The queen’s workshop

Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati – July 2000, April 2025

Introduction

The seals of Queen Uqnitum

Talk about how many seals we have evidence of belonging to the queen.

[from page 336]

Even if we have had relatively few container sealing fragemnts connected with the king in the palace of Tupkish and Uqnitum we do have a large number, over 1000 fragments, connected with Uqnitum and her servants. The question is how do we identify workshops connected with her? Essentially it is through variations in size, or seal cutting techniques but also variations in signs used in the inscriptions on her seals, even the use of two terms connected with her, NIN (queen) and DAM (wife).

Conserning the seal legends for example we see that the two seals of Zamena are identical iconographically but her two seals are a different size with H2 being slightly larger; that is H2 is taller and wider than H1. But more interesting is the fact that two lines of the seal inscription are diferent with one being reversed (H2) and the other (H1) not. (see graphic; GB and MK-B ” Mozan/Urkesh: A New Capital in the Northern Djezireh” 2002)

In all the seals owned directly by the queen she is depicted in a very similar manner, so much so that she is recognizable even on the smallest fragment. This is clearly the case in A1.237 where her head, through an accident of preservation, is isolated on the fragment and therefore emphasized. This is probably a head from one of the four seals and other seals where she is depicted and is characterized by her hair style. In this style the portion of her hair on top of her head is shown high already known in the corpus where she is seated facing right holding a cup; however given the consistency with which she is represented, it is possible that it is a portion of another seal belonging to her or her household. In this fragment and with diagonal lines. The rest of her hair is long and clearly braided with a braid ornament near the end. The purpose of the servant standing behind the queen in Q4 and Q6 is not clear. However the seal impressions of the nurse of Uqnitum named Zamena (H1 and H2)show that the servant standing behind Uqnitum in these seals is fixing her hair with what appears to be a comb. We do not know the purpose of this servant in Q3, Q4,and in Q6.

The hair of her attendants is held up in a bun which is a typical Akkadian hair style for both men and women. The queen’s hair appears to be decorated with a braid ornament.2 In those scenes where she is not holding a child, she is holding a cup. On her own seals she wears a tiered garment (where we have evidence for her garment) but on the seals of Zamena, her nurse, she is shown wearing a fringed robe. Therefore from our present evidence it appears that the tiered garment is viewed as a more important dress and adds to the impression that the seals of

[from page 345]

The iconography emphasizes the queen because she is shown sitting on the left in four seals (including Zamena but not included in this count the variations) either holding a child or being paid homage to (through a hand on the lap and or by an attendant who extends a long hand toward her). The large child scene may be the royal family but this is not clear because we do not have the head of the seated figure on the left. The queen is emphasized also because of the spindle behind her in all but the lyre table scene , hi the lyre-attendant scene the spindle is behind both the larger figure and the smaller attendant (or child) who is touching her lap, while in the lyre-table scene the spindle is behind the small attendant

Her seals are carved in the Deep Fringe style (need to ck if lg child is ((small child is NOT))). We don’t have enough of the bending figures scene to tell, it does have in common with the cook’s seal the iconographie feature of the bending figures over a basket (or in the case of the cook’s seal over two high necked jars in a basket). This style emphasized the three dimensionality of the figure, as well as the linear pattern of the garments by placing the fringe on the edge of the garment and by carving it deeply

[from page 346: does it go in intro?]

The small child may not be carved in the same workshop or if it is then it is carved by a less skilled carver. The small child scene shows figures with large heads as compared with the size of the bodies and also with over large eyes which take up a disproportional amount of the face. The style of the dress of the person (presumably the queen) who is holding the child is different than the others where the queen is depicted, that is she is usually shown as wearing a pleated dress but in the small child scene she is wearing a fringed garment as are the other figures in the scene and the other persons in the other scenes (fringe shown best in A5.61). Also the way the child is depicted as sitting on the lap but far away from the woman (queen?) and somewhat akwardly. (ck how the large child is sitting). The servant behind the queen has her hand held up toward the back of the head of the queen and importantly she is wearing a fringed dress which had the fringe pattern down the middle of the front and not carved on the side as in the Deep Fringe style. For all of these reasons I now think that the seals of the nurse ZAmena were carved in another workshop, one which had the possibility of carving some figures with a certain amount of detail (as in the human headed bull or the star on these seals) but which did not carve human figures with as much skill. There are two seals of Zamena. Zamena b has large heads with over large eyes and thick lips

What is the difference iconographicaly and stylistically between Zamena a and Zamena b? Zamena b has a star in the field while Zamena has a crescent between the queen and the att. behind her.

There are more seals than the Queen’s inscribed seals carved in this style. There is at least one animal combat scene (one with lion’s mane carved emphasizing the edge, A5.135, see my notes). Also the landscape scene (A5.115) is carved in this style. It shows a small tree, of the evergreen tree type, growing next to a hillock out of which another leafy type tree grows. From this hillock a large bull or more probably cow is supporting itself. The small evergreen on the left is shown with a flat central portion and deeply carved pattern on the edges. This alternation of the flat center and the deeply carved pattern on the edges is characteristic for this style

DAM B

The DAM B seals are carved in the Deep Fringe style; as can be clearly seen in Al.386. Here the chair of the queen and the two stools of the lyre player and singer are deeply patterned as are the pleats of the queen’s garment. The fringe of the large attendent facing left with a long arm is interesting. Her garment is carved so that there is a ridge down the center in the relief and on the top of that ridge the fringe starts and is carved from that point in short diagonal lines going toward the front of the garment; fringes always hang toward the front of the garment; this is also the carving technique used for the fringe of the attendent behind the queen. Therefore in both these cases the fringe is not carved on the edge of the relief but more on the surface of the relief. The eyes are carved as a raised oval with a dot in the center; the eye is large but relatively in proportion with the shape of the face and the size of the nose and lips. Heads are rather long and narrow.

DAM C

DAM c ( lyre/ table ) seals are also carved in the Deep Fringe style. The rendering of the eye is clearly seen in A1.261 where the eye of the long armed attendewnt is two carved lines not attached to each other which form an oval (see small drawing in my copy of the catalog). In this figure the mouth is carved with lips slightly apart which gives a livlier appearance; this is the case in all the figures in this DAM c seal. Her head is elongated as in all the Deep Fringe figures. Al .412 has a good example of the fringe of the attendent with a long arm over the table being deeply carved on the front edge of the figure.

DAM A

The DAM A variant of the Large Child is carved in the Deep Fringe style which is shown through the carving of the pleats in the seated figure facing left and the way the pleats are carved as they go under this figure sitting on the stool. Also the pattern of the braid of her hair is deeply carved. The example which shows the fringe down the garment of the standing attend, on the left which faces right indicates that it is down the center of the garment but that the center is a slightly raised ridge and the fringe goes from the height of this ridge down to the right and therefore the fringe is emphasized but not as deeply as the pleats.

A1.386

A1.386 is the lyre-attendent scene and shows two important aspects: the queen has her hand on her lap and is finger tip to finger tip with the small person in front of her. The attendent behind the queen has fringe down the middle of her dress and not on the edge; the queen has the pleats of her dress carved in the Deep Fringe style. Perhaps the Deep Fringe style should be called the Deep Pleated style if the fringe is not carved on the edge. A5.158 also is a good representation of the finger to finger hand representation.