Naturalism

Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati – July 2000, March 2026

Introduction

Naturalism is an important aspect of the major styles of seal iconography from Urkesh. Many of the seal impressions excavated in ancient Urkesh display detailed and realistic figures, some of which have a distinct character. The figures can be ones found in nature or the local environment or they can be results from the seal cutter’s imagination or from historical precedents, or a combination of these elements. Some of the seals can have a mixture of both naturalistic images combined with non-naturalistic images. For instance the Kumarbi seal impression (Akc21) depicts his body and the animal standing behind him in a realistic manner but the mountain is shown very small. The naturalistic rendering takes into account the body structure of humans, and animals and deities; deities are imaged by taking these elements as well as natural elements (such sun rays) to combine in the deities image (A12.82).The artist considers also the proportions, body positions of the figures they are rendering and movements of these figures. Also important to this naturalism is the rendering of the composition of relationship of individual figures with each other as well as in entire seal compositions. Movement too is analyzed and rendered in the naturalistic aspects of the figures. This is especially important in the animal combat scenes (A16q834.1).

Naturalism in the various subjects of the seals is used by the artists in multipal ways. For instance in a seal carved in the Deep Fringe style (A9.76) is a procession that emphasizes all the figures in two ways; by positioning each figure in a wide space which allowed the seal cutter to highlight their garments and the decorative nature of these garments. And the procession itself is realistic since the figures are separated not only by a relatively wide space but also the first standing figure is characterized by the weapons that have been placed in front and in back of him thereby emphasizing the importance of this figure. The importance includes, in another way, both the first and second figures as they both have their arms pointed to the seated figure whereas the third figure only has one arm raised but the second at waist level.

Daily life

Scenes of daily life are usually depicted in a naturalistic manner and this is the case even for scenes connected with the Urkesh royal family. The scene of Zamena the royal nurse (Akc3) touching the child seated on the lap of queen Uqnitum takes place in an environment in which Uqnitum is having her hair braided! This is not the only realistic daily life scene from the court. The cook of Uqnitum Tuli has two scenes showing servants at work (Akc2 and Zsi.h11 THIS IS THE OLD NUMBER). The butcher displays his knife very prominently and holds the animal to be slaughtered. A woman servant stirs something in two necked jars which are placed in a basket. This woman and the butcher flank the inscription with the queen’s name and the animal stands below Tuli’s name in both her seals. In another royal seal (Akq1) both servants are bending over their work and the inscription with the name and title of the queen is placed over their backs. In Q1 two bending figures are holding up her seal inscription, emphasizing like all the royal seals showing the work of the attendants, the important connection between the queen and the work in the palace.

Although not a complete double register, a potter’s workshop is depicted as a secondary scene behind a seated figure (A1.364). In the lower part we see the potter working on a large necked jar while above her is a shelf with two completed necked jars. A16.167 also appears to be two potter’s at work with a small shelf with two complete vessels above them.

In seal impression A5q141 daily life is also combined with a seated figure. The two other figures placed behind this seated figure are both working, one is also seated but on a small stool stirring something in a large jar and the other in a container that may be from leather, more than likely connected with two possible loaves of bread placed above. In A6.88 we see another seated worker as well as two standing figures stirring something in a tall vessel.

Ritual scenes

Even a ritual scene can be quite naturalistic. In A15.270 the headless slaughtered bull is hanging upside down while the head is placed at the base of a column holding a large necked jar. See film of a bull slaughter.GET LINK Video clip 9-11 Bull being slaughtered (Part I https://urkesh.org/MZ/A/vc/0009/9_bull_one.htm).

The priests have just completed this part of the ritual as one holds the legs of the headless bull so it will have this reversed position and the other priest holds the knife and the tail about to continue butchering the bull. The seated woman is stirring something in a deep pot.

Movement

Movement also is another important aspect of naturalism in the Urkesh seals. Movement is common in the animal combat scenes, not only those scenes of animals fighting each other (A7.305) but also in scenes of humans fighting animals (A5.135)

As a variation on this idea of showing movement in A5.115 we see a hill with trees; this landscape is associated with a bull climbing this mountain. In the scene we have interpreted as Kumarbi he is shown as walking in the mountains as the text describes him (AKc2).

Not only animal combat but movement is also central to seals of a winged gate placed on the back of a bull, for instance A5.120. In this seal impression the bull is positioned as if prancing as the body is higher in front. The two human figures flanking the bull have their legs and arms bent as if supporting the gate on the bull’s back. However in A5.137 the bull does not move but the human figure is moving to hold the gate on the bull’s back.

Realism and surrealism [a suggestion]

The Urkesh glyptic style is marked by a strong element of naturalism, which develops along two concurrent lines:

on the one hand, there is a strong realistic trend: images depict scenes with the intent of rendering them as they are seen in reality;
on the other certain features are emphasized surrealistically, i. e., in a way that seems to go beyond reality but actually stresses certain elements of the scene in a hyper-realistic manner.

Realism

[here wold go what you have been working on already

family

banquet

“concert”

sacrifice

animal representations

how do they differ from heraldic views of ED

Surrealism

dotted eye

extended arm

Modern surrealism

eyes: Picasso Woman in an armchair
arms: Picasso Portrait of Dora Maar