A Companion to Assyria

by Eckart Frahm

  Apart from this statue and possibly some of the uninscribed statues already described, the only art that survives from the Old Assyrian period is seals and their impressions. Although few Old Assyrian seals and only one impression have been published from Ashur itself, a vast number of impressions were preserved on documents belonging to Assyrian merchants living in the trading colony at Kaniš. The corpus includes impressions from the seals of five Old Assyrian kings. The earliest, impressed on a number of tablets from Kaniš, is inscribed with a seven‐line text that covers most of the surface of the seal: “Assur is king, Ṣilulu, viceroy (ENSI) of Assur, son of Dakiki, herald (NIMGIR) of the city Ashur, [his servant]” (adapted from Grayson 1987: 13). The remainder of the seal is carved with an image of a triumphant bearded male figure facing left, wearing a rounded cap and short kilt with diagonal lower hem, carrying a scimitar in his right hand and an oxhide shield and spear in his left, and with his raised left foot planted on the prone body of a defeated enemy. The field in front of him is carved with a sun disk nested in a moon crescent, an unidentifiable quadruped, a disembodied human head, and a star (Özgüç and Tunca 2001: pl. 54).

  The pose of the main figure ultimately derives from that of the victorious king in the stele of the Akkadian king Naram‐Sîn, but Eppihimer observed that the motif reappeared in the Ur III period in a now‐lost image of king Šu‐Sîn (2037–2029 BCE) and in a representation of the god Tišpak on a seal of Šu‐iliya, king of Ešnunna (ca. 2026–2010 BCE; Eppihimer 2013: 42, fig. 8; Frayne 1997: 311). The closest surviving visual parallel for this figure is on an unprovenanced late Ur III or Isin‐Larsa seal where a kilt‐clad triumphant king with left foot raised atop a defeated foe appears beside a royal introduction scene (Moortgat 1966: 110, no. 292). The subject of the Ṣilulu seal, therefore, is attested around the turn of the second millennium, and the filling motifs point to the Isin‐Larsa style.

  Who is this Ṣilulu, viceroy of Assur? The documents on which the seal was impressed belong to a later owner, the Assyrian merchant Ṣilulu, son of Uku, who was active in the first half of the 19th century BCE during the reigns of the late Old Assyrian kings Sargon I to Naram‐Sîn (Lassen 2012: 164–7). This Ṣilulu was using a distinguished namesake’s seal, which he altered by erasing the final line of the inscription (“his servant,” perhaps together with another personal name), and conceivably by adding filling motifs to bring the seal up to date. Since the Old Assyrian royal dynastic sequence is well‐documented from Puzur‐Aššur I (ca. 2000 BCE) onward, the seal’s original owner must have ruled in the short period between Zarriqum and Puzur‐Aššur I. Rather than adding another ruler to the three already known from the Assyrian King List for this period, Ṣilulu is usually identified with the king list’s similar‐sounding Sulili, making him the first independent ruler of Old Assyrian Ashur (Lassen 2012: 164‐167; Eppihimer 2013: 42). This is consistent with the genealogy in the seal’s inscription, where Ṣilulu does not claim royal ancestry. The identification of Ṣilulu as the first Old Assyrian king would also provide a context for another noteworthy feature of his seal inscription: in contrast to the groveling praise of a foreign king in Zarriqum’s Ištar temple text, Ṣilulu, for the first time, triumphantly proclaims, “Assur is king!” The figure on the seal, whether it represents the god or his viceroy, embodies this triumph.

  The Old Assyrian royal seals have been thoroughly studied by Lassen (2012: 210–23) and Eppihimer (2013), and only the main points will be summarized here. Impressions survive from four seals of three kings of the Old Assyrian dynasty: two different seals of Erišum I (1972–1933 BCE), and one seal each of Sargon I (1917–1878 BCE; Figure 3.3a) and Naram‐Sîn (1869–ca. 1836 BCE). All four seals show the same subject, a royal introduction scene. The principal male figure faces left, holding a cup in his raised right hand, wearing a flounced garment and plain rounded cap, seated on a cushioned stool. Behind him stands a suppliant goddess with horned crown, flounced garment, and upraised arms. He is approached from the left by another goddess, similarly dressed, leading by the hand a male figure in a long plain garment that exposes the forward leg, and who is either bald or wears a tight rounded cap. A sun disk nested in a moon crescent is between the seated and leading figures, and in three of the seals there is a crescent between the leading goddess and worshipper. Behind the worshipper is a six‐line inscription that reads “RN, viceroy of Assur, son of RN, viceroy of Assur.”

  At first glance, this seems to be a straightforward Ur III introduction scene showing an official being presented to the king, but Lassen and Eppihimer both observe that the presence of a suppliant goddess behind a seated king is exceedingly rare in both Ur III and Old Assyrian glyptic (Lassen 2012: 216; Eppihimer 2013: 40). This suggests either that Erišum reused or copied a very rare Ur III seal, or that he added the suppliant goddess to an otherwise common scene. Either way, considering the abundance of Ur III seals with the standard composition available to him, his choice of this distinctive composition must have been deliberate (Eppihimer 2013: 42–3).

  The suppliant goddess may also be a clue to another puzzle posed by these seals: who are the male figures? They look like a seated Ur III king and standing official, so the natural assumption would be that the seated figure is the Assyrian ruler. However, the inscriptions on Ur III presentation scenes typically name both the king and the standing official, but the only names here are Assur and his viceroy, leaving the identity and purpose of the standing figure a mystery. Another possibility is that the seated figure is the god Assur, the true king of Ashur, depicted here as a king without obvious divine attributes (unless the suppliant goddess is his attribute). The standing figure would then be his human viceroy. The problem with this, of course, is that gods typically are depicted with divine attributes precisely to distinguish them from humans. A third possibility, Lassen suggests, is that the Old Assyrian kings saw the royal presentation scene as a time‐honored expression of power relationships, employing it as a symbol rather than a narrative (Lassen 2012: 217–20; Eppihimer 2013: 43–5).

  Though the subjects of all four royal seals are identical, their styles are different. The figures in both of Erišum’s seals are carved in the modeled, relatively naturalistic Isin‐Larsa style. Those in the seals of Sargon I and Naram‐Sîn, however, have angular limbs and faces, and hands shaped like dinner forks. These are some of the characteristics that distinguish the local Old Assyrian style from the Isin‐Larsa. By far the largest corpus of Old Assyrian seal impressions come from Kaniš level II – Teissier’s indispensible catalog provides drawings of impressions from 277 Kaniš seals in this style (Teissier 1994: 212–23).

  Lassen (2012) has recently carried out a groundbreaking analysis of the styles, ownership, and dating of these seals, and a few of her principal findings are summarized here. She observed that a number of the Old Assyrian seals can be grouped into two major sub‐styles. The first, which she termed OA 1, is characterized by elongated figures with angular, linear features and the usual fork‐like hands. Their subject is royal presentation scenes derived from the Ur III tradition, but unlike Ur III seals, at Kaniš a goddess always stands between the worshipper and the seated figure, even if she is not leading him by the hand. These seals always have filling motifs, and to the usual Isin‐Larsa repertoire is added a small rectangular altar in the shape of a bull, usually with a cone on its back, which often replaces the disk and crescent in front of the face of the seated figure. The compositions stick to the ground line and do not incorporate motifs from Syria or Anatolia.

  More than half of the OA 1 seals have inscriptions that identify the owners. Based on these inscriptions and on the content of the sealed documents, Lassen determined that OA 1 seals were always owned by Assyrians, and of the more than 40 owners who can be identified, all but one were men. Many of these owners had high social status, and some were first‐generation traders. Based on sealed eponym‐dated texts, Lassen showed that OA 1 was the only Old Assyrian seal style in use at Kaniš during th
e initial phase of the trade, from the reign of Erišum I to midway through the reign of Sargon I, after which it began to be replaced by other Old Assyrian types. Because the OA 1 seals are associated with Assyrians in the early stage of the trade and lack foreign motifs, Lassen suggests either that they were brought from Ashur by their owners, or carved by Assyrian seal cutters at Kaniš (Lassen 2012: 48–9, 57–63, 88, 164–80; 2014).

  One of the most interesting features of the OA 1 seals is the introduction of the bull altar. This motif has sometimes been assumed to have been borrowed from Anatolia, but Lassen demonstrates that its earliest attested occurrences are in OA 1 seals, thirty‐five years before it began to appear in Anatolian seals. This points to the bull altar being an Assyrian invention. She suggests that it may be a visual symbol of Assur or his temple, observing that when Erišum I rebuilt the Assur temple, he named it “Wild Bull.” Furthermore, the Old Assyrian king Ilušuma’s identification of the city of Ashur with Mount Abih suggests that the cone atop the bull altar may refer to the god as well (Lassen 2012: 170, 179; Grayson 1987: 17, 32).

  In later Old Assyrian seals, the bull altar becomes a prominent object of worship in its own right (Teissier 1994: 212, nos. 2–19). A variant of the bull altar, depicted as a mountain with four legs and a bull head, even appears as the focus of veneration by a suppliant goddess on a seal that was found in Acemhöyük but probably originated in Ashur (see Figure 3.3b). It is labeled “seal of the god Assur,” so at least in this case, the bull altar should depict the god himself (Özgüç 1980: fig. III‐5a, b; Lassen 2012: 224–7). If the identification of the bull altar as an attribute of the god Assur is generally true, then its occurrence before the face of the seated figure in OA 1 royal presentation scenes presumably indicates that this seated king is Assur. This in turn may account for the addition of the standing goddess in front of the worshipper – perhaps a mortal worshipper could not face this god without an intercessor.

  Lassen’s second major substyle for Old Assyrian seals, which she terms OA 2, features squat figures that are even more stylized and angular than OA 1. These seals are typically smaller than OA 1 and other contemporary styles. The OA 1 type of royal presentation scene remains the most common subject, now often accompanied by a secondary subject of animals, small humans, or deities. New primary subjects that appear in OA 2 seals include contests, worship scenes in which figures stand before a deity or divine symbols, and scenes featuring wheeled vehicles. The OA 2 style shows strong Anatolian influence, with compositions that often dispense with ground lines, allowing some figures to float above others, and the inclusion of Anatolian motifs, such as birds and rows of animals. Some of the seal designs were apparently mass‐produced, with multiple seals having nearly‐identical designs. Very few OA 2 seals are inscribed. The majority of the 24 identifiable owners were Assyrian men, but some were owned and used by Anatolians. Examples on eponym‐dated texts show that OA 2 style seals first appeared at Kaniš around 1890 BCE, midway through the reign of Sargon I and, together with large numbers of Old Assyrian seals that cannot be assigned to any particular sub‐style, soon virtually replaced the OA 1 style until the end of the karum II phase around 1836 BCE. Lassen argues that all of these differences from the OA 1 seals strongly suggest that the OA 2 seals were manufactured in Anatolia (Lassen 2012: 48–9, 63–79, 88–9, 180).

  The few cylinder seals found at Ashur that seem to date to the Old Assyrian period show the same range of styles as in the sealings from Kaniš. Three seals, all of lapis lazuli, were found in Grave 20 together with a variety of jewelry and metalwork that dates to the late third to early second millennium (Haller 1954: 10, Taf. 10a–d; Harper et al. 1995: 44–62; Hockmann 2010: grave 37, 111–13, Taf. 10, 58–63). The earliest of the three is unusual in having its ends carved into the shape of the metal caps that sometimes adorned seals. The subject is a standing goddess leading a male worshipper into the presence of a seated goddess, carved in the Ur III modeled style. An inscription gives the name of the owner and his father. Aruz observed that the surface seems abraded as if in preparation for recarving (VA 5800b; Aruz, in Harper et al. 1995: 62; Hockmann 2010: 76–7, Taf. 61–2).

  Another seal from Grave 20 initially showed a similar presentation scene in the Isin‐Larsa style, with a standing goddess leading a male figure toward a seated goddess with a disk and crescent before her face (Figure 24.2). The Isin‐Larsa attribution is indicated by the filling motifs of a ball‐and‐staff and vase between the two goddesses, and originally there was probably an inscription behind the seated goddess. During the Old Assyrian period, the presumed inscription was erased and replaced with a male worshipper facing a bull altar with a ball‐and‐staff and vase below it and a disk above. A small figure between the standing goddess and worshipper was probably added at this time as well. With these additions, this Isin‐Larsa seal was transformed into an Old Assyrian karum II‐type seal (VA 5364; Aruz, in Harper et al. 1995: 60–1; Hockmann 2010: 76–7, Taf. 61–2).

  Figure 24.2 Ashur, cylinder seal and modern impression showing a presentation scene and male worshipper facing a bull altar, from Grave 20, Old Assyrian Period, lapis lazuli, H: 2.1 cm; Berlin, VA 5364.

  Source: Reproduced with permission of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Vorderasiatisches Museum, Foto: Olaf M. Teßmer.

  The third seal from Grave 20, again with a heavily abraded surface that may indicate recarving, has a standard Old Assyrian presentation scene. Three standing figures of undetermined gender face right, the left arm of the first and third raised, that of the middle folded across the waist. They face a seated king, who holds a cup and has a crescent in front of his face. Behind the king stands a male figure with a conical hat. The squat proportions, linear style, stylized facial features, and Anatolian pointed hat all point to an Old Assyrian date at the height of the karum II trade (VA 5368; Aruz, in Harper et al. 1995: 61–2; Hockmann 2010: 76–7, Taf. 61–2). Together, these three seals exemplify both the sources of the Old Assyrian style in Ur III and Isin‐Larsa glyptic, and the transformation of those styles in Ashur and Kaniš under the influence of local and foreign traditions.

  A hematite seal found in the remains of a mud brick wall of the Sîn temple is an excellent example of the mature Old Assyrian style of the mid‐19th century BCE. It depicts two male worshippers with upraised left arms and fork‐like hands facing a bull altar, behind which is a recumbent gazelle and star. The figures, formed of patterns of hatched lines, are extremely stylized (VA 7945; Moortgat 1966: 130, no. 505, Taf. 61; Werner 2009: 28, cat. no. 29, Taf. 14). Two more seals seem to date to this period as well. One, of matt‐gray limestone, shows a standing figure facing a seated god with a snake behind his back, and a second group of two standing figures facing a standing god. The carving is so stylized that the figures are barely recognizable (VA 5185; Moortgat 1966: 131, no. 512, Taf. 61). The other, of hematite, is an Anatolian‐influenced composition showing a standing man before a seated god who, unusually, faces right and sits on a lion. Between them are a small worshipper, a disk and crescent, and an offering table piled with three animals. Behind the god a kneeling man and pair of crossed animals float above a recumbent gazelle. The figures again have substantial areas of hatching (VA 4243; Moortgat 1966: 131, no. 513, Taf. 61).

  Šamši‐Adad I (1808–1776 BCE)

  The rule of Šamši‐Adad I overlaps with the early Old Babylonian period in the south, and this is reflected in the appearance of Old Babylonian style seal designs in Ashur. Šamši‐Adad’s own royal seal is known only from partial impressions that favor the inscription, which reads “Šamši‐Adad, beloved of the god Assur, viceroy of the god Assur, [son of] Ila‐kabkabuhu” (Grayson 1987: 61). Only the two figures adjacent to the inscription are preserved: the standing king facing right towards a suppliant goddess who faces left, with a gap between them that probably included one or more additional figures. Eppihimer observed that the garment and pose of the king parallel those of Hammurabi in his law stele, and therefore Šamši‐Adad to
o may be facing a deity who, based on the text, should have been the god Assur (Eppihimer 2013: 49, fig. 11; Collon 1988: 47–8, no. 173).

  One popular Old Babylonian type, contest scenes, is represented at Ashur by a beautifully‐modeled hematite seal showing two upright lions attacking a gazelle standing upright between them. The lions are in turn pulled back by two six‐curled heroes. The remaining space is occupied by a kneeling hero wrestling with a lion griffin (VA 4236; Moortgat 1966: 126, no. 467, Taf. 57). More typical are three seals that show presentation scenes, but now the god wears a garment that exposes the forward leg, which steps up on an object. All three feature Šamaš and all are carved in a naturalistic modeled style. One, a lapis lazuli seal from Tomb 35, shows a ruler standing before Šamaš (VA 4294; Haller 1954: 113, Taf. 23 g; Hockmann 2010: grave 13, 77, 102, Taf. 43). Another, of hematite, shows the same subject, with a second figure standing behind the ruler (VA 4225; Moortgat 1966: 118, no. 376, Taf. 47). The third, also hematite, has two subjects: the standing ruler offering a lamb to Šamaš, and two bald worshippers facing Marduk, who has a ring and rod in his outstretched right hand and his foot on a mušḫuššu‐dragon (VA 4237; Moortgat 1966: 120, no. 396, Taf. 50).

  A similar subject, but carved in the linear, heavily‐hatched Old Assyrian style, is found on a hematite seal from Grave 19. A male worshipper holding an unidentifiable offering faces a god who stands on a griffon and holds a forked thunderbolt. Behind the god are a scorpion, a standing male, and a snake, while a kneeling monkey and suppliant goddess are behind the worshipper. All of these motifs are familiar from the Anatolian‐influenced karum II seals, as are the angular figures and hatched fill, but the composition with the focus on a central standing god is typically Old Babylonian, so this seal is probably to be dated to the karum Ib period around the time of Šamši‐Adad I (VA 7831; Moortgat 1966: 131, no. 516, Taf. 61; Hockmann 2010: Grave 63, 76–7, 129, Taf. 109).