“Family Portraits. Some Considerations on the Iconographical Motif of the ‘Woman with Child’ in the art of the Third Millennium B.C.E.,”
in Marti Lionel (ed.), La famille dans le Proche-Orient ancient : réalités, symbolismes, et images, (RAI 55, Paris).
Winona Lake Indiana: Eisenbrauns, pp. 227-239.
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Alternative online version [Academia.edu]
The author discusses in this paper some concepts related to the depiction of family scenes in third-millennium BC Near East, on different supports: statuettes (both in clay and metal), glyptic tradition, clay plaques, bas-reliefs and ivory panels. First of all, the author raises a question about the interpretation of these images, stressing the important role of female figures (goddesses, queens or nurses): “The nature of these images has long been debated: whether they depict goddesses feeding a child, usually identified with a young king, or more generally women as mothers nourishing their child. On the one hand, the identification of the women as goddesses and the child as a young king clearly has strong religious and cultural implications on the role and meaning of kingship. The office of kingship is strictly and explicitly linked to the sphere of the divine; the king is adopted by a goddess and he is even nourished by her” (p. 227).
In the discussion and comparison of these iconographic elements, the author also considers some glyptic samples from Tell Mozan/Urkesh, namely the impressions of queen or queen’s household, comparing them with textual contemporary sources (mostly from Ebla): “Impressions of the queen’s seal and seals of the queen’s household, found in the storehouse of the royal palace of Tell Mozan, ancient Urkeš, show representations of woman with a child sitting on her lap. Here the seated woman has been identified with the queen Uqnītum, wife of Tupkiš, the endan (Hurrian word for king) of Urkeš. This identification is unmistakable; the cuneiform caption registers both her name and title. We are here certainly dealing with a palatial context. This is further confirmed by the archaeological context which points to a palatial use of the seals bearing the image of the queen, presumably with her son on her lap. It must be stressed that both the iconographic details and the style of the artefacts detailed above are completely different. In particular, the seals of Tell Mozan are strongly characterised by a local style in the rendering of the figures, establishing the proportions and depicting the relationships among the figures. As M. Kelly-Buccellati rightly observed, the iconography of the seals, as well as of other artefacts found in Tell Mozan, has a local origin strongly influenced and imbued by the Hurrian cultural background. […] In fact the seal impressions of Tell Mozan emphasize the importance of the figure of the queen as the mother of the heir. This peculiar role seems to be particularly stressed in the queen’s seal: Uqnītum, wife of Tupkiš, with the child on her lap is seated in front of the king of Urkeš. This family portrait has been rightly considered by M. Kelly-Buccellati as the representation and codification of the dynastic programme of the rulers of Urkeš. In particular, the presence of the queen is the necessary counterpart to guarantee a dynastic succession of the royal family. […] The seal impressions of Tell Mozan also show that the image of the queen with the child on her lap functions as a distinctive sign of officials working in the royal palace. The two seals belonging to the wet-nurse Zamena depict the queen Uqnītum with her child on her lap. Zamena stands in front of the seated queen and holds both the hand and the wrist of the child. The cuneiform caption states that the seal belongs to Zamena, the nurse of Uqnītum” (pp. 228-229, 231-232). - [A plan of the Royal Palace of Tupkish is shown in fig. 4, on p. 230. Fig. 7 on p. 233 reports one of Zamena’s sealings, while fig. 8 on p. 235 displays the sealings of Tar’am-Agade and of one unknown king of Urkesh. Table 1 on p. 234 offers a synchronisation between the reigns of Akkadian and Urkesh’s kings].
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