impact of these assertions gain weight when one considers that the later Sphinx is a composite creature, not Mesopotamian, but nonetheless surely descended from artistic modes such as are discussed here.
Indexical signs/
There are a few type of visual signs, one type is where the symbol directly resembles the object (iconic signs), another type of sign is when the sign indicates something but resembles it in no literal way, i.e the rosette of Inanna (symbolic signs). The third type of sign, and interesting here, is the indexical sign, which points to its referent - i.e. it would be a tree branch conveying the value "tree".
The Hunters Palette
The author explains that in addition to an elaboration of symbolic signs in this period, there occurred in Predynastic Egypt a proliferation of indexical signs where the part stands for the whole "so commonly seen in the glyptic of the Late Uruk phase." She cites the Hunters Palette (above) as an example and adds "This chain of images in what is clearly a nondepictive relationship is also new and may anticipate the juxtaposition of images that would soon explode into the full-blown hieroglyphic script."
- Conclusions -
Pittman: "As is often pointed out, the images borrowed by Egypt are used for only a brief time and then discarded. It is the underlying system and categories of meaning that continue in both formulas of visual imagery and in the mixed logographic-syllabographic hieroglyphic writing system. [for characterization of the hieroglyphic writing system see Hawkins 1979: 146].... An abstraction of this kind can be made concrete through a comparison of the Warka vase with the Gebel el-Arak knife. What is shared between them is not religious scruple, but visual formulas and select elements of visual vocabulary. In the case of the knife, the images are used to articulate a fundamental, entirely Egyptian conception of kingship that may have been enacted as a ritual, a ritual that has nothing at all to in common with the ritual represented on the Warka vase....
.. While the Egyptians clearly borrowed from Mesopotamia and while these borrowings were first expressed in the "visual language" of the Mesopotamians, perhaps it was the formulas and not the meaning that were of central interest and lasting value for the ancient Egyptians."
Further notes from this article to come/
The Rebus (p. 25)
Self-Reference (p.25)
Further understandings/
- What can be found on "Symbolic Technology"
- on the Ankh in Mesopotamia (late)
- Egyptian use of cylinder seals to seal jars
- The Standard as in the context of Symbolic Technology?
Further Reading/ I have taken the bibliographic information from the above review and compiled it below together with some headings, with the hope this will assist future reading on Egpyto-Mesopotamian relations here at enenuru.
Egyptologists who interpret influence from Sumer:
Fischer 1989, Rice 1990; Hoffman 1991; and Wenke 1991.
Mesopotamianists examining particular data concerning influence:
Frankfort 1924, 1941; Kantor 1942, 1944, 1952, 1965, 1992; Boehmer 1974a, 1974b
Contact points in Syria and the Levant:
Kantor 1965; Hennassy 1967; Tessier 1987; Moorey 1987, 1990; and Kantor 1992)
Other Material Clues Regard Influence:
(See heading above "other mediums")
Use of Protocuneiform and number systems:
see Nissen, Damerow and Englund 1993
A comprehensive presentation of early Mesopotamian Glyptic:
Amiet 1980
Early Contact Points:
Moorey 1987:37; Podorski 1988:263
Egyptians use of cylinder seals on clay devices to seal jars:
Williams 1977: 135-40
***Examination of the function of Uruk Iconography over its decorative nature***
Pittman 1994b
Composite Creatures from Mesopotamia to Egypt:
Fischer 1987
Characterization of Hieroglyphics:
Hawkins 1979: 146
Still to come.... uh.. lots of stuff 0_0 (!)
