The "Queen of the Night" plaque--a revisit.

• Author: Albenda, Pauline
• Position: Clay plaque from the Old Babylonian period of Hammurabi - Critical essay

INTRODUCTION

In 1970 this writer published an article on the figural relief of the clay plaque then known as the Burney Relief (fig. 1), questioning the authenticity of the plaque based on the iconography of the ring and rod held in each open hand of the winged female figure. (1) This paper is a revisit to the clay plaque and a reconsideration of its authenticity. It relies primarily upon the information contained in earlier published articles on the subject and on art-historical comparisons with similar ancient Near Eastern objects that, for the most part, have been excavated.

In 1975 the Department of Scientific Research at the British Museum in London undertook a thermoluminescence test of the plaque--still in private ownership at that time--which showed that in the two tested samples the clay was ancient; however the laboratory results were not published. A recent inquiry furnished the following information:

One sample was taken from the broken area in the middle of the plaque on the right-hand side of the plaque, and the second sample was taken from the back, again from the top right-hand side of the plaque. The Department of Scientific Research has recently looked again at the TL measurements, and they say that re-examination of the glow curves confirms that the areas sampled were fired in antiquity. Although the samples indicate an age for the plaque between 2000 and 3700 years, such a wide range of dates is not unusual. (2) My mathematical computations indicate a TL date between 1725 B.C. and 25 B.C.

The British Museum acquired the Burney plaque in 2003. It has now been renamed "The Queen of the Night" (hereafter British Museum plaque). Currently the British Museum staff assigns the date of the clay plaque between 1800 B.C. and 1750 B.C., to the Old Babylonian period of Hammurabi. (3) The plaque is now described as one of only two major works of art from the reign of the Old Babylonian king Hammurabi; the other is the stone stele carved with the code of Hammurabi, housed in the Louvre in Paris. (4) Since the plaque is without a provenience and was owned by an antiquities dealer in the early part of the last century, from whom it was purchased, there is the issue of whether one can legitimately date an unexcavated object to a specific time or historical period in antiquity. It is appropriate therefore to review the evidence presented by modern scholars and to compare the figural subjects on the British Museum plaque with excavated ancient Near Eastern art works. The study presented here should clarify the stated importance of the plaque, as it relates--or does not--to our knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian art, primarily of the second millennium B.C.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

BRITISH MUSEUM PLAQUE

The clay plaque is a unique work. When first brought to public attention in a 1936 article in the Illustrated London News, the plaque belonged to Sydney Burney. (5) The article states that the object had been subjected to exhaustive chemical examination; therefore there can be no doubt on its authenticity. (6) The article also dates the plaque to the "Larsa Dynasty in Sumeria," and there is an added comment that "the owls are a puzzle, for Minerva was not yet born." Until its purchase by the British Museum, the plaque remained in private collections in England and, more recently, in Japan. (7) An early publication gives the following information: the rectangular plaque measures 49.5 cm by 37 cm, with an average thickness of 2 to 3 cm. The head of the winged female figure projects 4.5 cm from the surface, the lions project 4.8 cm, and the owls 4.6 cm. Traces of red ochre paint occur on the female figure's body, and red and black alternate on her feathers. In addition, the mane of each lion is covered with a hard bituminous compound. (8) The traces of color are now much faded.

As shown in the 1936 published illustration of the clay plaque, damaged areas and cracks are readily observable. However, the heads of the animals, those of the birds, and the nude torso of the female are mostly intact. The extreme left side of the female's face and neck touching the background is damaged and partially destroyed. Her headdress, also partially damaged, consists of four pairs of horns topped by a disk, but evidently more breakage occurred sometime after 1936, since only three horns now remain at the proper left side of the headdress (fig. 2). The four-horned headdress is an item of divinity that occurs in the visual arts of Mesopotamia, particularly from the Ur III period to the Old Babylonian period. Moreover, that particular type of headdress is generally reserved for major deities, primarily the sun god Shamash and the goddess Ishtar. Noteworthy are the female's small hollow eyes, presumably designed for inserting inlay material. This feature is unique, since I know of no excavated clay statuette or terracotta figurine in relief whose eyes were originally inlaid. Inlaid eyes of various materials were applied to ancient Mesopotamian statuary in stone and metal, generally dated to the third millennium B.C. (9)

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The centrally placed composite nude female stands in frontal position with her arms upraised. In each open hand is what I describe in my 1970 article as a ring and rod (see n. 1), but which Frankfort has identified as a continuous coiled piece of rope (see n. 8); however the object in the right hand is mostly destroyed (the background surface is intact but an incised line and a darkened hue together emphasize the curve of the missing "ring"). The female has two wings that extend downward from slightly above and behind her shoulders. Her talon feet stretch over the haunch of one of two small recumbent lions whose bodies, one mostly hidden behind the other, turn outward, and whose heads are shown in frontal view. Beyond each of the lions a large owl-like bird standing in frontal pose completes the composition (fig. 1).

The female figure is modeled in high relief. Her fleshy torso with its narrow waist, full high breasts, contour lines of the hips and thighs, and the bone-structured legs disclose an artistic skill that is almost certainly derived from observed study. But the rather realistic rendering of the female's torso, marked by a deep navel, contrasts with excavated nude females in terracotta that are varied and sometimes clumsy versions. (10) A feature of the female's body that deserves attention is the softly modeled pubic area. The addition of black paint, now much faded, represents the pubic hair, within which is a tiny vertical indentation (fig. 2). This particular, somewhat naturalistic rendering finds little parallel with nude female figures of the third to first millennium B.C., whose respective pudenda--"the pubic triangle"--is merely outline or decorated with crossed lines, or with curls as an eleventh-century B.C. Assyrian statue demonstrates. (11)

The figural subjects on the British Museum plaque are arranged into a precise symmetrical composition. The axial symmetry derives from the vertical axis that extends through the center of the female figure. The one-behind-the-other bodies of the recumbent lions offset the strict symmetry of the plaque, although their frontal heads accord with the symmetrical design. The application of axial symmetry in Mesopotamian art of the third and early second millennia B.C. is rare for major art works; however, there are examples of a three-part emblematic design that consists of the lion-headed Anzu bird in frontal view whose claws touch the hindquarters of two animals standing back-to-back. (12) On the other hand, the axial symmetry of the plaque may be described as consisting of a five-part emblematic design, if one views the nude female, the paired lions, and the large birds placed at each side of the central group independently (see below). This five-part configuration contrasts with known emblematic designs produced during the second and first millennia B.C., which conform to the three-part symmetry. (13)

A noteworthy feature on the plaque is the placement of the three-toed talon feet of the two birds. The toes extend below the surface of the shallow platform, patterned with the common mountain motif and marking the ground line of the composition. The extension of the toes deviates from the standard method of representation in Mesopotamian iconography in which figural subjects, drawn or modeled in relief, rest upon the ground line for visual stability. (14) Another detail that affects the spatial quality of the composition is the placement of the long, knobby-clawed toes of the female's talons. The clawed toes touch and overlap the body of the lion in the foreground and stretch downward considerably, but do not rest upon a ground line, thereby imparting a subtle notion that the female figure hovers in space. Although her main portion is contained within the frontal picture plane, since she is posed against the clay background and touching the lion whose body rests upon the platform defining the frontal plane, her modeled three-toed talon feet project beyond that imaginary plane. As a visual device this implied forward movement past the frontal plane disengages the female from the paired lions. The manner in which the composite female figure and lions are depicted departs from that shown on bas-reliefs with similar subject matter in Mesopotamian art. In those works the feet of the human or divine figure rest upon the back of an animal, thereby creating a unified image by placing both subjects in the same picture plane.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSIONS

Soon after the British Museum plaque was brought to public attention in 1936, Dietrich Opitz questioned its genuineness. (15) He did not consider the chemical analysis mentioned in the 1936 article sufficient to confirm the antiquity of the plaque, but correctly argued that comparison with excavated objects should be made. Opitz pointed out that the subject matter of the relief is without parallel, and...