Lapis lazuli inlays on the Standard of Ur, Royal tombs of Ur .British Museum, image Wikipedia.
Blue
I have a problem
with using modern language when talking about ancient topics. Admittedly it is impossible to write a
coherent article in English without using words specific to my language. However, that being said, the foremost problem
that I have is the outcome of studying a foolish amount of dead languages (and
a couple of live ones). So that, as a result, I am well aware that you
cannot translate single words directly across cultures.
Different cultures and their languages frame language differently. They don’t just frame it differently, they have whole different meaning ranges for words that a modern dictionary might arbitrarily choose to translate one on one, or provide three similies for. This is particularly problematic for abstract or quasi-abstract concepts. After all, a concrete noun like ‘cow’ is more or less a large female mammal with horns in any language, although subtleties might vary. However, concepts like colour, that is an idea imposed on a perception of the human eye are entirely subjective and culturally specific.
Mušḫuššu dragon with blue setting from Neo-Babylonian Babylon, ca. 600 BCE
Copenhagen museum. Image A. Sinclair.
One of my
personal gripes that will inspire lengthy rants at the computer on a Sunday
night is related to ancient colour and the debate about colour values in the
ancient Near East.
So, before we even
approach the vocabulary and issues relating to this topic, it is important for
me to emphasise that by using contemporary English words for colour, like red,
blue or yellow, we are already on very shaky ground. And by using these words we are imposing our values on another culture and language, while simultaneously pushing the
audience reading our work into narrow thinking without even introducing the
linguistic issues.
Therefore, I
would like you to adjust your thinking away from a world where shades of colour
have been completely deconstructed by post-industrial studies of pigment and
dyes. The modern rules of colour theory
do not apply to pre-industrial cultures.
This means that I want you to set aside the idea that all colour
consists of a hue-wheel involving red
‒ orange ‒ yellow ‒ green ‒ blue ‒ purple in gradations depending on mixture
and saturation. I also want you to view
the word ‘blue’ with extreme caution.
Put it all
aside, the colour spectrum does not belong here, because this idea is the
outcome of industrialisation. It is not
wrong per se, but it skews our
ability to look backwards in time. In
pre-industrial societies terms for colour are the result of their physical
environment, and their experience of this, rather than 150 years of science,
and therefore they are framed within different conceptual categories with
different boundaries.
I want you to forget this basic colour model. Colour wheel from Goethe 1809
Farbenkreis zur Symbolisierung des menschlichen Geistes und Seelenlebens
This means
‘blue’ in an early culture simply may not mean what you think of as being within
the normal range of blue.
In
addition, before continuing, I would like you to briefly recall the last time
you disagreed with a friend or family member over whether a sock was greenish,
green-blue, blue green, bluish or turquoise.
Colour, regardless of language, is a very subjective issue, even without
external factors like how much light or shadow is present or of physiological
issues like say colour blindness.
Now that
that has been established we can move back to the topic: the carry on
about whether or not there was a concept of blue in the ancient Near East.
So, how can we examine the value of a colour in a culture
from approximately 4000 years before our own time?
There are a
couple of methods that archaeologists and historians use to do this. The foremost is examining the sign system and
the usage of terms in extant written texts. Next in line comes visual
comparison, which involves comparing artefacts and artworks for examples of the use of
a coloured material and the intention conveyed by this.
After those, there are a variety of
anthropological methods that may be applied, such as comparison with values and
terms from other living or historical cultures.
Finally, it is quite important to be aware of their physical environment;
what materials, minerals, plants and animals made their world.
Of these
methods currently the textual method and a modern linguistic/anthropological
theory dominate discussion of Near Eastern colour value.
Lapis lazuli. Image Wikipedia Commons
Beginning with theory
Discussion
of colour terms in the Bronze Age is often dependant on the Berlin and Kay model of colour term
evolution that was published in the 1970s. This anthropological model studied an
arbitrary group of modern minor languages and from this argued that all languages
evolve a lexicon of colour terms in a consistent sequence of seven stages: from
a pair; black and white, to red, to green then yellow, or yellow then green, to
blue and then brown, followed by other secondary and tertiary hues.
While it is
a convenient model, it is also a burden, as it functions under narrow
definitions of colour (our terms), and the validity to
ancient cultures is disputed, as the sample groups used were small and all are post-industrial. Basically it models
what we call the primaries and secondaries as coming first and the tertiaries
as derived terms coming later as language developed. However, at a simplistic level the model works,
in that in pre-industrial developing societies, red, black and white are very
dominant in the visual repertoire, but this usage may also be argued to be
embedded in their physical environment (access) and what they valued most.
In the
entire Near East in the 4th and 3rd millennia, the visual
arts were dominated by the colours that were readily achieved by using natural
materials like charcoal and bitumen, gypsum and red ochre. In the early 3rd
millennium another colour was ‘invented’, green-blue frit (matt) and faience
(shiny), and in Egypt and
the Near East workshops were able to add this copper
based pigment and glazes to their visual repertoire.
However, at the same time
lapis lazuli also acquired significance for decorating small objects, often
supplanting black in simple inlays combined with red and white. And here is the problem, on prestige objects lapis
lazuli most often replaces black, inferring inclusion in this value range in ancient
Sumer (and incidentally also in Egypt).
Cuneiform
If you look
up any (credible) text on the value of blue in cuneiform you will be given the
signs that make the word for the precious stone lapis lazuli in Sumerian –> ZA.GIN3
(also written za.gìn) and the later Akkadian word –> uqnȗ.
Both of these
terms employ the same signs in the cuneiform script; ZA ‘bead/stone’ and GIN3 (KUR) ‘mountain’*, but these two signs are transliterated as ZA.GIN3
or uqnu depending on the literary
context and cultural time frame (Akkadian dominated the Middle Bronze to Iron
Ages, Sumerian preceded Akkadian, but remained in written use after it ceased
to be spoken).
*Edit: I have been reliably informed by Assyriologist Piotr Michalowski that in this context GIN3 is not to be read as 'mountain', and rather it is an unidentified loan word.
Early writing of ZA.GIN3
Together these two signs ZA.GIN3 make the Mesopotamian word
for lapis lazuli. This name is
erroneously regarded to be a derived colour term in literature, because it is
from a concrete object, a precious stone, and core colour terms must be
abstract according to the Berlin and Kay model. But in fact, all colour terms in Sumerian (the
original language) were derived from concrete terms: The sign for ‘white’, UD
is from ‘sun’ and originally more about light than colour. ‘Black’, MI is from ‘storm’, so ‘dark’, ‘green-yellow’, SIG7 is from ‘plant’, and ‘red-orange’, SU4/SI4 is blood. In addition, lapis lazuli is attested with its
etymology and value at the same time that the language and early sign system
were being refined in southern Mesopotamia.
I am not percieving a significant difference for
lapis lazuli, as a base term or ‘derived’, except that we in English have a
model of differentiating between, for example, ‘blue’ and ‘turquoise’, because
one is deemed a core term and the other a term for a stone that has come to
indicate a colour. However, linguistically
all language stems from concrete terms like stone, sun, plant, so I reject the
rationale that ZA.GIN3 as a colour term is necessarily a later development, and
therefore that ‘blue’ by extension is a later idea. However, it cannot be disputed
that its use evolved. That is how
language works.
ZA2/ NA4,
These two
signs that make the word for lapis lazuli may also (but not always) be preceded by a
determinative sign that points the reader specifically in the direction of the medium;
‘stone’ ZA2 or NA4,
and abnu in Akkadian.
However, this is a later development, in early administrative texts it was not used, but the early use of ZA to mean stone had dropped out by the time that determinatives were introduced to scribal practice. In even later texts the two signs that make zagin can take other classifiers to indicate a blue product, like a
textile determinative when they refer to textiles, or wool if dyed
wool. Basically as language and technology
developed so did the flexibility of the word.
Another handy
pointer was the use of qualifiers on the term ZA2ZA.GIN3
to identify whether the ‘stone’ was from the mountains (real lapis lazuli) or
from a kiln (glass). But the subtleties
of identifying synthetic lapis are still disputed and they only apply to the
period after glass became a common royal technology in the ancient Near East,
so after about 1500 BCE. It is also
worth mentioning that the sign ZA2 ‘stone’ is also not within our modern value
range and included not just glass, faience and frit, but also amber, mussel shell
and pearls. Again, our narrow one value translation
is an awkward substitute for the ancient value.
Can
you find ZA.GIN3 in this administrative tablet from Adab?
Early Dynastic IIIA, ca. 2600‒2500 BCE. Image cdli P252035.
However, even
with this quite specific pointer, a determinative, and descriptive qualifiers, it
is not precisely possible to be sure you are looking at the colour, an abstract
concept or stone when you see the signs without a ZA2 determinative
in Mesopotamian texts, because it is not always there to indicate the stone. The reading therefore is very much dependant
on context. And this is where I come
back to the discussion I began with, because when this term is employed in a
text it may never entirely lose its original value.
The core
value of a precious stone from distant mountains came first and sits in the
background of any abstract use in later mythological language, be it for colour
or for purely abstract notions like lustre or purity. Sumerian and Akkadian had many abstract terms
for lustre or radiance, which were used generously in all mythological and cult
texts. So when lapis was employed abstractly you can assume it still had its
own subtle value, quite distinct from the usual term for brilliant; UD – namru which was in fact ‘white’ or
‘sunlight’. So a bright solar radiance, particularly used to describe the divine
power of high gods and of kings. I for one
find radiance inappropriate for ZA.GIN3, because UD is grounded in an idea of
radiating light.
The Moon god NANNA’s journey to Nippur
Nibru lay ahead of the offerings, Tummal
lay behind them. At the Shining (ZA.GIN3)* Quay, the quay of Enlil, Nanna-Suen finally docked the
boat. At the White (UD) Quay, the quay of Enlil, Ashimbabbar finally docked the
boat. (source etcsl)
*Here the translation of ZA.GIN3 as ‘shining’ misses the play on light and dark that is peppered
through the myth. The translator opted for white for the ‘UD’ Quay, because
poetically repeating adjectives meaning ‘radiant’ would have seemed clumsy.
However, in
Mesopotamia dark and shiny was a meaningful and
magical concept associated with gods and holy objects. When ZA.GIN3 was used to describe objects like a crown, a gilded chariot or a divine mace
you can assume regardless of determinative that it was an object that
was made using lapis or a lapis look alike. And like lapis, these materials
were a shade somewhere between very dark purple through to deep blue…. And
shiny…. Which brings us to the likely colour range of the term when it is used
in literature and administrative texts.
Lapis lazuli plaque of the thunderbird Imdugud, from the so-called 'Treasure of Ur' found in
the pre-Sargonic palace at Mari. Early Dynastic. Image frontispiece to Parrot 1968, Mari IV.
Values for lapis: The real world
I rummaged
and rummaged in various texts, but must confess that this category was a wash out. There are few natural world references in
texts that use this stone or its abstract values, beyond those already
mentioned (and they are luxury products, stones, textiles, wool). Domestic or wild animals are not described
with coats, wool, scales or feathers of lapis colour.
The only exception to this comes from two myths. One
employs zagin to describe the colours of a
peacock of the goddess Nanshe and the other is a description of the
cattle herd
of Nanna, which were ‘dark like translucent zagin and white like
moonlight’. And once again a text associated with the moon god uses a
play on dark and light.
However, both these examples contain animals that arguably do not belong
to the natural
world.
Zagin was similarly not used to describe human
hair (stop right now, Gilgamesh does not count, he was semi-divine). Human hair was instead always described using
MI/GI6, Akkadian ṣalmu, ‘dark brown – dark – black’. To reinforce this value,
the Sumerians often referred to themselves as the black-headed people. So, instead
lapis lazuli is most visible in mythological texts as a personification of
divinity or otherworldliness, sometimes the stone, sometimes a hue, sometimes an abstract
idea, but none of these are necessarily mutually exclusive, the signs remain the same. It was reserved for the hair and beards of
kings, of heroes like Gilgamesh and of gods alone, and of course for their magical objects.
May the real lapis stand up: Otherworldly value
I choose to
use ‘otherworldly’ here because the rationale that lapis lazuli was associated
with celestial divinity is neat, and supported by the pyrite sparkles that it
sometimes contains, but ‘celestial’ or ‘heavenly’ is a narrow word range and simply
does not represent the range of value of this precious mineral in Mesopotamian
mythology, funerary culture and cult.
That being
said, ZA.GIN3 could be used to describe the dark glory of the midnight sky in literature,
such as for the background to the moon god Nanna in his glorious radiance at night or
the sun god Utu breaking through darkest night at dawn. But the emphasis here is on contrasting
magical radiances: pure light against pure darkness. It
could also be used as a poetic metaphor
for the demon infested darkest hour of the night ‘the zagin crown of
night’. However, if you were wondering about the blue of the
sky in daytime, it was within the SIG7/warqa, ‘yellow – tan – green – blue’
range.
Lapis
lazuli was equally heavenly when used to describe the holy shrine of Marduk in
the second level of heaven, but it was not used to describe the heavens
themselves in the same text. For its other
associations with gods, the goddess Inana was indirectly associated with zagin.
While her range of colour related epithets varied as
diversely as the goddess herself and as a general rule 'dazzling ‒ white' and 'terrifying
‒ red' dominate her titles, due no doubt to various complex aspects of
this goddess, descriptions of her physical
environment, her temples and her bodily adornment are all lavish with zagin.
Gold and lapis lazuli necklace of queen Puabi from the Royal tombs of Ur.
Early Dynastic III, ca. 2400 BCE. Image © Pennsylvania Museum B176694.
Her
jewellery in the myth of her Descent to the Underworld is pointedly named as
lapis, and directly associated with her powers.
Her temples at Aratta and Umma were the E2-ZA.GIN3, the ‘zagin/dark-lustrous house’. At Akkad the E2-INANA, the ‘house of Inana’, was
‘of pure zagin’. In the
myth of Enmerkar and En-suḫgir-ana her bridal bed is strewn with zagin blossoms, which the ETCSL translates as ‘pure’. However, the translation is poetic and context
based. The written signs remain the same; plant determinative + ZA.GIN3,
but this is usually interpreted as conveying ‘pure’ or ‘fresh’, rather than a
blue flower. Equally, this description
of a divine bedchamber extended to the goddess Bau and other holy of holies in
divine dwellings.
The use of lapis lazuli
for holy places was not exclusive to Inana and the mythical temple of Nanshe
was named the ‘Zagin Temple’. The ‘Mountain Temple’
of Enlil at Nippur was ‘zagin’, but this may be translated as the ‘shining E2-KUR’ in some texts, and in others ‘the lapis mountain’. In the myth of his journey to Nippur Enki constructed
his own temples with silver or gold and ZA-GIN3. Temples of other gods were compared to ZA.GIN3
in
their praises; the Giguna shrine of Ninḫursag at Kish had ‘lapis lazuli
appearance’, perhaps here a dark glowing appearance, while the temple of
Nisaba
at Eresh was both the E2-ZA.GIN3 and ‘ornamented with lapis’.
In two Early Dynastic II
texts from Girsu, Urukagina of Lagash emphasised the crimes of his enemy the
king of Umma by claiming that he stripped every temple of its lapis lazuli. The Amorite
king Apil-Sin commemorated his 4th
year by building the city walls of Babylon
with ZA.GIN3. Regardless
of material or colour, or indeed both, that may be referred to in these
texts, that is a truly extravagant way to build a temple or to face a wall. Blue tiles, whether glazed or the actual precious
stone, were unfathomably decadent in the
Bronze Age. This made them the exclusive
preoccupation of gods and kings and not a day to day phenomenon, unless you
were the poor peasant ploughing your field near Babylon in 1850 BCE.
*I have not included paint pigment here, because
it would be the wrong hue. Before 1500 BCE 'blue' was achieved using
copper ore and it was therefore under SIG7. Also ultramarine, the pigment made from ground lapis lazuli is not attested
from Bronze Age Mesopotamia and the earliest evidence from Egypt and the Aegean is dated between 1500-1300 BCE.
Zagin hair on warriors from the palace of Darius I at Susa,
Persian period, ca 500 BCE. Pergamon Museum Berlin. Image Wikipedia.
ZA.GIN3 in art and archaeology
Lapis lazuli was, like gold and silver, a top of the range precious
material that was not local to southern Mesopotamia. Wherever it is found in the Near East it originally
had to be shipped over thousands of kilometres from the mountains of northern Afghanistan
in order to supply the demands of kings and to adorn the gods. As a rare and very precious material it
acquired significance for the making of divine statues and for royal
furnishings. This is also why synthetic
lapis in the form of glazed ceramic and true glass were so valuable to later
kings. Once industrial techniques were
mastered around 1500 BCE kings were in a position to produce their own moulded
‘mountain stone’ on an industrial scale. And they did just that.
But it remained the exclusive right of royalty
and their courts. Don’t be fooled into
thinking of glass like we think of it was a cheap substitute, in 1500 BCE glass was hi-tech, and as equally
magical and powerful as the rare stone.
But before
they could do this, kings had to use the precious stone, so the objects in this
material were particularly special, and by virtue of the otherworldly
associations of the stone they were used for consecrated objects and to show
divine favour. In
myth, the Gods themselves wore zagin crowns and wielded zagin maces and
sceptres. The symbolic value of the
medium is illustrated well by a hymn where the Assyrian king Išme-Dagan claimed
to have been given a pure zagin throne that contained 'all divine powers' by the
goddess Bau.
It was standard for
divine and royal paraphernalia to be made using gold, silver and
lapis lazuli. It was not just standard, it was
mandatory. In the year names of Neo-Sumerian
and Amorite kings the name itself often emphatically describes these materials
on thrones, royal standards and weapons. In temples consecrated to various gods the
statues were ideally constructed using all the precious elements in heaven and
on earth including lapis.
‘Year (Bur-Sin) made for Ninurta his helper a 3
headed mitytyum-weapon in gold, his shita-weapon in lapis-lazuli and a great emblem. ’Bur-Sin of Isin.
So this
brings us to the other ‘old chestnut’ that dogs the, lets call it, dubious
research skills end of the internet;
blue eyes on statues of Mesopotamian people. There is nothing like doing a quick internet
search of those words, and perhaps ‘Sumer’, to make your own hair curl
with stylish conviction without a trip to a salon (and was incidentally partially what inspired this article). Because, in the
tradition of cultural ignorance, but the ability to write a blog, the
cult statues with blue eyes from Sumer are interpreted by people desperate to
connect with cool dead cultures as proof that the Sumerians had blue eyes, and to
add insult to injury, were therefore European.
Detail from the statue of Ebiḫ II from the temple of Ishtar at Mari,
Early Dynastic IIIb, ca. 2400 BCE. Louvre Museum. Image Wikipedia
Zagin inlaid
pupils were in fact characteristic of cult statues of worshippers that were
left by (rich) people in temples. These
big ‘blue’ eyed statues are actually a visual convention intended to show
adoration and awe, but also a connection to the divine by employing a divine
material lapis. They are therefore
a visual metaphor for ‘worship’ using a material with a direct connection to
the gods.
To reinforce the innate value
residing behind the image, the pupil of the eye in literature was called MI/ṣalmu: ‘the black’. So the material does still retain its
connection to colour, they are visual metaphors for dark eyes, dark shiny eyes.
Again the inner value and hue of the material is retained and emphatic.
However, if
you have difficulty imagining the visual parallel from sculptures intended to
represent dark haired and eyed people from around 2400 BCE, how about we turn
instead to cult objects from say the Royal Tombs at Ur. They
are a neat and famous example of the visual and artistic value of lapis lazuli
and the probable value range of ‘blue’ in the middle of the 3rd millennium.
The Queen's Lyre, Royal tombs of Ur. Early Dynastic III, ca. 2400 BCE.
Image © British Museum (Creative Commons Licence).
Let’s take
the various animal lyres that are now in the British Museum
and the famous ‘Ram (it is actually goats)
in the Thicket’ cult stands. Lapis
lazuli was used for the long beards and forehead curls and for the wool of sacred
bulls and goats. And I emphasise
‘sacred’ bulls and goats. There is
nothing mundane about them. Lapis was
also used for horns and for eyes and pupils
in the same manner as for votive statues of people from this
era, yet I have not come across anyone arguing that Sumerian
goats and cattle were blue eyed.
Instead,
what this use infers is that the eyes and hair of powerful magic or divine
figures were made in a material that had the overall value of otherworldly
‘dark’. After all, in life these cult
stands and lyres were considered divine, with their own sacred names and cult rituals.
Finally, it should come as no surprise
that lapis was favoured for decorating funerary objects that were buried
with kings and members of the Mesopotamian court, because these objects were
all discovered in funerary contexts and will have the most prestigious
materials, but also those with apotropaic value and links to the otherworld.
The cult stand from Ur, Early Dynastic III, ca. 2400 BCE. The 'ram in the thicket' name
is a Biblical reference. Image © British Museum (Creative Commons Licence).
The same argument
applies to divine figures from cult spaces.
Where lapis lazuli was employed for statues of gods and heroes the value
range of our inadequate word ‘blue’ was actually ‘brown – black – brown-purple – dark blue’. In the ancient Near East it is only in the technologically
sophisticated second half of the 2nd millennium (after 1500 BCE)
that blue begins to stand up on its own, but even then this colour had a
likely value range from black through to blue.
In 1st millennium stone lists zagin
has a wide range of individual characteristics indicating pattern and hue, anywhere from ‘like
a raven’s neck’, a ‘dove’s neck’ to ‘speckled with white’, ’speckled like a wild
ass’, 'like wine', ‘patterned’, ‘star-like’ and ‘green’. Although 'green' is again problematic, as it covers SIG7, the 'yellow – tan – green –
blue' range, so as a result, translations of this sign again vary dramatically. In addition, the
word read as ‘green’ is not always SIG7, sometimes it is DURU5, ‘wet’
which may be translated as ‘green’, but ‘translucent’ is likely more accurate.
What
this all emphasises is how fragile our one on one translations of
ancient words are. However, regardless of the colour spectrum and its
subtle abstract
values, the stone from the far away mountains, lapis lazuli, was the pinnacle
of
luxury and a visual metaphor for all things pure and sacred in
Mesopotamia. It simply
wasn’t blue as we know it.
Conclusion
So, to end
this brief discussion of colour perception and misperception in Mesopotamia, which hopefully reduces my rant factor on
Sundays, but probably won’t... There is
nothing ‘missing’ from the ancient colour palette.
Ancient people were not colour blind or
missing basic terms. Forget separating
core terms from derived terms, it simply doesn’t work. With dark blue residing towards the black
range it is technically possible to claim that the ancient Mesopotamians had no
concept of ‘blue’, certainly not our idea of blue anyway.
However, it is also not entirely accurate to
say they had two ‘blacks’, as one is a dull brown-black that was applied to the
real world and the other is a highly reflective blue-black that applied to the
divine and royal world. They had a
different colour spectrum and these words only overlap in our limited
vocabulary.
Basically,
we are just looking at their colours in the wrong way.
Andrea
Sinclair,
2018
(etymology of zagin updated in April 2025 after communication with Piotr Michalowski, my sincere thanks to him)
Web-Links
British Museum: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx
ETCSL: (sample) http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/edition2/etcslbycat.php
Gilgamesh and Huwawa
Gilgamesh and Aga
Enmerkar and En-suḫgir-ana
Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave
The Temple
Hymns
A balbale to Suen
Nanna-Suen’s journey to Nibru
Enki’s journey to Nibru
Adab to Bau for Išme-Dagan
A praise poem of Šulgi (C D
A praise poem of Lipit-Eštar
A song of Inana and Dumuzi
Inana’s descent to the nether world
Cdli Mesopotamian Year Names: https://cdli.ucla.edu/tools/yearnames/yn_index.html
Cdli ED III texts with ZA.GIN3
https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/search_results.php?SearchMode=Text&requestFrom=Search&PrimaryPublication=&Author=&PublicationDate=&SecondaryPublication=&Collection=&AccessionNumber=&MuseumNumber=&Provenience=&ExcavationNumber=&Period=ED&DatesReferenced=&ObjectType=&ObjectRemarks=&Material=&TextSearch=za-gin3&TranslationSearch=&CommentSearch=&StructureSearch=&Language=&Genre=&SubGenre=&CompositeNumber=&SealID=&ObjectID=&ATFSource=&CatalogueSource=&TranslationSource=
Oracc
URA 16: 52‒66. 1st millennium Neo-Assyrian/Neo-Babylonian/Hellenistic stone lists
http://oracc.iaas.upenn.edu/dcclt/pager
Oracc signlist
Sources/further reading
Berlin, B. and P. Kay. 1999. Basic
Colour Terms: Their Universality and Evolution, Linguistic Connections to Colour
Terminology (and Social Complexity). California.
Borger, R. 2004. Mesopotamisches
Zeichenlexikon (AOAT 305). Münster.
George, A.R. 1993. House most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia. Winona Lake.
Horowitz, W. 1998. Mesopotamian
Cosmic Geography. Eisenbrauns.
Kuehni, R.G. and A. Schwarz. 2008. Color
Ordered: A Survey of Color Order Systems from Antiquity to the Present. Oxford.
Labat, R. 1976. Manuel
d’épigraphie Akkadienne. Paris.
Landsberger, B. 1967. ‚Über Farben im Sumerisch–Akkadischen’.
JCS 21: 139–173.
Mollon, J.D.
2000. ‘Cherries among the Leaves, the Evolutionary Origins of Color Vision’. In Color Perception: Philosophical, Psychological,
Artistic and Computational Perspectives, editor S. Davis,
10–30. Oxford.
Rochberg, F. 2009. ‘‘The Stars in their Likenesses:’ Perspectives on the
Relation between Celestial Bodies and Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia’.
In What Is a God?, editor B.N. Porter, 93–153. Winona Lake.
Shuster-Brandis, A. 2003. ‘Tupfen und Streifen: Erkenntnisse
zur Identifikation von Steinnamen aus der Serie abnu šikinšu ‚Der Stein, dessen Gestaltung ...’. Altorientalische Forschung 30: 256–268.
Sinclair, A.
2012. ‘Colour Symbolism in Ancient
Mesopotamia’. Ancient Planet 2, 18‒33.
Sinclair, A.
2012. ‘The
International Style, Colour and Polychrome Faience’. Ancient Near Eastern Studies 49, 118‒149.
Winter, I.J.
1999. ‘The Aesthetic Value of Lapis Lazuli in Mesopotamia’. In Cornaline
et pierres précieuses:
La méditerranée, de l’antiquité à l’Islam, editor A. Caubet, 43–58. Paris.
Winter, I.J.
2002. ‘Defining “Aesthetics” for Non Western Studies: the Case for Mesopotamia’. In Art History, Aesthetics, Visual Studies,
editors M.A. Holly and K. Morley, 3–28. New Haven
and London.
Winter, I.J.
2003. ‘Surpassing Work: Mastery of Materials and the Value of Skilled
Production in Ancient Sumer’. In Culture
through Objects: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of P.R.S. Moorey, editors
T. Potts, M. Roaf and D. Stein, 403–421. Oxford.
