Browsing by Author "Van Dijk, Renate Marian"

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    The form, function and symbolism of standards in ancient Mesopotamia during the Third and Fourth Millennia BCE : an iconographical Study
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03) Van Dijk, Renate Marian; Cornelius, I.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Ancient Studies.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY: A standard can be defined as a long shaft with a sign or emblem attached to the top which may be held or which may stand on the ground. Standards are represented in Mesopotamian art from the emergence of the first city-states in the fourth millennium BCE until the first millennium BCE. This study examines how standards are depicted in the iconographic record of the third and fourth millennia BCE by examining their form, function and symbolism. Perhaps the most well-known type of standard is the battle standard, but there were also other types of standards — divine standards, royal standards, standards in ritual context, standards in judicial procedures, architectural, ritual, and city standards. The iconographic sources include glyptic art, or cylinder seals, as well as representations on vessels, inlays, plaques, stelae or stelae fragments, and rare examples of extant standards. A catalogue of all known iconographic representations of standards is provided. These examples are presented and compared, and commonalities and differences are identified and examined. The study is laid out in seven chapters. Chapter 1 provides the methodological framework for the study. Chapter 2 follows as a short background to the period under discussion, the third and fourth millennia BCE, providing a general context for the discussion. The main discussion of standards begins from Chapter 3. The standards of the four periods under consideration — namely, the Uruk, Early Dynastic, Akkadian and Neo-Sumerian periods — are discussed in Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 respectively. Each standard represented in each period is discussed in turn and some preliminary summaries and conclusions are presented. In Chapter 7 the findings from Chapters 3-6 are presented, analysed and interpreted. This entails first a discussion on the different standards themselves, then an evaluation of the different functions or the different contexts within which these standards are depicted, and thereafter a brief summary of each of the four periods under discussion is provided.