I was thinking about the Mesopotamia scene, in particular when one of the Unicorns decides to leg it;
Nope, this isn’t about how no one listens to Crowley, or how (adorably) Crowley hasn’t the foggiest about mammalian reproduction (and, I mean, I know I said ‘meta’ but I’m not sure this post even qualifies as a meta tbh).
Everyone and their Granny knows David Tennant is Scottish.
Something that everyone and their Granny might not know is that the national animal of Scotland is the Unicorn.
Relief image on the Tablet of Shamash (Sippar, 800s BC).
This relief shows the sun god Shamash on the throne, in front of the Babylonian king Nabû-apla-iddina (r. 888 – 855 BC) between two interceding deities. The text tells how the king made a new cultic statue for the god and gave privileges to his temple.
“Her name and title are known from the short inscription on one of three cylinder seals found on her person. Although most women’s cylinder seals at the time would have read “wife of ___,” this seal made no mention of her husband. Instead, it gave her name and title as queen. The two cuneiform signs that compose her name were initially read as “Shub-ad” in Sumerian. Today, however, we think they should be read in Akkadian as “Pu-abi” (or, more correctly, “Pu-abum,” meaning “word of the Father”). Her title “eresh” (sometimes mistakenly read as “nin”) means “queen.”
In early Mesopotamia, women, even elite women, were generally described in relation to their husbands. For example, the inscription on the cylinder seal of the wife of the ruler of the city-state of Lagash (to the east of Ur) reads “Bara-namtara, wife of Lugal-anda, ruler of the city-state of Lagash.” The fact that Puabi is identified without the mention of her husband may indicate that she was queen in her own right. If so, she probably reigned prior to the time of the First Dynasty of Ur, whose first ruler is known from the Sumerian King List as Mesannepada. Inscribed artifacts from the Seal Impression Strata (SIS) layers above the royal tombs at Ur name Mesannepada, King of Kish, an honorific used by rulers claiming control over all of southern Mesopotamia.”
“This ornate headdress and pair of earrings were found with the body of Queen Puabi in the Royal Cemetery at Ur. The headdress is made up of 20 gold leaves, two strings of lapis and carnelian, and a large gold comb. In addition, she wore chokers, necklaces, and large lunate-shaped earrings. Her upper body was covered by strands of beads made of precious metals and semiprecious stones that stretched from her shoulders to her belt. Ten rings decorated her fingers. A diadem or fillet made up of thousands of small lapis lazuli beads with gold pendants depicting plants and animals was apparently on a table near her head. Two attendants were in the chamber with Puabi, one crouched near her head, the other at her feet. Various metal, stone, and pottery vessels lay around the walls of the chamber.”
“Sir Leonard Woolley dubbed this statuette the “ram caught in a thicket” as an allusion to the biblical story of Abraham sacrificing a ram. It actually depicts a markhor goat eating the leaves of a tree. One of two such objects excavated from The Great Death Pit at Ur, the other is housed at the British Museum. Little of the original Ram survived when Woolley excavated it, which he did by pouring wax on it and using waxed muslin strips to stabilize it. In Woolley’s original reconstruction of the Ram, he miscalculated the height of the animal and placed the tree too deeply into the base, causing the Ram’s legs to dangle above the tree’s branches.”
It’s Old Stuff Day! Take a moment to enjoy the oldest item in our collection - a cuneiform tablet from about 2,000 BCE. It was excavated from Umma in Mesopotamia and is written in Sumerian. (Pre-1650 MS 0218)
This is the first time I’m participating in a challenge/contest! I’m kind of nervous but mostly excited. Posting some WIP to develope some thick skin :P
Going through a stylistic and directional change with my art. This is the most complex painting I’ll be doing yet. I sure hope I can finish on time.
Ur was an important city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, perhaps best known for the ziggurat monument and Royal Tombs. One of the main periods of excavations from 1922 to 1934 were jointly funded by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, and the story of these early excavations is often told with reference to director Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, and his assistant Max Mallowan, who would go on to became an important archaeologist in his own right. There is another character however whose role in these excavations was equally important, and that is Katharine Woolley (nee Menke). Katharine was described by fellow trowelblazers Gertrude Bell as “dangerous” and Agatha Christie as “an extraordinary character” and it is rumoured that Christie based a murder victim in one of her novels on her. Woolley was certainly a woman who made an impression, and her story has more than a little mystery and drama, and also unfortunately tragedy. Katharine was as a student at Oxford, however she left before finishing her degree and worked as a British military nurse. She married her first husband, Lieutenant Colonel Bertram Keeling, in 1919 and travelled with him to Egypt, but after only 6 months of marriage, he committed suicide in the Giza desert. The details surrounding his death are unclear, but this obviously had an impact on Katharine. She resumed her nursing career and ended up visiting the Ur excavations whilst on duty in Baghdad. She attracted the attention of the excavators with her illustration skills, and was invited to join the team. She began working as a field assistant for the project in 1924. Many texts allude incorrectly to the fact that she was present on the Ur excavations solely to accompany her husband, Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, when in fact she found herself there entirely through her own talents. She ended up marrying Leonard for convenience as it was her only option to remain on the dig after the funders expressed discomfort at the thought of an attractive young widow working in the field alone with a team of men. She quickly became ‘second in command’ at the dig, and she was also responsible for the reconstruction of the famous headdress of Queen Pu-abi amongst others. She would go on to lead excavations in the final year of the dig, and played an important role in fundraising and producing press materials for the project. In 1929, Katharine published a book, Adventure Calls, about a woman who pretends to be a man so that she can have a life of excitement and adventure, including joining an archaeological team! Katharine interviewed the young Max Mallowan for his place on the team, and it was also due to Katharine that Agatha Christie was allowed to visit the excavations. Initially the two became good friends, but suffered a falling out when Christie became romantically involved with Mallowan (they would later get married). Although Katharine was married to Leonard, it is suggested that she enjoyed the attention of being the only woman on site and wasn’t pleased when Mallowan directed his attention elsewhere. Christie was not welcome back and Mallowan left the team shortly after. It is these aspects of the story that may be responsible for Katharine’s reputation as being difficult to work with! Sadly her work was overshadowed by this reputation and with speculations about her sexuality/gender, which is rumoured to have been linked to the suicide of her first husband (for a discussion of this see this blog about an unpublished paper on Woolley). More important than the details (confusing as they are) of her personal life, were Katharine’s archaeological illustrations and reconstructions which were critical to publicising and promoting the discoveries at Ur. Without her contributions the importance of the Ur excavations would not have been recognised, and the success of her husband’s career was in no small part due to her work. Of course, there are those among us who prefer to judge her character but what we can see for ourselves - active fieldwork and a fondness for felines, which surely can’t be a bad thing…! [caption id=“attachment_1617” align=“alignnone” width=“580”]Courtesy of the Penn Museum, image no. 191365
Harvest season in Uruk, the greatest city in the world. When the fields are cut bare, the river runs swift, and even the gods themselves die. When a priest summons Crawley, she finds not the usual bargaining and lust for power, but something deeper, more twisted, and utterly inescapable.
With the first night’s ritual complete, a young priest named Iltani is ordered to take care of the captive demon…
They’d torn her apart again, but she’d found most of the pieces and slipped away while they were laughing. They’d noticed she was gone by now, so she had to hide, curled in on herself, coiled in the shadows, trying to stop her heart from beating before they heard it.
She didn’t know who they were, but it was important they didn’t find her.
She’d tried to go to the place she was safe, the only place, but they’d taken it from her, and now she couldn’t say the name, couldn’t even think it or they’d take the memory, too. Or had they already done so? If forgetting was the only way to protect it, how was she supposed to know if it was safe?
Something was coming. Shuffling, dragging steps. Scrabbling paws. A hand running across her hair as Lucifer whispered, “Come on, Crawley, the others want to play…”
With a strangled cry, her eyes snapped open to find someone far too close. Someone who wasn’t Aziraphale.
Cuneiform tablet with incised drawing of constellations: the Lion (Leo) and the Dragon (Draco)
Uruk (Warka), Seleucid period, 2nd century BCE
Mesopotamian astral science and astrological divination saw major developments in the 6th century BCE with the canonization of the zodiacal signs. Instructions for how to draw constellations exist from as early the Neo-Assyrian period (8th-7th century BCE). From the era of Hellenistic Greek occupation of Babylonia comes this fragment of a tablet (another fragment depicting the tail of the dragon and the constellation Virgo is in the Louvre), an early piece of scientific illustration, with the constellation names labeled in cuneiform Akkadian.
“The stories of the ancient Middle East have generally been told through Western voices. Who you don’t hear are the voices of local people.”
Owning the Past (ملكية من بلاد الرافدين الى العراق ) is a dual language exhibition highlighting the long-lasting impact of the past on the present. It explores how the borders of the state of Iraq were established following the First World War when British control of the region included a fascination with its ancient past - one that led to a colonisation of Mesopotamian antiquity as much as the living communities. It questions what is meant by heritage and introduces voices and stories of people not previously visible in displays devoted to the very histories and heritage of their homelands.
In this film, we hear from some of those involved in the creation of the exhibition: Community Ambassadors Nuha Abdo and Mustafa Barcho; Community Engagement Officer Nicola Bird; Exhibition co-curators Paul Collins and Myfanwy Lloyd; and Artist Piers Secunda.
It’s been a whole year since I started this project, and seeing it grow to the size it is today is amazing - I never imagined that it would ever get this popular! So to celebrate, I decided to take a look at some roast duck - based on some Sumerian cuneiform fragments.
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!
1 - Prepare the Duck To begin making this roast duck, we need to prepare our duck. I’m using a whole bird here, but you could just as easily cook this in pieces - it’s up to you! Start by scoring the breast with a knife a few times, to increase the seasoning surface area. The original fragment claims to be dealing with an unnamed bird, so I opted for duck - as wildfowl would have been a staple for Mesopotamia. But chicken or squab would have also been eaten around this time.
In any case, season your bird of choice using some salt, some freshly ground black pepper, some ground cumin, and some ground coriander. Rub this into the meat with your hands if you can handle it. Though I’m going to be dry-roasting this, it’s likely that the meat would have been boiled in a stew or soup broth for a while before being roasted in an oven.
2 - Roast the Duck Place your seasoned bird breast-side down on a roasting rack. And then place this into the centre of an oven preheated to 200C / 400F for about two hours (based on a 2kg bird of course), flipping this over about 30 minutes before serving so the breast meat roasts perfectly. When you’ve flipped the bird, go and prepare your soup.
3 - Prepare the Soup To pair with this, I made a quick and easy leek and herb soup. Start by chopping a leek into segments as thick as your thumb or so. Also chop an onion in half, and mince each half.
Toss some butter into a pot and put it onto a high heat. When the butter melts, toss in your leeks and onions. Return the pot to the heat, and let everything sauté away for a few minutes until the onion turns soft and translucent. At this point, toss in a few shakes of cumin and coriander, along with 750ml of water (or a soup stock of your choice). Into this, add some thyme and mint sprigs.
Let everything cook away for about 20 minutes, or until the leeks are practically falling apart.
Fish out your herb sprigs, and serve up alongside your duck!
The finished roast is super succulent, and very flavourful. The seasoning on the duck gave it a sharp zesty flavour, which paired very nicely with the herby, minty flavour of the soup. The meat itself has a lovely crisp skin, and tender flesh. This is a reconstruction of a fragmentary recipe from the Yale Cuneiform collection - others have postulated that it is separate to the pigeon stew recipe fragment, while others have claimed it to be a continuation of it. I chose to do a simple roast here, as ovens for cooking and baking would have been able to do this with little modification in antiquity (such as the use of a spit or shaft of metal or wood to cook the meat over a naked flame.
This week, I’m recreating some Akkadian Kukku - or “butter-cakes” - which would have been offered to deities, much like the qullupu I made a while ago, which were used in the worship of Inanna! However this dish seems to have been eaten by Akkadian rulers, rather than offered to deities.
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!
Ingredients
1 cup flour
½ cup hazelnuts
½ cup walnuts
1/3 cup honey
½ cup butter
½ cup raisins (or sultanas)
1 egg
dates (for decoration)
Method
1 - Grind the Nuts
To begin with, we need to crush our hazelnuts and walnuts in a mortar and pestle until they take on a sandy consistency. I left a few chunks in my batch - as you can see here - but I cannot recommend you do this, as it makes it rather difficult to take out of your baking tin later on! So, do as I say, not as I do in this case.
In any case, hazelnuts and walnuts would have been cultivated in this region in the Bronze Age, and were used frequently in the civilisations cuisines too!
Place this into a bowl for later, while you cream your butter and honey
2 - Cream the Butter, Mix the Ingredients
Place ¼ of a cup of butter into a large mixing bowl, and pour 1/3 of a cup of honey on top of this. Using a wooden spoon, mash this together until it takes on a smooth, creamy texture.
At this point, pour in your crushed walnuts and hazelnuts, a half a cup of raisins, and a single egg. Also toss in a cup’s worth of flour. Mix all of this together until it forms a wet dough. If it’s looking a little dry as you’re mixing it, you can add a little milk to the mix to bring it together - but no more than a quarter of a cup! You’ll wind up with something that’s more like a batter than a dough.
3 - Prepare Tin and Bake
When your dough is done, butter up a baking tin, and scoop in your dough. Smooth down the top a little, before sticking some dates on top of this. There’s no real pattern to replicate, so scatter them as organised or chaotically as you want!
Place your dough into the centre of an oven preheated to 130C / 275F for half an hour, or until the kukku takes on a lovely golden complexion.
Leave the pan to cool before you take your bake out of the tin - this will help it retain its integrity.
The finished dish is really soft and light, and has a lot of similarities to the Palace Cake from Ur I recreated a few months ago. These cakes are delicious if you drizzle honey over the tops of them before you eat them, so the dough gets imbued with sweet honey goodness.
The Babylonian origin goddess Tiamat as depicted by Carolyn Scrace in Gerald Legg’s X-Ray Picture Book of Incredible Creatures. Her scale and configuration here puts me in mind of a GMO or even Mythos biosphere-seeding machine, a kind of monstrous Last Universal Common Ancestor.
Courtesy of the Penn Museum, image no. 191365
