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

Sealing taken from the Adda seal, poss. from 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 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

2018

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.

And, just to be clear, this is a fabulous topic, the excavator of these sites, Franck Goddio, has a very good web page with some equally good images, that have 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, 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

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 round 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 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 architecture and art, or none. They can, and they do, and they can be quite abusive 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

 

2018

Bullshit memes #2: The UFO landing on the Sphinx

 

 

This is another Facebook perennial that I am going to explain for those who are interested in clear answers and good old fashioned evidence, but are not necessarily versed in Near Eastern iconography, in this case ancient Egyptian symbolism.

Those who prefer a good fantasy story over evidence and don’t mind clickbait pseudo sites, may leave this blog post ASAP, as there is, realistically, nothing here that you want to see.

So, back to topic … There is an image that does the rounds on the fringe archaeology groups that claims an ancient Egyptian papyrus shows evidence of a UFO landing on the Sphinx. It is all over the web on sites like Ancient Code, Not from Earth org, Today’s Alternative News and probably every other ramped up clickbait news source touting conspiracy theories and Bigfoot stories. 

As usual for these outfits, they all seem to be providing watered down versions of a claim by a gentleman going by the name of Wayne Herschel who has published a book on this topic.

 

Although to be honest, I would be surprised if that theory is worthy of an entire book, but hey … I bet he thought of lots of cool stuff to make up and lots of people will buy it both literally and figuratively … because … aliens.  

 

Wayne Herschell taking pseudo-science to a new level of stupid

On the other hand, Egyptologists tooling around the web are looking at this image, muttering arcane expletives and moving on, because for someone who has dabbled in ancient Egyptian symbolism it is self evident what the papyrus shows:  it is a fan. 

In fact, this image from the papyrus is a very good example of the phenomenon apophenia (subjective thinking when viewing images, or 'looks-a-bit-like') that also, as usual, has a very hefty dose of cultural ignorance. 

 

This technique is incidentally very important if you are in this for the snake oil selling. Accuracy would ruin everything.

So first of all, let’s have some basic information, because once you have key words you can look this stuff up yourself to confirm my statements.

Detail from the papyrus of Djedkhonsuiuefankh I.  Image Piankoff and Rambova 1957, plate 19.

The image source

The papyrus belonged to Djedkhonsuiuefankh I, a priest of Amen and father of the god (Thoth), who probably lived in the 11th or 10th century (1060-940 BCE). This date is relatively late, being well after the famous kings like Ramesses II or Tutankhamen. Instead, it is in the rather unstable 21st Dynasty during the Third Intermediate Period when mythological papyri were all the rage. 

The papyrus is in the Cairo Museum (no. 96), but will have originally come from this priest’s tomb. It is a Book of the Amduat ('What is in the Underworld'), a funerary text designed to guarantee the dead man a proper afterlife.  All the imagery on a funerary papyrus is a compliment to the process described in the text, because the whole thing exists as a magical machine to allow the dead man regeneration in the next world among the gods. 

 

There is no historical factor to a funerary papyrus, so they are unlikely to slip in an account of seeing a flying saucer land on the sphinx … really.

The section of the papyrus with said flying saucer shows the goddess of the sky Nut stretched out over a divine boat containing the soul bird, the ba.  On the right of this boat Nut’s father Shu (god of air) holds her up away from her partner Geb (god of earth). The sphinx is tucked into the left corner under Nut’s legs and has the king’s white crown in front of it and a royal wig behind.  Above the sphinx is a shrine representing the necropolis, or place of the dead.  The ‘UFO’ is upon his back.

Detail from the papyrus of Djedkhonsuiuefankh I. Image Wikipedia.

The accompanying text states: 

‘Osiris, priest of Amen, Djedkhonsu, the justified one in the Netherworld’.

This is where context is very important. You can’t just take a single frame from an image and jump to conclusions, ignoring all the parts that make up the whole, like text and other visual elements. The entire scene dictates the meaning and the sphinx here is part of the magical spell. It likely represents the dead man as Osiris in the Netherworld (the necropolis) during the night, or just before the moment of dawn.

At dawn the deceased transforms into the sun god Re as the soul bird in the boat and sails through the heavens (over the body of the goddess Nut) during the day. To make sure the message is absolutely clear, the ba bird on the papyrus is captioned: ‘Re, he rests in life’.

So a few things are obvious, it is not an image of the Sphinx (Giza pyramids), it is a magical sphinx. Although the placement below a necropolis shrine could infer it is a statue associated with the tomb. But this still makes it a solar symbol associated with the dead man and it incidentally infers that the 'UFO' is impressively small. 

Symbol or statue, the scene in this papyrus is just one component in a magical process. It represents the Egyptian idea of the perpetual cycle of the universe. After they died all Egyptians wished to live at night in the realm of the dead as Osiris and then to be reborn like the sun from the body of Nut in the morning and to travel in the sun god’s boat through the heavens every day … for ever (it was probably quite crowded). 

Flying saucer from the film Forbidden Planet (1957). Image Wikipedia

The UFO

In the original article on CNN: iReport, Ancient Code  and for that matter, in all the other copycat pieces, the writers claim that this papyrus shows evidence of the ‘ship of Ra landing on the sphinx’. Or they claim it shows ‘a disc-shaped object emitting coloured bright light and landing on top of a sphinx’.

This rationale only works under three circumstances; 1) you are not fussed about scale.  2) you are aware of how a flying saucer looks specifically from old American and UK horror movies, which is incidentally the only way you might have an opinion about a flying saucer, because they are a modern myth. 

And more importantly; 3) this rationale only works if you only know the bare basics of ancient Egyptian symbolism, because human beings have an infinite capacity for imagination and if you want to understand ancient symbolism, you have to understand their mindset, not ours.

The fan

In fact, the ‘disc-shaped’ spaceship is the semi-circular support that was designed for attaching ostrich feathers to a fan. What these articles describe as the ‘bright light’ radiating from the UFO is the different coloured ostrich feathers. The object in fact has no depth, it is flat and viewed from the front.

The flying saucer’s tripod legs are actually two related things, the vertical handle that is attached to the fan in the centre and a simplified papyrus flower. Here this flower is drawn as a single curved line. It is only incidental that the ends of the papyrus touch the sphinx’s body in the drawing.

Amenhotep I and II as a sphinxes on a stele from Deir el Medina. Cairo Museum. 

Photo by Circe Subara at Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/141626659@N04/26556245907/

The sphinx with a fan motif was ubiquitous to Egyptian royal imagery, particularly during and after the New Kingdom. The sphinx may be reclining like the one on this papyrus or it may be represented trampling the traditional enemies of Egypt. In most cases it is a visual metaphor for the king, because that was his job, representing the living sun god, conquering the forces of disorder and by this maintaining universal harmony. 

 Thutmose IV as a sphinx from his silver chariot. Tomb of Thutmose IV.  

Image Carter and Newberry 1904, plate XI.

How the scene of a sphinx with a fan was depicted in ancient Egyptian art was flexible and depended on medium, period and naturally on realism. Because these royal fans existed. The position of fanbearer to the king was very prestigious and fans were decorated with precious materials, different designs and the feathers were dyed in different ways. Although dark blue and light blue were preferred colours, and this papyrus is no exception, as the feathers are alternatively dark blue and light blue.

 Left: The god Monthu as hieracosphinx from a funerary boat. Tomb of Amenhotep II.  

Right: Tutankhamen as sphinx from a chariot plaque. Tomb of Tutankhamen.  

Illustrations A. Sinclair.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this small sphinx and fan drawing is the use of royal solar symbolism (crown, wig, fan, sphinx) to represent the dead man and his tomb in the necropolis in a mythological scene on a funerary papyrus.  But this may simply be related to the period. Because the 21st Dynasty is known for uniting royal power with priestly offices.

What the scene from Djedkhonsuiuefankh's papyrus definitely is not, however, is evidence of a UFO with tripod legs landing on a sphinx, or the Giza Sphinx … whatever... in around 1000 BCE.

Andrea Sinclair

 

2018

Ostrich fan from the tomb of Tutankhamen. 

Image Desroches-Noblecourt 1963, Tutankhamen, fig, 123.

Afterword

On showing the UFO image to my partner and explaining the kerfuffle to him, because astonishingly he had never seen it, his response was:

‘that’s not a UFO, it is clearly a mobile police lamp and the sphinx is rushing to the scene of a crime’ 

 

… I’ll buy that … basically about as much as I’d buy the UFO story.  

Because both responses are dependant on subjective experience.

But I quite like the idea of the sphinx with siren blazing chasing after criminals.

References

Papyrus of Djedkhonsuiuefankh I

Niwinski, A. 1989. Studies on the Illustrated Theban Funerary Papyri of the 11th and 10th Centuries B.C. Freiburg.

Piankoff, A. and N. Rambova 1957. The Mythological Papyri. Bollingen Series XL. 

No, I am not linking Wayne Herschell's website, he does enough damage without my help.

The Hierakonpolis painting and the Gebel el Arak knife by the blog Sumerian Shakespeare.

Watercolour from Tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis. Image source Quibell and Green 1902.

The following serves as an illustration of the pitfalls of writing beyond your knowledge base, and also for talking to people who are experts in a topic if you can’t be bothered doing the required amount of study yourself. And incidentally, that free access to books online is pretty much useless when this only provides the reader with outdated research.

Recently the amateur history blog Sumerian Shakespeare who writes up ancient Mesopotamian topics took it upon themselves to critique objects from Predynastic Egypt in two of their posts. In the past I had assumed this blog was an adequate if unimaginative introduction to Mesopotamian culture for keen learners, but with the added bonus of nice pictures that are credited. I have since altered this stance.

Now I find their blog shallowly researched, outdated, a bit racist, pseudo-archaeological nonsense that is effectively dressed up to look like ‘educated’ critique.

The Hierakonpolis painting and the Gebel el Arak knife

The overall premise of both articles by Sumerian Shakespeare is that while the Sumerians could not have settled Egypt and founded the Egyptian state (an outdated theory from the early 20th century) they could have mounted rustling expeditions … 

 

Have a think about that … a rustling expedition ... or two. 

This glorious theory is supported by the fact that the two examples that they cite are contemporary and from the same region, Abydos …

Well … no … there is no evidence for where the knife came from.  It was purchased from a Cairo dealer by George Benedité for the Louvre collection, and is only reputedly from Gebel el Arak near Abydos.  In addition, the painting and knife are not contemporary.  The knife is dated to Naqada IIIA (c. 3350-3150 BCE), Tomb 100 at Hierakopolis is earlier and dated to Naqada IIC (c. 3500 BCE).  They are, at best, a hundred years apart, or likely more.

Master of animals on the Gebel el Arak knife. Image credit Wikipedia.

The critique of the Gebel el Arak knife (SS Aug 2016)

The knife is a flint blade with a carved ivory handle that has always attracted plenty of commentary, so this choice is rather predictable.  The post itself is basically introduced with the assertion that the writer decided to study the knife, because upon finding it in a web search of Sumerian images they were sure it was Sumerian, not Egyptian.  So like all good critical thinkers (from 1899) they set out to prove their theory was correct.

As is to be expected, a great deal of waffle about this object revolves around the master of animals figure between two lions that is on one side of the knife.  However, the writer immediately recognises him as the Sumerian shepherd king from Uruk in southern Mesopotamia.  Here we have a glorious example of early 20th century Biblical terminology being imposed on this early Mesopotamian motif, which is usually called a ‘priest-king’.

‘For a hundred years there has been a lot of scholarly debate about the identity of this man, none of which is correct’… Cocky ass.

The Gebel el Arak knife handle. Image Wikipedia.

Once the writer has exhausted all the generic comparisons to 4th and 3rd millennium Sumerian glyptic to justify their claims, they arbitrarily switch sides of the knife and deal with the battle scene on the opposing side. This incidentally ignores the desert hunt imagery on the previous side.  And apparently on viewing the new scene, the penis sheaths worn by all combatants made them uncomfortable:

‘All of the soldiers wear penis sheathes. It’s beyond me why any man would wear this ridiculous contraption, especially in combat – but there it is. I have to admit, I was very disappointed to see the Sumerians thus attired. I always assumed that the Sumerians, even at their most primitive, were more civilized than that.’

There is a lot of time wasted on describing the fighters – where the dominant figures with no hair are designated as Sumerians versus their opponents, who must be the long haired Egyptians.  Let us just ignore that the fighting figures are equal in size and are all dressed in those penis sheaths. 

 

Then some considerable time is spent identifying the boats, basically still intended to prove that the boats on the lower part of the handle are all Sumerian, not Egyptian. 

To conclude the piece the writer backflips their entire argument and says that the knife cannot be Sumerian because a real battle between Egypt and the ‘marines’ of a Sumerian shepherd king is not possible.  They instead state that the artist copied details from Sumerian seals and artefacts, but did not understand all their iconography, so drew what they knew.  Which rather insanely explains away all the Predynastic Egyptian features of the knife. 

Then they end on their awkwardness with penises again.

‘That is why he shows them wearing penis sheathes like the Egyptians. (I was relieved to know that my beloved Sumerians never wore these ridiculous accoutrements.)’

Watercolour from Tomb 100 Hierakonpolis. Image Quibell and Green 1902.

But it did not stop there and in February of this year Sumerian Shakespeare produced a sequel:

The critique of the Hierakonpolis tomb painting (SS Feb 2018)

With this piece a lot of time was again wasted by the writer in self satisfied waffle about their own ability to reinterpret ancient art, but when conclusions come they are odd and based on this person's intuitive perceptions of a modern painting of an ancient painting.  Admittedly these conclusions are entirely consistent with the previous ramble. 

The images they use are incidentally a watercolour and a line drawing from the original excavation report in around 1900-2.  Their only other literary source appears to be an article from 1962.  But they clearly ignored most of its content, as that article (Case and Crowfoot Payne) assumes the imagery is Egyptian.  The haphazard narrative style is, like before, quite confusing and contradictory, as though they were just writing out their thought processes (at 2 am in the morning).

Anyway, some highlights: 

The writer claims that all the red figures in the painting are Sumerians, and the white figures are Egyptians … this assumption is based on schematic figures and goes against the Egyptian convention for the colour of people, red-brown was for Egyptian men, light colouring were used to depict Egyptian women.

  

Although, I am not confident to push that convention into the Predynastic.  However, the easiest way to find differentiation is to look at costume and hair.  The writer does not do this, and all figures in the drawing are, by the way, red-brown to dark brown.  

Watercolour from Tomb 100 Hierakonpolis. Image Quibell and Green 1902.

There is some fairly predictable use of the media worthy cliché about experts being baffled … yes, that’s us … baffled by the image of goats encircling a wheel like enclosure. The writer calls this symbol a ‘carousel’ in what can only be a ludicrously subjective manner and uses condescending language inferring that the Egyptians kept trying to control nature well after everybody else had moved on like sensible people.

Regardless, the circular design that is called a carousel is probably an animal trap.  Traps or hides for wild animals were a common motif of control over nature in Egyptian funerary art, early and later.

Apparently this trying to tame nature is why the master of animals was so compelling to the Egyptians … was it? … oh oh … wrong culture right there.

While the writer assumes control of wild nature was a compelling motif, they appear unaware that the Egyptians made a distinction between domesticated animals and the desert dwellers.  Symbolically speaking they were the difference between social order and chaos.  However, in ignorance of this, instead the writer states that the wild antelopes are all livestock … Egyptian livestock that is ripe for rustling ... so he is thinking quite subjectively and a fan of cowboy movies.

According to Sumerian Shakespeare the entire painting is about warfare brought about through a spot of livestock theft … They argue the painting illustrates the invasion of Egypt by a Sumerian expedition.  The flotilla of boats that dominate the composition are Sumerian boats and the red skinned Sumerians in long white skirts are the captains of the ships.  On the largest boat Sumerian warriors are surrounding and capturing an Egyptian leader who is in a pavilion.

Watercolour from Tomb 100 Hierakonpolis. Image Quibell and Green 1902.

Short pause as they talk about lord Hierakon and I wonder vaguely who he is?  Apparently the captive leader on this boat can’t be him … oh it is his tomb … gotcha … because he wouldn’t put a record of his own public embarrassment in his tomb.  Therefore it must be a neighbour who was attacked by the Sumerians ... seriously? … although another part of me is like, Lord Hierakon, eh … sounds sinister … wait, I’m thinking of the vampire lord.

Then the writer heads off at a tangent and compares this imagery to the battle scene from the Gebel el Arak knife and gives some scintillating commentary on that.  Apparently on the knife the Egyptians were also overwhelmed in an attack, by that shepherd king and his marines …  Reiterating that the bald figures are Sumerian and those with long hair are Egyptian ...  But I thought they decided it was all a dream?

Watercolour from Tomb 100 Hierakonpolis. Image Quibell and Green 1902.

Then we return to the Hierakonpolis painting and the scene of a man facing two lions that is in the upper left part of the painting, and without any pause for breath the writer says that this small scheme shows the lion pals of the Sumerians, because the lions are totally chilled and not hostile … muahaha … therefore they must be pets!

As the (il)logical extension of this idea, the armed male figure is therefore siccing (not my term) his lions on the antelopes! 

So there it is, in a nutshell.  

The second piece claims that on the Hierakonpolis tomb painting the Sumerians are rustling the Egyptian herds of domestic antelope with their highly trained pet lions.

‘That's it boys, saddle up the boats, we need to travel a few weeks with our trusty pet lions and rustle us some ibex in Egypt.’ ... (me btw)

After this bombshell, Sumerian Shakespeare puts some time into explaining with maps how the Sumerians might have travelled in boats all the way to Hierakonpolis (in inland Upper Egypt) … just to rustle some livestock …  I might add.  Then he backflips again by saying it couldn’t happen and the Egyptians just thought they were Sumerians … eh?

Basically the writer of these pieces can’t make up their mind whether the Sumerians could invade Egypt or not, and repeatedly contradict themselves.  After all, if it is too far to settle, invade, or whatever, it is also technically too far for spot rustling raids.  And how did they go with all those pet lions and antelopes on the long boat trip home?  

Did anybody get back alive?

Finally, to conclude both articles Sumerian Shakespeare ties it all seamlessly together with the pithy conclusion that these Sumerian rustling events on the Hierakonpolis painting and on the Gebel el Arak knife were so traumatic for the Predynastic Egyptian rulers that they caused political collaboration between tribal groups which resulted in state formation in Egypt …  

Now I really need a lie down.

Conclusions

Basically this was a farce from go to woah.  So lets get three points clear:

1)  Interconnections: In the 4th millennium Egypt did have long distance contact with the Near East and there is no question that early Egypt valued raw materials sourced from much further north-east. Even in the Predynastic they valued lapis lazuli highly, which will have come from northern Afghanistan to Egypt via overland or maritime trade routes. This relationship was most likely over land via Sinai, the Levant and Syria. In the 4th millennium Egypt also had a cultural presence in the southern Levant.

But the evidence favours connections to Susa in Iran, not necessarily Uruk period Sumer in Mesopotamia.  And this long distance trade does not prove direct contact with any of the intermediate cultures, but it infers the existence of trade routes and movement of objects and people in both directions.  It also infers they could have seen each other’s visual idiom, particularly administrative sealings.  

 

However, we have absolutely no archaeological evidence of intercontinental wars or invasions. This theory is an example of early 20th century colonialist thinking, stemming from the likes of Assyriologist A. H. Sayce and others of his generation (and earlier) who chose to trace the development of all western 'civilisation' from Babylon.

2)  The Hierakonpolis painting and the Gebel el Arak knife:

Early ancient Egyptian iconography was complex and does not always mirror the imagery they produced in the pharaonic period.  However, some important themes about power survived into the Bronze Age and dominated state rhetoric, and they were formed in the Naqada period, when both the knife and painting were made.

The most important of these were the use of battle, prisoner taking and hunting scenes to show dominance over the forces of disorder.  The forces of chaos were always wild (not domestic) desert animals and human enemies.  These motifs were used in the Naqada period and the painting and knife examples discussed here have them.  Visual propaganda representing the ruling powers conquering chaos was common to Egyptian royal monuments and for high status tombs. 

Boating scenes were also dominant in both early and later Egyptian funerary art.  They painted these scenes of funerary barques and cult festivals in rich tombs and temples.  In the Naqada period they were also de rigueur on funerary and cult vases ... usually with specific details like pavilions, standards and palm fronds on the prows.  Just like those that are present on the knife and in the tomb painting.

The flotilla of boats in the Hierakonpolis painting is thought by experts to show a funerary or ritual procession.  With three female figures on the largest boat who could be gods or cult personnel.  The posture and dress of the figures have parallels with the depiction of female ritual figures at that time.  The boats on the painting and the knife are also pretty consistent with Predynastic boat imagery, but I understand that Sumerian Shakespeare got around that awkward issue by saying the Egyptian artists drew what they knew. 

Finally, the master of animals on each of these examples is the main argument for foreign influences or presence on the painting and the knife, (high prowed boats being another), because the master of animals was not a feature of Egyptian iconography.  But in the mid 4th millennium it was not an important motif in Sumer either.  It comes properly into vogue in Mesopotamia in the early 3rd millennium.  In the 4th millennium it was a visual motif from Susa in Iran. 

3)  Writing style: The language employed in this blog is problematic at best.  The choice of language and terms has a distinctly black and white, good versus evil, primitive versus civilised tone which contaminates both pieces.  Nothing is impartial about their writing, it is about hammering home an argument.   

The writer employs an array of loaded modern American film-media language to gleeful effect, such as ‘rustling’, `bad guys’, ‘homeland defence’, ‘action hero’, ‘marines’, ‘soldiers’ and ‘seaborne invasion’.  By doing this they manipulate the reader in inappropriate directions. This is an emotive technique that is neither impartial nor academic.

If you don’t want to read the originals, I will cut it down to essentials:

The Egyptians were the bad guys and they wore creepy penis thingies.

‘For the record, the Sumerians never wore this ridiculous apparatus. It was much too primitive and barbaric for the Sumerians. In my opinion, it proves that the Sumerians were far more civilized than the Egyptians during this period of history. There, I said it. Someone had to say it.’

..... what is there to add?

To sum up, as I said at the beginning, I would generally recommend reading more widely before deciding it was a good idea to produce such incoherent, longwinded and culturally ignorant dross, and then, to publish this on the internet.  However, it did give us a running gag around the house for about 24 hours.  A good hearty laugh about rustling antelopes with your trusty pet lions is never a bad thing...  (edit) it turns out we are still getting the odd laugh out of it.

So, to close … a word or two of advice.  An uninformed opinion is pretty much valueless to humanity, whether you are talking about history, archaeology, politics or dental procedures ...  Don’t publish it ...  

 

Another basic rule of thumb for coherent historical reasoning is, if a reading resource is more than 60 years old it is best to avoid relying on it. Some truly dreadful attitudes were shared in the early 20th century, and a lot of misinformation as well. 

 

Equally, scrolling through pop history sites on the internet at 2am in the morning is not a basis for sound research.  These pieces of writing are living proof of the pitfalls of these methods.

Andrea Sinclair

2018

References

Sumerian Shakespeare blog

Gebel el Arak knife - http://sumerianshakespeare.com/748301/748322.html

Hierakonpolis painting - http://sumerianshakespeare.com/748301/855901.html

The racial origin of Sumerians (big surprise; white caucasian) - https://sumerianshakespeare.com/734501.html

Identification of ceramic naked female figurines as prostitutes (in panties) - https://sumerianshakespeare.com/999701/index.html

My critique of the latter post here 'The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Mesopotamia'.

 

Links

Hierakonpolis

https://interactive.archaeology.org/hierakonpolis/field07/6.html

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/hierakonpolis/tomb100/index.html

Louvre knife

http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=668

Sources/further reading

The research they seem to have cherry picked:

Case, H. and J. Crowfoot Payne. 1962. ‘Tomb 100: The Decorated Tomb at Hierakonpolis’. JEA 48.

 

The ‘out of Babylon/Sumer’ theory

Sayce, A.H. 1903. The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia. (p 23)

Waddell, L.A. 1929. The Makers of Civilization in Race and History Showing the Rise of the Aryans or Sumerians. (all)

Better literature on these topics

Hendrickx, S. and M. Eyckerman. 2012. ‘Visual Representation and State development in Egypt’. Archaeo-Nil 22.

Hendrickx, S. and M. Eykerman.  2015. ‘Les animaux sauvages dans l’Egypt prédynastique’. Apprivoiser le sauvage/Taming the Wild, editors B. Massiera, B. Mathieu and F. Rouffet.

Philip, G. 2002. ‘Contacts between the ‘Uruk’ World and the Levant during the Fourth Millennium BC: Evidence and Interpretation’. Artefacts of Complexity: Tracking the Uruk in the Near East, editor N. Postgate. BSA Iraq.

Pittman, H. 1996. Constructing Context: The Gebel el-Arak Knife. The Greater Mesopotamian and Egyptian Interaction in the Late Fourth Millennium B.C.E.  The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century, editors J.S. Cooper and G.M. Schwartz.

Teissier, B. 1987. ‘Glyptic Evidence for a Connection between Iran, Syro-Palestine and Egypt in the 4th and 3rd Millennia'. Iran 25.

Trost, F. 2012. ‘Das Berühmte Grabe 100 von Hierakonpolis’. Almogaren XLIII.