Discussion points
- One of the main concerns of this weeks discussion is to explore culturally specific and historically contingent representations of sexuality. I hope to discuss why and how sexuality and constructions of gender are always culturally specific, geographically located and historically contingent matter. The universalism that derives from the Western humanist tradition, on the other hand, determines its own particular trans-historical ideals and marginalizes "other sexualities". The case study I wanted to bring to the floor are the corpus of terracotta plaques and figurines from Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (about which Michelle will tell us) throws in a curious dilemma for us: (a) what is the function of these popular, ubiquitous objects circulating in great numbers in Southern Mesopotamian cities, found in every household? (b) what do they tell us about notions of femininity, masculinity and sexuality in Middle Bronze Age Mesopotamian society? (c) and what about the rather unfounded interpretation of nude female images on terracotta plaques by modern scholars as evidence for sacred prostitution?.. What does that say about our own modern notions of sexuality today?
- Another important issue for us to address is the nature of pictorial representation itself. Bahrani speaks about images as both a "sign" and an "index". Could we unpack this a little bit? There are also examples of metonymic representations such as a pubic triangle covering an entire terracotta miniature bed, standing in for the whole erotic female body (Bahrani 1996: 10). A major difficulty in discussing representation in non-Western cultures is that post-Enlightenment European painting tradition and modern photography have established a notion of representation as a literal depiction of reality at a given (read "stable") moment and place- i.e. representation of things in the way they appear to the eye. This is a culturally specific understanding of representation which can be completely incorrect for certain cultural contexts such as ancient Mesopotamia. Let's discuss what other approaches to image-making is possible, given the examples discussed in the readings.
- Assante relates the scholarly interpretation of Mesopotamian sexual imagery as temple prostitution and fertility, to 19th century Orientalist notions of the Orient as a place of sexual excess, hyper- and aberrant sexuality, a geography of sexual deviance, as illustrated in many Orientalist paintings. This is an important and provocative argument concerning the disciplinary origins of Classics and Near Eastern art history and philology. How does she present/conceptualize this historiographic link?
- Assante compares the Sumerian love poetry to the sexually arousing imagery on terracotta plaques, on account of the fact that they both derive from everyday practice and oral culture of house life in sourthern Mesopotamia. She also sees a "performative function" in Sumerian love poetry "in that it teaches gendered response to sexual arousal". What is her proposal for the function of terracottas?
Terracotta plaque from Babylon. (Vorderasiatische Museum Berlin 3576 13.5x7.5 cm) Image credit: Assante 2002: Fig.1
Terracotta plaque from Uruk (Warka). (Vorderasiatische Museum Berlin 3576 7.2x6.1 cm) Image credit: Assante 2002: Fig.2
Terracotta plaque from Tutub (Khafajeh) (Iraq Museum 11.4x10.4 cm) Image credit: Assante 2002: Fig.3
