Introduction

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Notes

In Workshops in intro to royal workshops discuss whether or not the royal seal designs were intended as a narrative (what would be considered narrative scenes. what could be narrative scenes in the royal workshops??? maybe some scenes from the queen’s household could be considered narrative scenes. what would be the use of narratives for these royalty??

Narrative scenes found in Uruk pd in Choga Mish and Susa). In Choga Mish scenes depict a singer and lyre player with other musicians, in this scene also pottery making.found in Uruk pd in Choga Mish and Susa). In Choga Mish scenes depict a scenes singer and lyre player with other musicians, in this scene also pottery making. (see Chogr Mish and check my article on LC3 si from Urkesh must have known about Late Chalcolithic seal designs and used them to help develop their iconography, eg lyre player and singer like LC3 si designs

could this in any way connect the Urkesh nobility (or at least Uqnitum) with Akkadian administration in Iran??? I have said that this type of iconography is only found later in the Achaemenid period.

Back to top: Introduction

Introduction

Having such a large number of broken pieces of seal impressions pressed on small clay lumps it was possible to determine their exact stratigraphic position. Two groups in particular were discarded in antiquity after opening of the sealed container; one group was excavated in A7 and found outside the western wall of the palace. These can be dated to the same period as the seal impressions found inside the palace itself. The second group was discovered in excavation unit K1, a dump on the eastern side of the main mound and dating to the ED III period. A dump of broken seal impressions was also found in A7 outside the western wall of the palace.

Within the royal palace of Tupkish large numbers of seal impressions were found in the work rooms in A1, A5, in the service courtyard A9, the kitchen A6, a work room (A15) near the monumental stone lined courtyard. Near this same courtyard we found later Akkadian seal impressions belonging to Tar’am Agade, daughter of Naram Sin in A13. Other areas within the palace held smaller numbers of seal impressions.

While the ED III seals iconography in Urkesh are connected with southern Mesopotamia, the Akkadian period seal impressions that we have excavated in Urkesh often are carved with a new iconography. This is not only for the royal seals but also for scenes which have no concurent inscriptions.

Good examples of this is are seal impression showing a potter’s workshop (A1.364) and impressions we have interpreted as the deity who lived in Urkesh, Kumarbi, walking in the mountains (A1c1 a composit from impressions A1.58, A1q894.1a and 1b). Both of these scenes are only partial but no trace of inscriptions were found with them.

Even with this new iconography because of the large number of impressions connected with the palace it is possible to pursue research questions that often are missing in the record from excavated sites. So for instance I could follow avenues that gave evidence regarding not only single iconographic reconstructions but also styles in use in the Urkesh royal household. These are found here in the section on Styles.

Also avenues leading to a study of workshops were available in Urkesh. So groups of seal carvers using specific ways of carving as well as specific subjects could be individuated. These are discussed below under Workshops.

An example of this connection between a style and the royal workshops can be seen in the Dotted Eye style. In the examples we have of the queen and kings seals we see elements connected to this style. We can connect other seals to this style as well because seal carvers employed it to carve uninscribed seals. This seems to indicate that royal seals and non-royal seals could be carved in the same workshop.

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