Modern crimes against ancient gods (and 2/3rd gods)

Sealing from the Adda seal, Sippar, Akkadian period, ca. 2300 BCE.
Image © British Museum Trustees.

If you are aware of this blog then you are probably aware that this is a sequel to the post Modern crimes against ancient goddesses from early April.  In that post I vented about the wilful misuse of modern interpreations of ancient artefacts on internet sites like Pinterest, Wikipedia and various pop history pages.  And at that time, I mentioned that one artwork, of the Mesopotamian goddess Ninhursag, came from a set of modern woodcuts that were published fifty or so years ago in a book on ancient Sumer by the scholar Samuel Noah Kramer.

Today’s post is the sequel to the earlier post, and is aimed at introducing those other woodcuts and a few other modern objects that are legion on the internet as real ancient artefacts.  These artworks are quite often variously mislabelled and abused by individuals with agendas and minimal discriminatory skills.

Again, I reiterate that my post is not aimed at contemporary artists who produce interpretations of ancient art.  I have absolutely no problem with this practice, which is as old as we are.  All art is reception and reinterpretation of some description, and our reception of ancient art is half the fun of appreciation of the past.  And, for the record, reception is not required to be clinically accurate, it can be whatever the creator envisions. 

But again this post is aimed at people who try to pass off copies, or reception of ancient art as the real deal, whether through negligence or indifference, or due to actual criminal inclination.

1)  Enki

Left: REAL: Detail from the Adda seal from Sippar, Akkadian period, ca. 2300 BCE.  Image © British Museum.  

Right: MODERN: Woodcut of Enki by Nicholas Fasciano, from Samuel N. Kramer 1961. 

To be honest I have a soft spot for this greenstone seal, or at least for the rollouts of the seal that are published.  It is stunning, so I may have to draw it one day (I have already collaborated on a drawing of Enki from it).  However, regardless of my own response, the original is a small cylinder seal that is reputedly from Sippar and dated to the Akkadian period (ca. 2300 BCE).  It was acquired by the British Museum from Sir Wallis Budge in the late 19th century after he participated in an excavation season in Iraq.  

 

The inscription on the seal names Adda, hence the name.  

The iconography on this seal shows a ritual scene that includes the gods Inana/Ishtar, Utu/Shamash, Isimo and Enki/Ea.  The focus of the action is the sun god rising between two mountains and supported on either side by Ishtar and Enki.  The god of subterranean waters, Enki, has his right foot planted on one of these mountains and his waters rise up either side of him, pouring over the earth teaming with fish.  His divine minister Isimo stands behind him with his hands raised in a gesture of piety.

The modern copy of the god Enki from the seal is by Nicholas Fasciano and is taken from Samuel Noah Kramer’s ‘History Begins at Sumer’ from 1961.  It is a more schematic design than the original, with the artist having removed some details to create a simpler image, for example: the bull’s horns of the divine crown have become sticks, the cow under Enki’s feet has been removed, and the raptor bird and clothing have way less modelling, but the final result is a very satisfactory composition.

The woodcut is, like the ‘Ninhursag’ woodcut, a favourite substitute for the real object on the internet on an eclectic range of none too picky sites from Pinterest, to the usual neo-pagan and cheerful pop history sites like Mythologynet, Realm of History and Ancient History Encyclopedia, with varying levels of accuracy and quality down to some really quite bonkers conspiracy theory pages ... no I will not be naming them … I feel some compassion for Enki and the levels to which some people have reduced him. 

One resourceful individual on Pinterest has even put the original image from Kramer’s book through photoshop and added the copyright symbol with his own name on the image as an overprint.  This activity is not recommended, as basically by international law, if the artist has not been dead for at least 50 years they (or their heirs) own the copyright of their work …  Including photographs.

Before you have an embolism over photographs you may have taken in a museum, it is no big deal taking pictures of artworks for recreational or educational reasons.  However, it is illegal to use copies of an artist’s original work to make money.  Like say selling prints or coffee cups with their artwork without paying royalties to them, or to their heirs.  Running a photo of an artwork through a digital photographic program does not give you copyright, or allow you to sell their artwork as a print … you own your photo, you don’t own rights to the artwork … so seriously, don’t be an arse.

2) Shamash

Left: REAL Utu/Shamash detail on a sealing from a 3rd mill. Mesopotamian seal. Image © British Museum.  
Right: MODERN: Woodcut of Shamash by Nicholas Fasciano, from Samuel N. Kramer 1961. 

The woodcut of the sun god, Utu/Shamash, from Kramer’s ‘History Begins at Sumer’ appears not to have the same sexy allure as Enki, so in truth it receives the bare minimum of misuse on the internet (relatively speaking), due no doubt to him not figuring greatly in the modern fairy tales of the pseudo history gang.  But it too is a lovely woodcut, so I refuse to leave him out. 

Also, just because I haven’t come across too many examples of mislabelling or misinformation associated with this woodcut, does not mean they are not out there.  That is for you to keep an eye on.

This artwork is most likely taken from a black serpentine cylinder seal from the British Museum in London.  It is mislabelled if you find references saying otherwise.  The seal was purchased by the museum from a private collector in 1873 and has absolutely no chronological or geographical context. We know nothing about it or its authenticity.  Stylistically it is however 3rd millennium from somewhere in the Mesopotamian region. 

Crystallinks use the modern copy under their heading ‘minor gods’ with other minor gods like: Ishtar, Ereshkigal, Nergal and Marduk!!!!  Which immediately brought me up short.  So here’s a handy pro tip, if a god on an ancient relief or a seal has multiple bulls horns on their crown they are a major god … a great god.  Mid range gods had less horns and minor gods only sported one set of horns …  A quite convenient god spotting hierarchy ... This is one of the best terms of reference for identifying important Mesopotamian gods, start with the crown, then look for their favourite weapon or symbolic animal. 

However, most of the gods in their list of minor gods are major gods.  Crystallinks fail iconography 101.

To close on Shamash, it seems my articles are never complete without the deranged rantings from the site Mesopotamian Gods and Kings, where the modern woodcut is used as illustration, and Utu/Shamash is rather negligently held responsible for the activities of his reputedly genetically engineered races of giant mixed-breed son-kings.  I wasn’t brave enough to click on the plethora of links in there … it is just too awful.

3)  Baal-Hadad

Left: REAL: Baal au Foudre stele from Ugarit. Image © Louvre Museum, Paris.

Right: MODERN plaque by Sacred Source.

Another popular alternative to the real object is like many of these quite innocent at its source.  It is a glossy modern copy of the imposing Baal au Foudre (Baal wielding lightning bolt) stele that was discovered by Claude Schaeffer in the early 20th century at the temple of the storm god on the Acropolis at Ugarit in coastal Syria.  The original is a respectably sized limestone stele that is now in the Louvre in Paris and that is dated to the high point of the rich trading city state of Ugarit; the Late Bronze Age, ca. 1500-1200 BCE. 

The modern copy is a plaque made by Sacred Source that is sold on various neo-pagan sites as a nice, if not overly accurate copy.  For all intents and purposes it is an innocent product of our passion for modern reception.  But on the internet the photos of the copy have predictably been manipulated to become an ancient artefact again on Pinterest, Crystallinks and various low-rent history sites. Tour Egypt even stretch the terms somewhat and use the modern copy for the goddess Anat.  

But to make matters worse, the copy has acquired a dark side via the creative imaginings of the crazy end of the fundamental religious web. 

The Phoenician god Baal was considered a demon in the later writings of Biblical scholars and this copy of the Baal au Foudre stele is used on many sites for memes making uninformed claims about false gods. 

It is probably worth noting that the Baal of Phoenicia was unlikely to be related to the earlier Baal of Ugarit, as the word simply means ‘lord’ and was applied to many local gods in the Levant in both the Bronze and Iron Ages.  Ugarit was an important Late Bronze Age state that was never part of Iron Age Phoenicia (unless you are reading out of date literature, because 100 years ago they mixed them up regularly).  The city was destroyed in around 1180 BCE and never resettled; their storm god, Baal-Hadad, will have been a separate entity.

In addition, the fundamentalist individuals are channelling their paranoia towards Islam via memes with this plaque claiming that Allah is the Phoenician false god Baal, although where they got the idea that the Levantine Baal was a moon god defeats me: he was predominantly a weather/storm god.  The Phoenician Baal at Carthage in Tunisia (800-146 BCE) may have been a moon god, but that Baal is contemporary with the beginnings of the Biblical narratives, the Ugarit stele is not.  Equally, the god Allah has his origins in the Arabian peninsular in the 8^th century of this era and is incidentally a direct descendant of the god of the Old Testament.  But I guess that is not the answer these people require. 

However, the whacky religious right can’t take all the credit for this misappropriation of Baal, as the pseudo end of the spectrum use the copy for some of their own fan fiction, like Baal … pick a Baal, any Baal … being the name for the negative Reptilians.  No, I don’t know exactly what that means … and I honestly don’t want to.

4) Gilgamesh

Left: REAL. Hero with lion, Neo-Assyrian relief from Khorsabad. Image © Louvre Museum. 

Right: MODERN. Tile of Enkidu and Gilgamesh by Neil Dalrymple. © Neil Dalrymple.

The topic of number four, is not one, but eight beautiful stoneware plaques by the British ceramicist Neil Dalrymple.  The tiles were made for a project commissioned by the Mythstories, Museum of Myth and Fable at the Morgan Library in Wem, Shropshire, in England. The aim of this project was to produce ceramic relief tablets with scenes from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a famous ancient text that is about the pursuit of immortality by a legendary king of Sumer who was believed to be 2/3^rd divine.  

The images by Dalrymple show highlights of the narrative from the epic, like Gilgamesh and Enkidu fighting the giant Humbaba, or the search for eternal life, but they are rendered in modern reception style, as the artist clearly chose to make freestanding interpretations that were independent from original Sumerian or Babylonian models.  The influence of later Neo-Assyrian palace wall reliefs is the most recognisable influence on these pieces, particularly the hero figure from Dar Sharrukin (Khorsabad) that is in the Louvre.  Otherwise they are relatively modern in approach and modelling. 

And it is probably worth mentioning that we currently do not have any identified images of Gilgamesh or Enkidu from ancient Mesopotamian art.  All objects that you may see labelled as Gilgamesh are modern interpretations of unnamed ancient hero figures.

On the web these tiles have been appropriated without citing artist by nearly every site relating to the history of ancient Mesopotamia or to crazy conspiracy theories about same.  I could not even begin to name the guilty parties here, there are simply too many.  In fact, these tiles have to be the most popular appropriations of an artist’s work almost equal to, or more than, the appropriation of the American artist Balage Balogh’s paintings of the ancient Near East, in particular his painting of ancient Ur.

 

@https://archaeologyillustrated.com/collections/the-city-of-ur-southern-iraq-2000bc/

 

However, for number four, the spectacularly poor research skill award goes to a site that ought to know better ‘Ancient World History’, which not only uses a modern reception image and does not credit the artist for his artwork, but also claims Enkidu and Gilgamesh were characters out of the Mesopotamian creation epic, the Enuma Elish. 

 

They get zero points for that truly enormous gaffe.

 

****

 

Honestly, if you are a student, or just deadly serious about knowing stuff, do not do your research on the general web. Absolutely do not search ancient images on sites like Pinterest, where anyone can post anything and say anything they like about it.  Broad reach internet history and image sites simply cannot be trusted to be accurate.  Go to digital sites created by universities, legitimate research institutes and museums, they are slightly more attentive to detail and they respect image copyright. 

Andrea Sinclair

Links

British Museum Adda seal

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=368706&partId=1

Shamash seal:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?searchText=89110&ILINK|34484,|assetId=1567753001&objectId=804877&partId=1

Louvre Gilgamesh and Baal au foudre stele

http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=21464&langue=fr

https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/hero-overpowering-lion

Baal
http://www.religionswissenschaft.uzh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_baal.pdf

Artist Neil Dalrymple

http://www.neildalrymple.com/ceramic-stoneware-sculptures/gilgamesh/

Mythstories at the Morgan Library in Wem

http://www.mythstories.com/oldmanR.html

Artist Balage Balogh

https://archaeologyillustrated.com/category/country/iraq/

Modern marine parks masquerading as ancient Egyptian archaeology

Every so often internet pages devoted to the ancient world will have a run on posts about marine archaeology sites from Alexandria, Heracleion and Canopus in northern Egypt. And it is understandable to a degree, as it is possible to slip related words like “Cleopatra” and “mysterious sunken treasure” into your clickbait headlines and to get very productive results from your audience.

And, just to be clear, this is a fabulous and interesting topic, the excavator of these sites, Franck Goddio, has a very good web page with some equally good images, that have also been taken out of context and used indiscriminately on the web, but at least these are legit images, with interesting information at the source. You can find them here

The problem is that a group of photographs from unrelated modern marine parks have become hallmarks of these posts on web pages, and these false photos are casually mixed in with images taken from the excavation web page, sometimes in greater volume than the real photos. 

My post today is basically the outcome of a new round of this nonsense occurring on the web and my deciding that I need to have a file with links to the sources debunking these images. And then I thought why not create a blog post with the links instead. As that is convenient for me to find when I need it, as well as for others.

But before we go in, it is probably worth pointing out that the images that follow are not just used for ancient Egypt. Rather, basically any whacky claim about underwater ruins or Atlantis being discovered may use one of these images, regardless of whether it is in the Pacific Ocean, Indonesia, China, the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean. These images are in fact legion in the tin hat wearing and touristy clickbait realms.  A quick image search on Google will support this statement.

1.  Bull statues in some sort of underwater temple complex

Culturally speaking these bulls are complete non-entities, as they do not appear to have been modelled on any ancient culture. To describe them as ancient Egyptian involves having no awareness of Egyptian art and assuming that because it is a bovine head with horns and a disk between them that it must be Egyptian. 

But here’s the thing, the horns are distorted into the wrong shape and the disk is too small for Egypt. I also have no idea what the object under the disk is intended to be. The body of the bull itself is rectangular and blocky … so not an Egyptian thing. They actually liked their cows with curves. Finally the architecture in the background resembles no ancient culture, it is just schematic and vague, and, pro tip, the ancient Egyptians did not build with arches, the Romans did, but that is stretching the point.. 

Also, aquarium fish photoshopped into an image do not prove it is the ocean. Although to be honest, this whole image looks like it was produced in a computer program. The top image looks like the outcome of the same design process. 

The source appears to be:  

Diving park at a whizz bang holiday resort in the Bahamas: Reef Atlantis

http://ownthereef.com/atlantis-access/activities/marine-habitat

2.  Classical looking lion with columns in the background

Or should I say, neo-classical style lion with his paw on a globe and some columns in the background.   This guy would look appropriate propping up the entrance to a city court building or library anywhere in Europe today.  However, he would not fit a temple entrance in Egypt 2000 years ago. 

 

The Egyptians liked their lions seated, and if standing in that rather arrogant pose, they preferred a traditional enemy’s head under the front paw… it says so much more … A globe was the symbol of the sun god, it does not get dominated, that would not be cool or respectful.  

 

Again the columns in the background resemble no specific ancient Mediterranean cultural style, because they don’t need to, it is a holiday park.

Florida marine park with the theme Atlantis: Neptune Society Memorial Reef

http://www.nmreef.com/reef-gallery.html

http://www.lovethesepics.com/2013/10/eerily-beautiful-underwater-sculptures-art-transformed-into-artificial-reefs-pics/

3.  Pharaoh with large pot

 

What is wrong with this picture? … As it turns out … rather a lot.

First of all, a statue of Botticelli’s Venus is in the background.  Now the original Venus is part of a very famous painting, “The Birth of Venus,“ from the Italian Renaissance.  Look it up.  It is lovely.  It is in fact a historically viral image worthy of the internet age. One way this figure might occur as a 3 dimensional statue is as a garden decoration that one can purchase from most garden supply centres all over the world.

So that says modern right there.

Then there is the pharaoh with the pot on his lap.  Seriously, where do I start?

The entire figure looks wrong, the details and the modelling are not ancient Egyptian. A statue of a seated or kneeling king is never, and I am talking never, shown with a big pot on his lap with a bit of cloth thrown in for style ... wtf ...  it would undermine his whole power over all humanity image. The proportions are wrong, with the elongated head and crown being just a tad disturbing. The uraeus snake on the crown is a lump and the jewellery he wears looks nothing like jewellery on a real statue.  

Then there is the pot, which is not Egyptian type. In fact it looks more like a planter for flowers. The hieroglyphs on this pot are cut into the clay, but the ancient Egyptians decorated their ceramic with paint. They did not cut or drag a sharp instrument over the surface.  Finally the hieroglyphs are ugly, unbalanced and they say… absolutely nothing ... because some signs are made up, some are wrong, primarily because whoever made it had no idea … Again, probably a garden centre statue.

This photo is from an underwater museum at Tarkhankut in Crimea (created in 1992) that people are just adding more objects to as it evolves. So I’m guessing some bright sparks threw in a few garden statues for lols.

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/01/underwater-museum-at-cape-tarkhankut.html

End

Beyond these three or four hackneyed internet misrepresentations that are used for the Alexandria marine excavations in Egypt, there are a plethora of photos that come up if you employ the pseudo-science trigger word “Atlantis”, and “underwater”, many of which again are from modern marine parks and resort aquariums. In particular, the Lost Chambers aquarium at the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai turns up everywhere, because the publicity dept for that project threw in some effort and cash, and produced many, many pretty images which all effectively exploit people’s passion for the past.   

Then the internet came along and exploited this just that little bit further.

The final image is a given, it is a photograph of the Giza pyramids in Egypt that has been photoshopped to within an inch of its life. There is nothing real to see here.

And to those sensible people reading this post and scratching their heads, because seriously how could anyone looking at these photographs make this mistake, regardless of an extensive knowledge of ancient artistic architecture and art, or none. They can, and they do, and they can be quite abusive towards you if you suggest otherwise.  

So, because I was sick of trying to look up this information after every encounter over the last 5 years, I wrote this piece …

Andrea Sinclair

01.07.2018