Assyria, Urartu, and Achaemenid in the Iron Age Near East
For roughly two centuries, from ca. 900 – 700 BCE, the Near Eastern empires of Neo-Assyria and Urartu co-existed, though the former gradually conquered and subsumed the latter in the mid-7th century. By 550 BCE, forty years after the Assyrians themselves were defeated, the Achaemenid Empire had conquered the major centres of the Near East and catapulted the Persians into position as a regional dynasty (Van De Mieroop 252, 287). During these centuries, a common, unspoken language of symbols often reflected the region’s shifting geopolitics, allegiances, and hegemonies on material goods. This is the first article in a three-part series which will examine cylinder seals from each of the empires to investigate the borrowing, imitation, and consumption of iconography during a period of cultural exchange and conquest.
This analysis of cylinder seal iconography will focus on three specific symbols: winged disks, fish, and crescents. A comparative analysis of a small collection of cylinder seals from the three empires will provide preliminary evidence for the ways in which cultural exchange and interaction influenced stylistic developments from Anatolia (Turkey) to southern Mesopotamia (Iraq). This analysis will focus on the creative decision to include such imagery: were ‘foreign’ symbols intended to display one’s affiliation to Assyria and the greater Neo-Assyrian community? Or were they simply a natural result of the rich artistic tradition that characterises such sprawling empires? Better understanding the use of imported icons on cylinder seals furthers our knowledge and appreciation of cultural exchange and conspicuous identity politics in the Iron Age Near East.
This article will start with a historical review of the emergence and growth of the Assyrian, Urartian, and Achaemenid empires and introduce the three major symbols at the centre of the comparative study: crescents, fish, and winged disks. I’ll outline the history and symbolism of these icons, which were common to the region across the entire period. Part two in this series, to be published next month, will review three cylinder seals to be used as case studies for the analysis. I’ll also discuss the conclusions reached by other scholars who have previously worked on these pieces, including the archaeologists who originally excavated them.
Finally, in the third and final part, I will compare the three objects and consider the evidence of whether the imagery depicted on each resulted from cultural exchange or a deliberate effort to indicate allegiance to or affiliation with the Assyrian Empire. Approaching artistic ‘transactions’ in this way provides a methodological framework that, although unable to conclusively determine the origin of each symbol, can lead to insights on cultural exchange in the ancient Near East. As a non-verbal form of communication, cylinder seal iconography can also provide insights on other aspects of Iron Age life, such as identity politics and the dynamics of one’s relationship to the reigning power.
The neo-Assyrian empire and its neighbours
The Neo-Assyrian Empire, representing the height of Assyrian power from roughly 911 – 609 BCE, was the largest empire on earth at that point in history. As a result, several of its cultural, technological, and political developments were adopted by neighbouring and successor states. These ‘inheritances’ can reveal a lot about the power dynamics of the region; for example, the use of foreign symbols on ubiquitous objects such as cylinder seals would have been affected by a state’s relationship with that foreign power. In other words, cultural exchange would have flourished during times of peace but stalled during periods of conflict or siege, in which foreign symbols would have been intentionally avoided (Radner 2011). An example of this can be seen in the cultural exchange between the Assyrians and their neighbours to the northeast, the kingdom of Urartu.
Urartu emerged as a regional power in the mid-9th century BCE, centred around Lake Van in present-day Turkey. Around 714 BCE, the Assyrian invasion of parts of Urartu sparked the protracted Urartu-Assyrian War. Following Assyrian King Sargon’s death in 705 BCE, Urartu led a counteroffensive that retook all lost ground and gained additional territory from the Assyrians in present-day Iran.
Ultimately, Urartu maintained its independence and resisted Assyrian control throughout the mid-7th century BCE (Van De Mieroop 2006). That Urartian cylinder seals began to feature Assyrian symbols is an interesting example of cultural and political dynamics in ancient times. With trade, the exchange of artistic traditions and cultural symbols flourished; popular Assyrian symbols such as winged disks and crescents appeared with increasing frequency on Urartian seals and other visual media (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica 2019). Even though the two empires were often adversaries, the adoption of Assyrian symbols in Urartian seals can be attributed to several factors:
- Cultural influence: Assyria was a major power in the ancient Near East, and its culture and art had a significant influence on neighbouring regions.
- Political strategy: the use of Assyrian symbols could also be a diplomatic manoeuvre to bolster negotiations or affirm cultural continuity.
- Trade and diplomacy: despite frequent conflicts, there were prolonged periods of trade and interaction between the two civilisations. The exchange of goods and ideas often, as outlined above, included cultural and symbolic icons.
In the end, the great size of the Assyrian Empire was ultimately its downfall; unable to control the many provinces stretching across the Near East and Asia, Assyria descended into civil war and was subsequently defeated by a coalition of rival states around 609 BCE. The coalition, later consisting of just Medes and Scythians, then attacked and defeated the Urartians around 590 BCE. Despite this, the rich Urartian artistic tradition continued, facilitated by the many smaller ‘buffer’ kingdoms between the region and Anatolia (Radner 2011: 734).
Four decades later, around 550 BCE, the Achaemenid—or First Persian—Empire grew as a Median province, quickly defeating and subsuming the entire Median state and growing to become the largest empire in antiquity. The Achaemenid Empire stretched from present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan in the east to Bulgaria and Ukraine in the northwest, extending south to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and west to Libya. The legacy of the Achaemenids includes a policy of tolerance for religious freedom and ethnic diversity, the use of satraps (which divided the empire into manageable administrative units) in a centralised bureaucracy, and the maintenance of infrastructure to facilitate transportation and communication (Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art 2000). Many Achaemenid policies contributed to the longevity of the empire and were appropriated by subsequent powers. Many were also inherited from the Assyrians, including the development of an imperial army and competent civil services. But the Achaemenids’ tolerance for a multireligious and multiethnic empire, which differed from the homogenising aims of the Assyrians, is believed to have been a key contributor to the success of the empire (Melville 2009: 179).
The ebbing and flowing of the Assyrians, Urartians, and Achaemenids as regional powers necessarily dictated the ease with which one’s artistic tradition and cultural symbols, such as those on cylinder seals, were subject to exchange. For instance, cultural exchange between the Assyrians and Urartians stalled during the extended period of war that broke out during the turn of the 7th century BCE. However, it picked up again during the reign of the Achaemenids, which absorbed the earlier two empires. The ruling power would also have contributed to the proliferation of specific icons; Assyrian symbols would have transferred more easily to Urartu during the eighth century BCE, for instance, than they would have during Achaemenid reign from the middle of the 6th century BCE onwards (Radner 2011).
Lastly, political developments would have affected an individual’s willingness to depict foreign affiliations or influence on their personal seal. Of course, one might not want to indicate their affiliation to Assyria if they lived near Van in 710 BCE. On the other hand, adding an Assyrian winged disk to an Achaemenid seal to indicate Assyrian parentage would have been more acceptable under the Achaemenid Empire. Understanding the geopolitical context of the Iron Age Near East can therefore contribute to our understanding of cylinder seal iconography as much as cylinder seal iconography can contribute to our understanding of regional geopolitics.
Cylinder seal iconography: crescents, fish, and winged disks
There were two main types of seals used in the ancient Near East: stamp seals (which came first) and cylinder seals. The development of cylinder seals resolved several important issues associated with stamps: they had more surface area which allowed for more complicated designs, they allowed for greater security on official documents, and they were more portable, often pierced to be pinned to one’s clothing. Cylinder seals are believed to be the second most frequently excavated objects in the Near East and Levant after cuneiform tablets, due in part to their ubiquity in ancient society and their relative resistance to typical factors of environmental degradation like salt and humidity (Bertman 2003; Chiera 1940; Postgate 2002).
The iconography on seals reflected important aspects of culture and society such as natural phenomena, celestial bodies, rituals, and the passing of time. One symbol that relates to all these aspects of life is the moon; important for marking the passage of time, tracking flood season, and interpreting the will of the gods, the crescent moon often represented the sun god or moon god interchangeably (Dusinberre 2005: 52-53; de Hulster and Schmitt 2007).
Research is still lacking for nearly every aspect of seal manufacture, however, which could provide more answers when analysing seals’ iconography and symbology. One facet of seal-cutting that still eludes scholars is the social standing of the seal cutters themselves. For instance, considering the frequency with which seals were used, were the cutters wealthy? Would a royal court have had one on retainer? What would the training or apprenticeship have been like? Some suggest that the seal cutting trade would have been passed down from father to son, and therefore training would have begun at a young age. An interesting supporting argument for this is the idea that myopia, or shortsightedness, would have aided in the carving of intricate designs; as this is a hereditary condition, it supports the notion that the trade would be passed down through generations of the same family (Collon 2001; Feingold 2014).
Along with crescents, fish also appear regularly on cylinder seals, typically indicating prosperity or fulfilment and especially common on seals from the Achaemenid Empire. The Achaemenids, like the other empires of the Near East, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia, were characteristically multicultural and engaged with the artistic traditions of neighbouring realms. And, since all relied heavily on the bounty of the many rivers, lakes, and marshes, fish were (and still are) an important facet of life across the region (Potts, Roaf, and Stein 2003).
The third and final symbol that appeared frequently on Near Eastern seals was the winged disk. Again, the frequency with which this symbol appears can be credited in part to the ubiquity of Assyrian imagery during and after the height of imperial power and, of course, the legacy of the icon in Egyptian imagery. Much has been written on the Egyptian origins of the symbol and its influence across the region as far as the Achaemenid Empire and today’s Iran (André-Salvini 2005; Ornan 2005; Yalcin 2011). The Egyptian icon was then adopted by the Persians who appropriated and modified the symbol, which would later be called the faravahar, for use by followers of Zoroastrianism. In the Near East, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia however, individuals often included winged disks and other similar symbology to indicate their allegiance to either the Neo-Assyrian Empire or the Assyrian community. But, more than just a symbol of affiliation, the winged disk was commonly employed as a symbol of divinity and fertility, often with the dual implication that devotion to the gods would produce a fertile life (Collon 2001: 54; Dusinberre 2005: 54; Fozi 2014).
The central issue to be explored in this three-part series is the difference between affiliation and cultural exchange. Unfortunately, due to the lack of surviving documentation from after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, little has been written on how these symbols were deliberately adopted to indicate allegiance or association. What is known, however, is that Urartian and Achaemenid craftspeople would often adopt imported imagery for commercial purposes, to present a new market with iconography that was familiar to them (Woolley 1961: 173). Taking these factors into consideration, the second part of this series will present three case studies to shed light on instances of cultural exchange and the import of artistic symbols. Were the symbols employed as deliberate indicators of one’s allegiance to the Assyrians? Or were they simply a consequence of the multicultural, integrated artistic tradition that characterised many of the region’s greatest empires? Differentiating between these two intentions is a key step in better understanding both cultural exchange and conspicuous identity politics in the ancient Near East.
Notes
1 André-Salvini, B. 2005. Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
2 Bertman, S. 2003. Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2003.
3 Collon, D. 2001. Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum: Cylinder Seals V: Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Periods. London: BMP.
4 De Hulster, I.J., and R. Schmitt, eds. 2009. Iconography and Biblical Studies: Proceedings of the Iconography Sessions at the Joint EABS / SBL Conference, 22–26 July 2007. Vienna: Ugarit-Verlag.
5 Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. 2020. “The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 B.C.).” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.
6 Dusinberre, E. 2005. Gordion Seals and Sealings: Individuals and Society. Gordion Special Series III. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. 51-54.
7 Feingold, R. 2014. Engraved on Stone: Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals and Seal Inscriptions in the Old Babylonian Period. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press LLC.
8 Fozi, N. 2014. Reclaiming the Faravahar: Zoroastrian Survival in Contemporary Tehran. Leiden: Leiden University Press.
9 Melville, S.C. 2009. “A New Look at the End of the Assyrian Empire.” In Homeland and Exile: Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Bustenay Oded, edited by Alan Millard, Gershon Galil, and Markham J. Geller, 179-201. Leiden: Brill.
10 Ornan, T. 2005. “A Complex System of Religious Symbols: The Case of the Winged Disc in Near Eastern Imagery of the First Millennium BCE.” In Crafts and Images in Contact: Studies on Eastern Mediterranean Art of the First Millennium BCE, edited by C.E. Suter and C. Uehlinger, 207-241. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck Ruprecht.
- Doğubayazıt Castle in present-day Türkiye, built during the Urartu period, c. 9th-century BCE
- Cylinder seal depicting the Achaemenid king, a supernatural creature, ibexes, and sphinxes
- Achaemenid cylinder seal depicting dismounted Median hunter
- Achaemenid king Darius I shooting at a rampant lion
- Doğubayazıt Castle in present-day Türkiye, built during the Urartu period, c. 9th-century BCE
- Doğubayazıt Castle in present-day Türkiye, built during the Urartu period, c. 9th-century BCE
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