Chapter 6, The Ancient Near East, 04 — Transcript

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1. 0:00The Eshnunna statuettes are stylized and somewhat abstracted, with heavy legs and feet that
2. 0:08allow them to stand, detailed hair/beards, and similar costumes: fringed skirts for the
3. 0:15men and off-the-shoulder dresses for the women.
4. 0:20In their tiny hands, lifted up to their chests, they hold breakers that probably represent
5. 0:26libations, liquid offerings to the gods.
6. 0:30Their most immediately identifiable distinguishing characteristic, though, is their huge, round,
7. 0:38staring eyes.
8. 0:39This suggests wakefulness and attentiveness.
9. 0:44Remember that Sumerian temples weren't places where living people congregated, but waiting
10. 0:51rooms for the gods.
11. 0:54These worshipper figurines never sleep, but instead stand in permanent wakefulness, constantly
12. 1:02offering devotion to the gods on behalf of their human patrons.
13. 1:07Bitumen, by the way, which you see listed among the materials in this caption and will
14. 1:14see discussed in other objects in this chapter, is very sticky natural tar that seeps up from
15. 1:22deep in the earth.
16. 1:23If you've ever been to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, you've seen-and smelled!-it.
17. 1:30Although Sumer wasn't rich in precious and semi-precious stone, trade of their agricultural
18. 1:38resources brought considerable wealthy to some of their city-states.
19. 1:42That wealth is clear from the treasures found at the so-called Royal Cemetery in Ur.
20. 1:50It's not clear who was actually buried here, and probably not the kind of kings or queens
21. 1:58the word "royal" brings to mind.
22. 2:01What is clear is that these were very high-status individuals, with rich and very sumptuous
23. 2:07burials.
24. 2:09Among the objects found at the Royal Cemetery is this trapezoidal wooden box, inlaid with
25. 2:15shell, red limestone, and the semi-precious dark blue stone lapis lazuli, imported from
26. 2:22Afghanistan.
27. 2:23The head of the excavations, Leonard Woolley, called this piece the Standard of Ur because
28. 2:31he believed it would have originally been placed atop a pole that allowed it to be carried
29. 2:37and displayed like a flag-think of the phrase "standard-bearer."
30. 2:43It's not clear, though, what purpose this object really served, and as the textbook
31. 2:49points out, it was badly damaged when it was found, so even this reconstruction is just
32. 2:55a best guess.
33. 2:57The two large sides of the Standard of Ur have been dubbed the War side and the Peace
34. 3:03side.
35. 3:05Spend a minute with both of them and write what you notice.
36. 3:10What familiar Sumerian artistic conventions do you recognize here?