Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati 2010

The discoveries of sealings belonging to Urkesh’s queen Uqnitum (king Tupkish’s wife) and of sealing AFc1, belonging to Tar&#8217am-Agade (literally, ‘She [who] loves Akkad’), the daughter of Naram-Sin (probably queen or queen mother at Urkesh [being probably mother of Urkesh’s king Ishar-kīnum: see Buccellati and Kelly-Buccellati 2005]) allows us to speculate about concepts of ‘patronage’ and ‘portraiture’ at Urkesh.

The present author, after a first introduction (paragraph 1) retracing the paths of the discoveries and describing the sealings, proposes the idea of a ‘visual communication’ displayed through glyptic materials, comparing the iconography of the seals of these two eminent women (paragraph 2).

Messages related to a dynastic program aiming to stress the power of the royal couple and the legitimate succession of their children are openly communicated via specific iconographic features and gestures; furthermore, Tar&#8217am-Agade stressed her Akkadian origins displaying peculiar scenes, “emphasizing this political message and her status as a daughter of the reigning king in Akkad” (p. 189).

Paragraph 3 focuses on economic and social roles of these women at Urkesh’s court, underlining a specific difference: “While Uqnitum was active in the circumscribed social context of Urkesh, Tar&#8217am-Agade functioned in two parallel spheres, both south and north” (p. 190); for sure, the Akkadian origin of Tar&#8217am-Agade highlights the importance of Urkesh, which strengthened its political bonds with Southern Mesopotamian entities through interdynastic marriages.

Paragraph 4 deals with a topic clearly stated from the beginning: “A Major aspect of the communication in the case of Uqnitum, is that she is, in my opinion, both subject and patron of her seals. That is, she was the subject since she is depicted in all her seals and in shown in [sic] various settings connected with her. That she was also the patron of the artist or artists who carved her seals I deduce from the fact that she is always explicitly both depicted and named in her own seals and those of Zamena” (p. 191).

Paragraph 5 discusses the idea of a ‘portraiture’ of royal women on seals, this fact leading a specific message: “In my opinion part of Uqnitum’s message is carried by the fact that she herself is depicted on her seals. These seals carry her portrait if we define portrait not so much as a specific physical representation of individuals in all their details but rather extend the definition to include a figure, identified in the text and prominently placed in a specific and identifiable context” (p. 193).

In her conclusions (paragraph 6), the author stresses again the importance of these women’s sealings to understand royal communication at Urkesh: “The distribution of the seal impressions of these two royal women of Urkesh affords us a unique glimpse into the use of glyptics as a system of communication and a mechanism for public outreach. […] These seals address the vast audience of palace retainers whose livelihood depends on their patron. […] The vehicles chosen for the transmission of their messages and the methods of transmission give us insight into their economic and social roles in the Urkesh court. In addition they allow us a glimpse at their methods of constructing their identity within a new and different social group. That they do this through the linkage of texts and iconography channeled via their role in the Urkesh administration is significant in that it allowed a large number of individuals at various social levels to receive these messages” (p. 196).

[For the discovery of Tar&#8217am-Agade’s sealing, see specifically Buccellati and Kelly-Buccellati 2002].