6.1: Chapter Introduction

Introduction: A Stolen Vase Returns Home

The Warka Vase is a roughly three-foot tall, 600 pound alabaster vessel covered in detailed relief carvings, created about the same time as the Sumerians invented writing, and one of the very earliest examples of storytelling in art. Its monumental size, subject, and motifs suggest that it was a sacred and important work of art to the people of Uruk—and it was a prize of The Iraq [National] Museum’s collection, right up until it was stolen.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Warka Vase, c. 3500-3000 BCE. Alabaster, 105 cm high. National Museum of Iraq. (Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Warka Vase has become a symbol of museum looting, a problem that has plagued the Iraq Museum for years surrounding the prolonged armed conflicts of the Iraq War. This is a story of war and of theft, conducted by both professionals and novice looters. This is also a story of preservation, civilian rescuers, and a celebratory homecoming.

In the chaos surrounding the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent fall of Baghdad in March and April of 2003, an estimated 4,000-14,000 priceless artifacts were stolen from the Iraq Museum’s collection. That huge range has changed over time—and initially museum officials exaggerated the number to 170,000 in an attempt to trick looters into thinking that the vast majority of the museum’s collection had already been stolen. The story of the Warka Vase, and what precisely happened to it, also remains shrouded in mystery.

Some of the museum thefts appeared to have been carried out by professionals, and with the assistance of museum staff; others were simply smash-and-grabs by people off the street. The Warka Vase itself was physically grabbed and smashed; photos from after the looting show its wooden pedestal, with the alabaster foot of the vessel still attached, toppled on the floor amidst the shattered glass of its case.

This was not a professional theft, but it remains unclear just who took it: opportunistic looters, or citizen rescuers, upset to see the museum being robbed of its priceless and important artifacts, and literally stepping in to pick up the pieces. In either case, the Warka Vase, with its complex imagery and recording of Sumerian religion and culture, was returned—albeit in pieces—a few weeks later during an amnesty period established to encourage the return of important stolen works. It is one of an estimated 4,000 artifacts that have since been returned to the Iraq Museum, where professional art conservationists and restoration specialists from Europe have worked alongside, and trained, local Iraqis in the museum that houses what Neela Banerjee calls “the world’s most comprehensive collection of antiquities” from one of the cradles of civilization.

That collection, however, had been decimated not merely by the destructive thefts in April of 2003, but by years of more hidden looting—from within the Iraqi government and by museum officials themselves. Art has value, not just for what it can tell us about the past, but also, as the professional and amateur looters of the Iraq Museum attest, for its monetary value on the market—whether as genuine artifacts or clever forgeries.

Art is often also closely entwined with war—whether, as with the modern Iraq War, a casualty of it, or, as we see throughout the history of art, celebrating victories. The Head of an Akkadian Ruler, discussed later in this chapter, was mutilated by that powerful leader’s enemies. Both the Akkadian Stele of Naram-Sin and the Babylonian Law Code Stele of Hammurabi were taken, intact, as prized war booty; the former was stolen in 12th century BCE and the latter was looted and eventually rediscovered in 1901. Today, both of those stelae live in the Louvre Museum, in Paris, after being excavated by French archaeologists. For more on why so many art objects and artifacts are in the Louvre and British Museum, how they got there, and whether they should be returned, see SmartHistory’s curated series of articles about repatriation—or the return of something to its country of origin: Whose Art? Museums and Repatriation.

This chapter will provide more information about the Warka Vase, as well as a trove of other artifacts that give great insight into the invaluable archaeological heritage of the Ancient Near East.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Map of the Fertile Crescent. (Adapted from Nafsadh, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Historiography (Writing History)

As Dr. Senta German points out later in this chapter, the vast expanse of the “Near East” has long been part of the Western art historical canon, not only because of its proximity to Europe or “the West,” but also because of the Western interest in studying, knowing, and claiming ties to the biblical “Holy Land,” as they rediscovered cities mentioned in the Bible, such as Nineveh, Ur, and Babylon. In fact, European zeal for biblical archaeology of the Near East was a driving force for much of the early archaeology in this region, almost always conducted by outside European scholars before local agencies took over.

Terminology

East of What?

The large region covered in this chapter is sometimes referred to as the Ancient Near East or Middle East, because Europeans—in the so-called “West”—named these areas in relation to their own proclaimed directional location. As mentioned previously in this book, Europeans were the earliest writers of the discipline of art history, and as such, they claimed the art of the Near East as part of Western art history, distinguishing it from art of what they called “the Far East” such as China, Japan, India, etc.

The word “Mesopotamia” comes from the ancient Greek words meso and potamos, meaning “between the river.” This refers to the geographic location of the region, situated in the lush valleys between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers now in parts of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Kuwait.

Who is civilized? What makes a civilization?

Traditionally, when scholars have studied a human society, they analyze various characteristics, criteria, and developments that help to define—and differentiate—it as a civilization. The word “civilization” derives from the Latin word civitas, meaning city. At its most basic definition then, civilization usually refers to a society made of cities or urban settlements.

As the chapter will later discuss, early civilizations often include settlements, made possible by the shift from a nomadic lifestyle to the domestication of animals and development of agriculture. However, as National Geographic explains, there are some historical problems with the biased and Eurocentric ways in which the designation of “civilization” was used to distinguish some cultures from others.

…[E]arly in the development of the term, anthropologists and others used “civilization” and “civilized society” to differentiate between societies they found culturally superior (which they were often a part of), and those they found culturally inferior (which they referred to as “savage” or “barbaric” cultures). The term “civilization” was often applied in an ethnocentric way, with “civilizations” being considered morally good and culturally advanced, and other societies being morally wrong and “backward.” This complicated history is what makes defining a civilization troublesome for scholars, and why today’s modern definition is still in flux.

Nevertheless, most historians and anthropologists agree that there are certain components and criteria that make up a civilization. As such, this chapter will explore not only those necessary “ingredients” that lead to a civilization, but also the products that come from one.

Chapter Overview

What are the ingredients of civilization?

This chapter returns readers to the Fertile Crescent and to the Neolithic Revolution. The Fertile Crescent is called such because it is a C-shaped area, in green on the map above, formed along the rivers of the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile. Water from these rivers, and naturally occurring plants and grasses, made this the ideal location for the development of agriculture. Agriculture, which refers to the growing of food—instead of just gathering it wherever it can be found—is one of the key ingredients for the birth of civilization.

In the Fertile Crescent, people began deliberately planting grains and domesticating animals, leading to a much more stable food supply than had been the case with hunting and gathering. With a stable, consistent food supply came other changes, including the specialization of labor.

Now a portion of the society, rather than everybody, can tend to growing food, while other people could take on other tasks—making buildings, creating pottery, and arranging trade, for instance. Another major development that comes about as a direct result of agriculture is also a key ingredient of civilization: the development of writing. (Read the first article to learn how the two are connected and how writing was born out of economic necessity related to agriculture.)

Along with the development of agriculture, specialization of labor, and development of writing, there are a few other ingredients—and products—of civilization. One is the creation of large-scale architecture and another is the stratification of social classes. Both of these are possible because of a well-fed society, staying in one place. You might think that the people growing the food that enabled the society to thrive might be at the top of the social hierarchy, but then, as now, they tend to remain at the bottom, along with those doing the actual labor of creating large-scale buildings and monuments. At the top, as society stratifies, are the rulers and religious leaders—who, in Mesopotamia, are often indistinguishable.

This chapter explores the differences between the varied empires and cultures of the Ancient Near East and Mesopotamia. This region saw a series of cultures coming to dominance and then being defeated and replaced by the victors—only for those victors to fall to the next group.

Beginning in Sumer, the chapter next moves to Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria, and finally ends with the Achaemenid or Early Persian Empire. It specifically considers the concept of civilization, how it developed, and what it means for the creation of art. It asks readers how this concept of civilization is intertwined with the Neolithic Revolution, discussed in the previous chapter, and it examines the artistic materials, techniques, subject matter, styles, and conventions developed in the region called the ancient Near East.

Objects Overview

Some of the works of art that this chapter will cover include a wide range of sculpture, architecture, early writing tools, and vessels, including:

• the origins of written language known as cuneiform, a wedge-shaped ancient writing system
• the Warka Vase, the monumental vase that gives insight into Sumerian cosmology
• the cylinder seals of the Ancient Near East, which were used as unique signatures and function as a sort of time capsule, preserving the popular aesthetics, styles, and motifs of the owner’s lifetime and offering insights into commerce and religion
• the excavations of Ur, a trash dump that was turned into an elite cemetery
• the intricate, bronze life-size head of Akkadian ruler
• the royal city of Babylonia, which became the largest ancient settlement in Mesopotamia
• the Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi which includes 300 laws and is more than 4,000 years old
• the intimidating and monumental hybrid guardian figures at the gate of Sargon II
• the multi-ethnic Persian Empire and how it influenced later Greek conquest practices

By the time you finish reading this chapter on the oldest art, you should be able to:

• Describe the concept, “ingredients,” and products of civilization
• Explain the importance of Sumer in the ancient Near East
• Recognize what agriculture has to do with the development of writing
• Discuss the excavation of art and architecture throughout the Near East
• Describe the artistic materials, techniques, subject matter, styles and conventions developed in the ancient Near East