Worshipping the Gods

This animation was created from fragments of a monument carved in limestone, known as the Ur-Namu Stele. King Ur-Namu ruled Sumer, the southernmost region of ancient Mesopotamia (roughly modern Iraq and Kuwait), around 2100 BCE (dates given for his reign vary as there is some uncertainty). Sumerian civilisation was extremely advanced and innovative; they developed the wheel, writing, the sailing boat, irrigation, and the first cities.

Ur-Namu was the first king of the 3^rd Dynasty of Ur. Ur was one of the first cities in the world. It was built where Tell el-Muqayyar in Iraq is today. The new dynasty ushered in a Sumerian Renaissance, after a period of instability. Ur-Namu was a very successful king. He wrote the earliest known law code, the Code of Ur-Namu, around 300 years before Hammurabi of Babylon wrote his famous code. Ur-Namu and his son Shulgi rebuilt the famed Ziggurat of Uruk, another major city near Ur, and they had a Ziggurat built at Ur itself. It is likely that the great epic of Gilgamesh, later to influence The Iliad, was stabilised into its known form in this period. Other forms of literature such as royal hymns also developed in this exciting age. People in this area in this era used standardised weights and measures; they had a rich religious and cultural life, and they produced high quality fabrics and other works of art.

The Ur-Namu Stele commemorates the building of the Ziggurat of Ur. Read more about it in About the Ur-Namu Stele.

In Greece, this period was the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-1600), and the early years of the Middle Minoan period (c. 2100-1600 BCE), before the great Minoan palaces were built. Egypt was approaching the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055-1650BCE), ruled by their 11^th Dynasty.

Above, the libation panel of the Ur-Namu Stele, University of Pennsylvania Museum, B16676.

This animation was made from sections of the Ur-Namu Stele. A stele is an upright stone with writing or images carved into it. The stele was around 3m high, 1.5m wide, 30cm thick, carved on both sides. It commemorated Ur-Namu’s building of the Ziggurat at Ur, and was found within the sacred precinct of the Mesopotamian moon god, Nanna. The first of three panel sections in the stele shows a king – probably Ur-Namu, or perhaps his son, Shulgi, making a gesture of greeting or blessing towards the enthroned god, Nanna. In the second panel, which we see in the animation, the king pours a libation to the moon god on the right, then pours a second libation to the moon goddess, Ningal, on the left. Nanna holds a rod, line, and adze: building equipment, and symbols of divine justice; he is ordering the king to build the Ziggurat. Behind the king stands a minor goddess; she is mediating the encounter with the deities and supporting the king. In the lower panels, the king carries builders’ equipment on his shoulder and is led by the god to begin the building project. Around them, other figures are at work on the construction.

At the end of the dynasty (c. 1750 BCE), Ur was ransacked by invaders. The stele was broken and its fragments scattered across the courtyard of moon gods’ sanctuary. The fragments were excavated thousands of years later in the 1920s, and they were put back together in an attempt to restore the original image. Over time the restoration began to give way. The team at the Penn Museum disassembled it, taking the pieces apart. They analysed the fragments and established a new reconstruction, based on other, similar images and on the shape of the pieces themselves. This led to a new, more accurate reconstruction, although the pieces were not literally stuck back together as they were judged to be too fragile.

You can take a virtual tour of the Penn Museum’s Middle East Gallery here, including an 8-minute video by Katherine Burge about the Ur-Namu Stele: https://www.penn.museum/tour/tour.php?id=4

Above, the Ur-Namu Stele, University of Pennsylvania Museum, B16676.

Above, a reconstruction of the Ur-Namu Stele in-situ in Ur, from the Ur-Namu Stele video by Katherine Burge: https://www.penn.museum/tour/tour.php?id=4

The animation shows a king, (Ur-Namu, or his son, Shulgi) worshipping the moon god and goddess, Nanna and Ningal. He pours libations, liquid offerings, to the gods, pouring them onto sacred trees.

The libation panel shows two scenes that mirror one another. The king stands before Nanna on the right, and before Ningal on the other. The animation merges the two images of the king into one, to express the image’s sense of the same man performing the same ritual before both deities.

The colours in the restoration were informed by surviving wall-paintings (frescos) and statues from Mesopotamia, under the guidance of GALATEO’s Dr Ludovico Portuese.

The animation was made as part of the international research project GALATEO: Good Attitudes for Life in Assyrian Times: Etiquette and Observance of Norms in Male and Female Groups. With Prof. Annunziata Rositani, Prof. Holly Pitman, and postgraduate student David Mulder, Dr Ludovico Portuese analysed the iconography of the Penn Museum Mesopotamian collection, leading to the Manners and Etiquette in Mesopotamian Life exhibition in which this animation appeared.