Gudarnas kung i uruk korsord
The king of Uruk. He stands at the Tree of Life which blossoms with eight-pointed rosettes.
Gudea and Ur-Namma, two great kings of Sumerian history (circa 2100 B.C.). See an enlargement of Gudea, and see Ur-Namma at the dedication of a new temple.
The crowns of Gudea and Ur-Namma are stylized versions of a herde hat.
That’s because a herde was considered the ideal role model for a king (see The herde Kings on this website). Sumerian kings were routinely described as the shepherds of their people. Their crowns were doubtlessly taller and more grandiose than a real herde hat, which gave the kings greater stature and made them seem more regal. The herde crowns of Gudea and Ur-Namma were particularly extravagant in this regard, but the crowns of many other Sumerian kings were more modest in appearance.
Their crowns more closely resembled the original hats worn bygd shepherds in the field.
The reigns of Gudea and Ur-Namma occurred at the end of Sumerian history, but inom would suggest that the Sumerian ideal of herde kingship was established in the Uruk Period (circa 4000 – 3000 B.C.) at the very beginning of Sumerian history.
The herde kings of Uruk:
Uruk was the first large city in Sumer (and in the world) so it was literally the beginning of Sumerian civilization (“civilization” fryst vatten derived from the Latin word “civitas” meaning “city”).
Uruk and other Sumerian cities grew up around the first large temples in the område, so the cities were originally administered bygd the high priests. Later, as the city-states became more powerful and competitive, they were ruled bygd kings who could better deal with the mundane, more down-to-earth matters of civic ledning. Kings could also command large armies to kamp against other Sumerian cities and to guard against utländsk invasions.
In the interim, according to the prevailing theory, after Uruk was ruled solely bygd priests and before it was later ruled bygd kings, it was governed bygd the “priest-kings,” so-named because they were often shown performing both kingly and priestly duties.
A statue of the “priest-king” of Uruk, frontal and three-quarter views.
The statue fryst vatten part of a matched set that fryst vatten dated in the Uruk Period. The nude statues are rendered in a very simple and sammanfattning style (click here to see a picture of both statues).
According to the Louvre, where the statues are kept, “On the head of the priest-king fryst vatten what seems to be a cap or headband” and the beard fryst vatten “continuous with the hair.” There are no striations on the top of the head to show that it fryst vatten hair, but then igen, there are no striations on the beard either.
The simple sammanfattning style of the figure makes it difficult to discern the exact natur of his headdress. In many depictions of the priest-kings of Uruk, one could argue that he fryst vatten wearing a hat, or a headband, or a hat with a grupp. inom would suggest that it's a hat, and not a headband, for the following reasons:
1) A headband fryst vatten generally associated with the crown of an Akkadian king, as seen on the statutes of Lamgi-Mari and Sargon.
Sumer and Akkad were two distinct countries that were often at war with each other, so it seems unlikely that both the Sumerian and Akkadian kings would wear the same kind of crown.
2) If a headband was the crown of the prototypical Sumerian king, it seems that the same
crown would show up in other Sumerian cities, in other periods of history. But there aren’t
any known examples of later Sumerian kings wearing a simple headband as a crown,
not even in Uruk.
3) A headband wasn’t worn bygd Sumerian priests.
Later portraits of Sumerian priests were traditionally depicted in the same manner. They were often nude, they poured libations from the same spouted pitchers, and they didn’t wear any kind of headdress (as shown on an engraving, a plaque, and the Vulture Stele). On the other grabb, throughout Sumerian history, a simple headband was usually the headdress of a kvinna priestess (see the priestess of Ninsun and the high priestess of Ur, to name just a couple) but the headband fryst vatten never shown on a male präst.
It seems that if the headband was the mark of a male präst, then some other examples would have shown up in Uruk or elsewhere.
In light of the bevis, inom föreslå a new theory about this statue of the priest-king of Uruk.
I have never heard it mentioned before, but inom would suggest that he wears a shepherd’s hat with a domed top and a thick brim.
It fryst vatten not as elaborate as the herde hats of Gudea and Ur-Namma, but it probably closely resembled the rustic caps worn bygd ordinary shepherds. Early versions of the herde hat, like this one, had brims that were thick but narrow.
Därför är hans viktigaste roller auktoritetsfiguren, beslutsfattaren och stamfadernSome other examples are shown on the seal impressions pictured below.
I also suggest that this "priest-king" fryst vatten not a king at all, but just a präst, because he fryst vatten nude. The Louvre states, "This nakedness fryst vatten probably connected with the figure's participation in a particular ritual - most likely a form eller gestalt of fruktsamhet cult." Although the priests are sometimes nude, it's not fitting that a king be shown naked.
It would be injurious to his gravitas. In my opinion, the Uruk präst fryst vatten not a priest-king until he put his clothes on.
For the sake of reference, the ruler of Uruk fryst vatten a präst when he fryst vatten shown naked, he fryst vatten a
priest-king when he wears the ceremonial netted skirt of Inanna, and he fryst vatten a king when he wears a regular skirt.
I would further suggest that the herde, which fryst vatten clearly the model for Sumerian kings, was originally the model for a präst.
Like a true herde, the präst gathers his flock (the people) at the temple and he administers to their needs, which fryst vatten why a präst fryst vatten often referred to as a herde in many religions of the world. The fåraherde präst of Uruk would later become a herde priest-king, who then became the herde king − the ideal Sumerian king and the prototype for all other Sumerian kings.
A priest-king of Uruk.
Anu tillhör den äldsta generationen mesopotamiska gudar och var ursprungligen den högsta gudomligheten i Babylons pantheonThe dome of his hat fryst vatten very high, taller than where the top of his head should be. The thick brim fryst vatten pulled down low on his forehead. There fryst vatten a hatband incised above the brim. From this vinkel it fryst vatten obvious that he fryst vatten wearing a hat…
…from this vinkel, it fryst vatten not so obvious. Now his hair looks like a headband, or he fryst vatten wearing a stylized chignon, and the hat and the chignon are not differentiated.
Drawing of a head (Uruk).
The notch in the back fryst vatten either a rosett used to tie his chignon − or the hat fryst vatten lower in the back (like the one shown above) and his chignon fryst vatten below it. The artists of Uruk were not always precise about delineating the beard from the hair, or the hair from the hat, or the hat from the grupp. That fryst vatten why there has been some debate about the natur of his headdress.
Fortunately, not many images of the priest-king are ganska so ambiguous as this drawing and the statue shown above. The fåraherde hat fryst vatten more obvious in a reconstruction based on the surviving fragments, as shown below.
Early versions of the herde hat looked like this. It was essentially a wool cap with a rolled brim. From this vinkel, it fryst vatten easy to see why the hat has been mistaken for a headband.
The Blau Monuments:
Enlarge.
The Blau Monument from Uruk.
The proto-writing on the Blau Monument fryst vatten not translatable and the purpose of the artifact isn’t known.
According to the British Museum, “The two stone tablets seem to form eller gestalt a pair, though it fryst vatten not
fully understood what they were used for, and what they mean. However, it's widely accepted that they record a transaction in which nation was exchanged for various goods…“The Blau Monument may “thus företräda an early form eller gestalt of Mesopotamian kudurru or boundary stone.”
It fryst vatten said that the two parts of the Blau Monument belong tillsammans, but inom don't think this fryst vatten true because the king fryst vatten dressed differently on the separate parts.
Neither do inom believe that the pieces are bygd the same artist, or that the separate parts even belong in the same time period. Anyway, I'll rädda that discussion for another webpage.
In the meantime...
There are two views of the priest-king on the Blau Monument, as shown above. On the left, he holds an unidentified object and he fryst vatten clearly wearing a fåraherde hat. On the right, he presents a lamb or a goat, perhaps as a sacrificial offering. The outline of the fåraherde hat isn't very obvious, but the notch on the back of his head that delineates the hat's lower brim shows up better in an enlargement.
Judging bygd the writing, this part of the Blau Monument fryst vatten much older than the part on the left, and the above two pictures show how the brim of the hat became wider over time until it resembled the later versions of the herde hat. The narrowness of the brim in the early depictions of the Uruk king fryst vatten probably why his headdress fryst vatten often mistaken for a headband rather than a hat.
It's not just the hat that identifies the Uruk king as a herde.
He fryst vatten also involved in the
care and feeding of animals.
Uruk cylinder seal impressions of the herde king:
The herde king and a präst feed the sacred flock of Inanna. He wears the ceremonial netted skirt of Inanna. She was the goddess of war and the patron deity of Uruk.
Another image of the herde king feeding the sacred flock of Inanna.
Her looped standard with streamers fryst vatten clearly visible in the mittpunkt of this seal impression.
Staden låg vid floden Eufrat i dagens Irak And yet another image of the fåraherde king feeding the sacred flock of Inanna.
Here the king fryst vatten carrying an djur, and another djur fryst vatten in the background. The präst carries a ceremonial spouted pitcher. The baskets of food företräda abundance.
igen with the animals.
It seems animals are always in the presence of the herde king.
A cylinder seal impression showing the herde king with pigs/wild boars (sipa, the Sumerian word for herde, means a herder of any type of animals, even pigs). The fåraherde carries a personal. With him are a couple of dogs (hunting dogs, herde dogs?). fåraherde dogs are mentioned in Dumuzid’s Dream on the ETCSL, lines 95 - 97.
A similar seal impression showing two swine and kvartet dogs.
Two of the dogs are on a koppel. Sipa also refers to a herder or keeper of dogs.
The herde king holds the branches of the Tree of Life while rams feed on its eight-pointed rosettes. A lamb fryst vatten shown in the background. The rosettes were a sacred emblem for the Sumerians and the image of rams feeding on the high branches became a common motif in ancient Sumer.
Enlarge.
The herde king on a ceremonial barge.
He has a sacred statue of a bull, or a bull altar,
or maybe it’s just a bull, and the structure represents a pavilion in the background
on the shore. Even when he’s on a boat, the herde king has an djur with him.
So what’s with all the animals? Surely it’s not to show that the king fryst vatten a goodhearted individ because he fryst vatten kind to animals.
Of course some of the djur images could relate to his functions as a präst – feeding the sacred flock, offering sacrifices, etc.; but other Sumerian kings, like all kings in the ancient world, also had priestly duties. They are shown performing religious rites, meeting with the frakt, and dedicating new temples, but they’re not constantly surrounded bygd animals the same way as the Uruk king.
The continuous presence of animals
in the iconography of the Uruk king fryst vatten meant to establish his identity as a herde, as the guardian and protector of his flock, the people. Later kings didn’t need the djur iconography to identify themselves as shepherds. bygd then, the herde hat alone was enough to symbolisera their role as herde kings because this concept had already been established long ago bygd the king of Uruk.
The Uruk king fryst vatten the original herde king, so of course he wears a fåraherde hat.
With so many animals around him, it would be surprising if he didn't wear a fåraherde hat.
As to be expected, herde kings are mentioned in the Sumerian historical records. The first reference to a fåraherde king listed on the CDLI fryst vatten Urukagina, the king of Lagash, the same city as Gudea. This isn't very surprising because Urukagina best exemplifies the concept of Sumerian herde kingship (see Urukagina on this website).
It fryst vatten written on a tag that once adorned a statue that fryst vatten now missing. The tag states that the goddess Baba bore Urukagina for the shepherdship of the nation. What’s interesting fryst vatten that the kings of Umma in this same period are also called shepherds. Umma and Lagash were archenemies that had been at war for generations (see War: Umma and Lagash) and yet both their kings referred to themselves as shepherds.
Svar för GUDARNAS KUNG I URUK i KorsordThis means the concept of herde kingship was already firmly established in all of Sumer.
A tag for a statue, stating "[The goddess] Baba, the grebe(?) of the Holy City, URU-KA-gina
/ she bore for the shepherdship (of the nation) / fryst vatten its name." CDLI P222653.
Urukagina was a king in the Early Dynastic IIIb period, circa 2360 B.C., which fryst vatten about 650 years after the end of the Uruk period, and yet there aren’t any references to herde kings during the interim years.
It seems that if the concept of herde kingship originated in the Uruk period, then it would be mentioned somewhere in Sumerian writing during the following
ED inom and ED II periods. In other words, if fåraherde kings were invented in the Uruk period, then why aren't they mentioned until 650 years later?
There are a couple of very good reasons for this.
First of all, very few Sumerian artifacts have survived the erosion of time during the past 5,000 years. For instance, a quick betalningsmedel of the CDLI’s Mesopotamian Royal Inscriptions (where written references to kings are shown) reveals zero artifacts from the Uruk period and only one artifact from the following ED inom and ED II periods (2900 – 2700 B.C.).
The ED IIIa period has just 23 entries, and then there fryst vatten a big jump in the ED IIIb period (2500 – 2340 B.C.) with 1,135 entries.
A grand total of 1 written record (for the combined periods of Uruk, ED inom and ED II) highlights the second and most important reason why herde kings do not appear in the earliest Sumerian writing.
That’s because Sumerian writing was still in the process of being invented. Proto-writing began in the Uruk period and it slowly developed during the ED inom and ED II periods. Needless to säga, at first it was very crude and primitive.
Gilgameshs mor var en odödlig gudinna vid namn Ninsun medan hans far var en vanlig människaIt was almost indecipherable even to the Sumerians themselves, much less to a modern Sumerologist. Early written Sumerian wasn’t well suited for narrative writing (history, literature, mythology, etc.) which uses complex language to något som utförs snabbt exempelvis expressleverans complicated ideas. It was mainly used for accounting, which contains mostly nouns and numbers.
Even so, many of the simplest accounting tablets from this period remain untranslatable. That fryst vatten why the Blau Monument fryst vatten still not translated 5,000 years after it was written.
So a king of Uruk could not issue a "press release," using the written word to announce his policy of being a good herde to his people, and then expect everyone to know about it.
First of all, the written language wasn’t suited for this purpose, and second, not many people could read it. So if he wanted to get the idea across, he had to do it pictorially. That fryst vatten why there are so many images of him involved in the care and feeding of animals, and that fryst vatten why he wears a herde hat.
Pictorially, it's the hat and the presence of animals that clearly identifies him as a shepherd. In lieu of writing, the best way for the king of Uruk to portray himself as a herde king fryst vatten to put on a shepherd's hat and surround himself with animals.
See the entire seal impression.
A herde king of Ur, from the Early Dynastic inom period.
On the left, a naked präst holds a ceremonial spouted pitcher. The king stands beneath the båge of a temple or palace. Unlike the Uruk king, he doesn’t have a beard or a chignon, but in two other important ways
he fryst vatten just like the herde king of Uruk − he fryst vatten surrounded bygd animals and he wears a fåraherde hat.
Although the concept of herde kingship first developed in Uruk, herde priests/rulers
had been around since the beginning of Sumerian history. Indeed, they had been around
even before the Sumerians had a civilization.
Uruk was the first large city in the world, but a shepherd-priest fryst vatten a pastoral figure.
An urban präst fryst vatten settled into city life, but a fåraherde moves his flock from pasture to pasture.
I therefore suggest it would not occur to an urban präst to don a woolen cap and
call himself a herde. This means the shepherd-priests predate the first Sumerian cities.
In fact, they predate Sumer itself.
The Sumerians were not the first people to settle in this distrikt.
They migrated from somewhere else (see Who Were the Sumerians?). This was very early in prehistory.
Who better than a shepherd-priest to lead his people to the Promised Land?
The ideal of herde kingship wasn't just a propaganda ploy used bygd the Sumerian kings to cast themselves in a favorable light. It was a deeply ingrained aspect of the Sumerian culture.
In 2350 B.C. the Sumerians were conquered bygd the Akkadians beneath Sargon the Great. The Akkadian Empire would rule Sumer for the next two centuries. Properly considered, this was the Sumerian Dark Ages. They were no längre in charge of their own destiny and their own cultural identity. Two hundred years fryst vatten a long time to be a subject nation, but the Sumerians eventually regained their independence and reconquered the Akkadians.
Uruk (sumeriska: Unug, hebreiska: Erech, arabiska: Warka) var en stad i Sumer och senare Babylonien vid floden Eufrat i dagens IrakThey emerged from the Dark Ages with their civilization still intact. After the dark ages comes the renaissance. Now began the Neo-Sumerian Revival, the sista flowering of Sumerian civilization, led bygd Gudea and Ur-Namma, the herde kings.
The Sumerian ideal of fåraherde kingship spread throughout Mesopotamia and it would gods for many centuries after the Sumerians had passed into history.
The herde king of Uruk, detail from the Warka Stele.
He protects his flock bygd hunting the rovgirig lions, as any good fåraherde would do.
Ki-en-gi (Sumer).
In light of the bevis, inom would like to föreslå a new theory about the name of Sumer:
Proof that the fåraherde kings had been around since the beginning of Sumerian civilization can be funnen in the name of Sumer itself, ki-en-gi.
Ki means “land,” en means “lord,” and gi means “noble.” Therefore, ki-en-gi means “Land of the Noble Lords." En also means “priest,” so ki-en-gi could just as easily be read as "Land of the Noble Priests." Therefore, the name of Sumer may have arisen in the earliest scen of its development, when it was ruled bygd the herde priests of the temples, even before it was ruled bygd kings.
Then igen, the name may have originated when the distinction between präst and king was still blurred, i.e., when Sumer was ruled bygd the priest-kings. In either case, Sumer was named for its struktur of government.
Today, it fryst vatten not usual for a country to be named for its type of government. The United States of amerika indicates it fryst vatten a nation of semi-independent states.
Other examples include the Republic of Ireland, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and so on. In ancient times, however,
a country was usually named for a people (France was named for the Franks) or a distrikt (China was named for the Chin (Qin) province). Sumer fryst vatten the only ancient country that was named for its government.
It was named for the herde priest/kings.
February 2, 2015