Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art

Acknowledgements
Contributors
List of Illustrations
Editors‘
 Note
Map 1
Map 2
Introduction
I. Defining the Field
Archaeology and Politics in Iraq
Forgeries of Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts and Cultures
Beyond the East-West Dichotomy in Syrian and Levantine Wall Paintings
Orientalism and Orientalization in the Iron Age Mediterranean
II. Technologies and Practices of Artistic Production
The Historiography of the Concept of „Workshop“ in Ancient. Near Eastern Archaeology: Descriptive Models and Theoret
ical Approaches (Anthropology vs. Art History)
The Impact of the „Portable“: Integrating „Minor Arts“ into the Ancient Near Easter
n Canon
The Influence of the Physical Medium on the Decoration of a Work of Art: A Case Study of the “Phoenician” Bowls
Impressions of the Contest Scene: Glyptic Imagery and Sealing Practice in the Akkadian Period
Histories of Cypriot Art through Seal Carving
III. Text and Image
Relating Image and Word in Ancient Mesopotamia
Pictorial Mythology and Narrative in the Ancient Near East
Art‘s Role in the Origins of Writing: The Seal-Carver, the
 Scribe, and the Earliest Lexical Texts
Posthumous Images and the Memory of the Akkadian Kings
Styles of Pictorial Narratives in Assurbanipal‘
s Reliefs
IV. Social Identities
Sexuality, Reproduction and Gender in Terracotta Plaques from the Late Third-Early Second Millennia BCE
Images and Conceptions of Ideal Feminine Beauty in Neo-Assyrian Royal Contexts, c. 883–627 BCE
Uniforms and Non-Conformists: Tensions and Trends in Early Dynastic Fashion
Terracotta Figurines and Social Identities in Hellenistic Babylonia
The Impressed Image: Glyptic Studies as Art and Social History
Culture on Display: Representations of Ethnicity in the Art of the Late Assyrian State
V. Religion, Ritual and Politics
Human, Divine or Both? The Uruk Vase and the Problem of Ambiguity in Early Mesopotamian Visual Arts
A Silent Message: Godlike Kings in Mesopotamian Art
When the Subject is the Object: Relational Ontologies, the Partible Person and Images of Naram-Sin
Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Violence: Warfare in Neo-Assyrian Art
The Tell Asmar Hoard and Rituals of Early Dynastic Sculpture
VI. Making and Defining Space
A Feast for the Eyes: Depiction and Performance of Ritual within the Sacred Space of Middle Bronze Age Ebla
The Art of Building a Late Assyrian Royal Palace
The Assyrian Landscape as Ritual
Aesthetics of the Natural Environment in the Arts of the Ancient Near East: The Elamite Rock-Cut Sanctuary of Kurangun
Art of the Achaemenid Empire, and Art in the Achaemenid Empire
Index