Ancient Middle Eastern art (pt. 3)

The Neo-Babylonian Empire followed the Assyrians in the seventh century B.C. in modern-day Iraq and Syria.  The most famous art to come out of this time period is the Ishtar Gate, a gargantuan wall of blue glazed bricks, decorated with murals of animals.  Ishtar was the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of love and fertility.  The word Easter is actually a derivative of the name for this pagan deity (hence Christian pastors pushing the agenda of a name change to Resurrection Sunday).

The Persian Empire follows the Neo-Babylonian, c. 539-331B.C. in modern-day Iran, and led by such kings as Darius and Xerxes (familiar names to Old Testament readers).  Again, many relief carvings and architecture displaying the king's authority.  No wonder Israel complained for a king; all other cultures at that time were deifying kings in their art.

Ancient Middle Eastern art (pt. 2)

Circa 900-800B.C. we have the Assyrian empire, the art of which also frequently employed hierarchic scaling to assert political or spiritual authority in their culture.  Triumphant battle scenes and overly-romanticized representations of military victories could be considered the first propaganda stunts in art history.  If one word could summarize the idea which the Assyrians were relating through their artwork—the one concept being promoted and glorified by all the massive brick and stone carvings, and the one characteristic these people were priding themselves on having attained much of already and were seeking constantly to grow in—the word is: predominance.

A common symbol of the Assyrian empire is the guardian deity, the lamassu, which was a being with the body of a bull, the wings of an eagle, and the head of a human.

Such a mythic creature still makes frequent appearances in pop culture today.  In the Disney movie Aladdin, we see an enormous gold lamassu in the Cave in the Wonders.

In Star Wars, Lama Su is the prime minister of the planet Kamino.

…And so on.

Ancient Middle Eastern art (pt. 1)

            There is a plethora of various Middle Eastern art that follows, which I haven't studied too in-depth at all, unfortunately.  So the following is a shamefully generalized overview of thousands of years of history, wars, civilizations, and cultures.  Here are some highlights.

            The Sumerians thrived before 4,500B.C., in Sumer (southern Italy).  The Sumerians are credited with inventing the first written language: cuneiform, which uses wedge-shaped characters.  The most famous work of literature written in cuneiform is the Epic of Gilgamesh, which can be found at your local Barnes & Noble booksellers store (I love product placement).  Sumerian art includes statues that were crafted and left for religious worship, as offerings to their gods.  Ziggurats, which were stepped mountains made of dirt, also became popular during the Sumerian civilization, and there are several still standing today.

The Sumerians were succeeded by the Akkadians, a Semitic people, the king of whom, by 2,340B.C., controlled Sumer (the entire region between the Mediterranean and the  Persian Gulf).  From the Akkadian empire we see art like the Stele of Naram-Sin, a limestone relief commemorating a military victory.  Hierarchic scaling is the feature element here, as the gigantic-looking Akkadian king literally tramples over the dwarf-like, conquered bodies of his enemies.

A time of Neo-Sumerian civilization followed, which was then succeeded by the Babylonians.  The Tower of Babel is estimated by archaeologists to have been in construction before c. 3,500B.C., and King Hammurabi is believed to have ruled around 1,800B.C.  The Babylonians, too, made steles, and much of their art was based on punishment for certain crimes, since Hammurabi was famous for his Code of Laws, which was a series of 282 laws inscribed in a stele in cuneiform.  The code stresses punishment for violating the laws, and the punishments are not at all flippant or superficial (i.e., an eye for an eye).