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This is an incredibly complicated question, with equally complicated answers, but I will do my best to reasonably summarize my thoughts on the matter. I <i>personally</i> believe that cultural ‘ownership’ is inherently a flawed idea, and historical artifacts should not really “belong’ to any one person except either the artist, or the person for whom the art was made (or perhaps their living descendants, if such a thing could even be verified). However, that’s not really how these things seems to work in my experience, and ideas of the property management of artifacts are both historically and modernly debated. Artifacts found in Iran might very well ‘belong’ to the Iranian people, as the cultural descendants of the Persian empire. I think that the most moral thing to do would be to let the artifacts belong to the closest modern descendants of the culture that made them, but this isn’t very logistically practical, and I also see the value in placing things left behind by extinct cultures with no remaining descendants in museums for the greater education of the human populace. Much can be learned about all of the cultures we have studied from the art they have made, including groups with a very short history such as the Mycenaeans, and inspiring future generations to learn about these periods in the world’s history is valuable. However, the monetization and past exploitation of cultural pieces (such as the infamous “Mask of Agamemnon” being named and likely heavily modified for personal fame) and the prestige gained by organizations by more or less hoarding artifacts from all over the world (such as the large collection of pieces found in museums all over Europe, many worth millions of dollars) means that there is no truly “good’ way to go about determining who owns an artifact.
Hi Lacey, you make some very good points. I hadn’t more deeply considered the contexts in which these art pieces were made, beyond the seemingly obvious. This got me thinking, and I was actually wondering if our views on both of these cultures have been shaped too much by the art we’ve found, when that probably does not represent anything near the full scope of the culture. It is even entirely possible that pieces of art from Mycenaean culture depicting peacetime activity and Minoan culture depicting war have simply not survived to modern day. However, that isn’t to say it never existed, and it might be naive of us to assume such.
Hi Valene, I agree with your points about the names of the finds being exaggerated to sound more exciting. Do you think that this was done on purpose, or do you think perhaps the archaeologists really believed them to be palaces and masks of great kings? You said it was clear that Schliemann thought the mask he found was really the mask of Agamemnon, which is possible. But if so, why would he feel the need to modify it? Do you think changing the mask would make his own ideas of its origin more credible, and is it possible that he was just trying to trick people?
While I do agree that this is an oversimplification, there is some degree of artistic evidence that the Minoans seemed to have less of a cultural focus on war than the Mycenaeans. There is a much larger variety of artistic mediums and forms within Minoan art, and the Mycenaean pieces such as the lion gate seem to be more functional than simply artistic in nature. Several of the Mycenaean art pieces such as the warrior krater and the ceremonial dagger blades also portray scenes of combat and martial prowess, while Minoan art pieces in general show examples of abstract artistic ideas, portrayals of musicians and animal symbolism. I think that Crete being rich in resources and a hub of sea trade allowed the Minoan culture to become financially secure and have a richer economy, which gave more citizens the freedom to become more devoted to the arts as a potential career path. It is possible that the Mycenaeans did not have this luxury, and conflict was therefore harder to avoid, which would make it inherently more important to their culture to have a strong and capable military.
As many students above have pointed out, both Sir Evans and Heinrich Schliemann were responsible for the longstanding mislabeling and misunderstanding of historic sites and artifacts from Minoan and Mycenaean culture (even leading to the modification of their original forms to better fit their own publications). It is extremely likely to me that the men in question were not particularly interested in preserving the real cultural value of the objects as much as they were in favor of furthering their own status within the archaeological community. I believe this is also largely due to the cultural place that archaeology held within much of Europe in earlier times, most especially Great Britain, where it mainly served as a sensation. In my opinion, historical archaeologists at times were hardly better than graverobbers, showed off artifacts as prizes taken from “exciting and exotic’ civilizations. I think that this was greatly colored by Colonialist attitudes, as it seems that the actual history and cultural accuracy of the finds was far less important to the public eye than the excitement of the spectacle itself.
Hi Aubri, you made good points about the presence of the Egyptian gods within much of their artwork. However, I feel like you could elaborate more. How did this religious imagery influence art and culture among the citizens of all classes, and not just within the ruling class? For example, the citizens such as scribes also had religious artwork made. Did these people care as much about pleasing the gods? Interested to hear your thoughts.
Hi Laura! Your post got me thinking about the shape of the Mesopotamian ziggurats vs. the shape of Egyptian pyramids. I hadn’t previously considered quite so much that pyramids were primarily created for the dead, while ziggurats were meant to connect the gods to the still-living. This really drives home my own thoughts that Egyptian culture was primarily fixated on death and afterlife, whereas Mesopotamian culture was much more focused on the relationship of religion to its living citizens.
In most of the pieces of Egyptian art we have seen, there are nods to religious symbolism in a large number of ways, with color and animal symbolism being the most obvious examples. Many carvings and sculptures feature animals that represent a specific Egyptian god, such as Horus appearing as a falcon in the statue of Khafre and the makeup palette of king Narmer. Some sculptures such as the statue of Khafre are even made of specific materials in order to evoke the colors of the gods under specific conditions, such as when being struck by sunlight. Even their written language is heavily influenced by religion, with the hieroglyphics featuring shapes of religiously significant animals and the symbols of various gods. In addition to this, there is abundant evidence as to the cultural fixation on the afterlife and how much it influenced the lives of Egyptian citizens. More Egyptian art was dedicated to immortalizing the dead than was made of the living.
Both Mesopotamian and Egyptian artistic conventions held a great deal of focus on showing effigies of their rulers. Both cultures had busts, reliefs and sculptures made of their kings (and later Pharoahs in Egypt). However, the Egyptians had a far closer association and cultural relationship with death. Much of their artwork featured depictions of the afterlife, as opposed to Meopotamian art that tended to show the activities of their rulers’ daily lives. Egyptian art even included “books of the dead’ that were meant to serve as illustrated guides to those who had passed to help them succeed in the afterlife. I also noticed that there was much more color used within the Egyptian art, and many of the pieces were brightly painted or coated with hues of oranges, turquoise, blues and golds. Mesopotamian art was also frequently set with semiprecious stones as accents, but unfortunately few of these stone settings have survived to modern day, so it is difficult to say what the materials were to determine how different the cultures’ usage of color was.
Hi ckocsis! I also really appreciate your point about the “food chain” displayed on the sele. While the city’s food and other necessities were most likely produced by working class citizens, the slaves were treated as even lesser. What sort of jobs do you feel the slaves had, that placed them somewhere between working class citizens and animals in the eyes of society?
Hi Gabe, I really like your point about the ability to write adding a level of privilege. Do you think the merchants and traders knew how to write themselves, or perhaps some of them hired career scribes? It would be interesting (but to me, would make sense) if scribes counted as upper-class citizens simply due to their usefulness and skills being in high demand.
Hi Lucas, I appreciate your points about rulers using religious ties to cement their qualification to rule. However, I think that a lot of modern traditions also use a less literal version of this, including US Presidents swearing in over bibles and other small religious tools that could legitimize the ruler more solidly in the eyes of their religious followers. What do you think?
Hi Kaitlyn, I really appreciate your point about the sheer magnitude of the sculptures and structures used by the Mesopotamian rulers. They add a sense of grandness to the areas in which they were built, and so might serve as a valuable psychological tool to help reinforce the grandness of the ones who had them built. Size is frequently associated with power in a lot of cultures as well, and I think this really drives that point home.
The class-divided culture of many Mesopotamian societies most clearly stood out to me in the differences between the treatment and the duties of the nobility, their citizens, and their servants/slaves. For example, the nobility were clearly deified and favored greatly, with servants catering to their whims and grand tombs being erected for past kings much like the later pharaohs of Egypt. Aside from controlling the military like we see in the Stele of Naram-Sin, we can also infer from sculptures and carvings that the duties of the ruling class were generally relegated to ceremonial and governmental activities. The carved vessel from Uruk and the carving of Assurnasirpal killing lions both portray the respective cultures’ rulers receiving tribute and partaking in organized and symbolic rituals. We know also from the Stele of Hammurabi that the ruling class defined all the laws of society, often under the guise of divine mandate. This stele shows us also that slaves were treated as lesser than citizens (as in the “eye for an eye” example), with punishments for crimes differing depending on the caste, gender and social standing of perpetrator and victim. We know also that there was likely a class of wealthy citizens, indicated by items such as the customized cylinder seals used to mark property, with more materially valuable and intricate seals used by those with a higher standing in society. Later rulers in Persia even had designated rooms for citizens to provide them with tribute, indicating to me that not only were the rulers near to gods themselves, but also that there was a class of citizens and artisans with the means to create, buy and sell said tribute. From all of these indicators, we could infer that the rulers were treated as mortal gods and had great power over their citizens, who they themselves possessed significant power over the lower servant class.
As many students have already clarified, within all of the different Mesopotamian cultures we’ve looked at, there was a persistent theme of power and its relation to the divine. Kings and rulers frequently used a mixture of symbolism to define themselves as rightful rulers with significant power. Many portrayed themselves as interacting with or blessed by the gods directly (The three suns representing the gods in the Stele of Naram Sin, the rivers flowing from the vase in the https://art261.community.uaf.edu/votive-statue-of-gudea, and the sun god Shamash dictating laws to Hammurabi). The aforementioned examples also used the symbolism of heirarchic scale, and many figures such as the Stele of Naram Sin and the alabaster carving of Assurnasirpal killing lions also depicted acts of victory or strength, as though to reinforce the rulers’ status as powerful and blessed titans among ordinary men. Many rulers throughout Mesopotamian history also used grand sculptures of mystical or divine significance around their palaces and cities, such as the Ishtar Gate and the Lamassu Figures, as though signifying an entry into the realm of gods. As also previously stated by many students, Saddam Hussein attempted a recreation of the Nanna Ziggurat, a powerful structure meant to link mankind to the gods, likely to reinforce the cultural and religious significance and divinity of his own rulership by tapping into the cultural history of the region.
