Brotherhood of Kings - a Fascinating History of the Near East

Brotherhood of Kings, by Amanda Podany, is one of the most interesting books on Near Eastern Archaeology that I have read in a long time.

This book tells the history of the Bronze Age Middle East through the eyes of Kings, Queens, Princes, Princesses and vassals who wrote letters found in archives preserved in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt. These letters reveal the personalities of the writers in a very human way. Some of the Kings were greedy for gold; others constantly whined that the gifts that had been sent to them by other Kings were not sufficient. Amenhotep III of Egypt seemed to have an interest in marrying as many foreign princesses as possible and several letters reveal the size of the dowry and bridal gifts exchanged by the Pharaoh and his father-in-law.

Some of the stories are familiar to students of the Ancient Near East. For example, the letters between an Egyptian Queen (Ankhesenamen, the widow of Tutankhamen?) and the King of the Hittites, in which the Egyptian Queen asks for the Hittite King to send one of his sons to Egypt so that she can marry him (as her husband has died and she does not want to marry one of her subjects) is a well-known, and fascinating, story. One wonders how history would have changed if the Hittite Prince had married the Egyptian Queen (instead of being assassinated en route to Egypt).

Other sets of correspondence were not familiar to me. One of the most interesting of these, are the set of letters between Zimri-Lim (King of Mari) and a number of other Kings to whom he had married his daughters. One of the young ladies was very unhappily married and seems to have genuinely feared for her life. She was probably quite relieved when her husband divorced her and sent her home.

This book is well written and easy to read. It is full of fascinating information and tells numerous interesting tales in a very lively manner. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in ancient Near Eastern history.

The Good, the Bad and the Truly Ugly

If you ever visit the Metropolitan Museum in New York City you will find some spectacular artifacts in the Egyptian collection. Off to the side of the main exhibits, the Met has some groups of small and often rarely visited objects called study areas. One of these study areas contains objects from the Met’s excavations in the Seventeenth Dynasty cemetery at Thebes. The mummiform coffins found in these excavations are quite spectacular. Spectacularly ugly that is!

These coffins are called “rishi” from the Arabic word for feathered. This is because the primary decoration of these coffins is a feathered pattern which often shows a pair of wings extending down the length of the coffins’ lid. Rishi coffins are known from the Second Intermediate period through the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, with the best known examples coming from the tomb of Tutankhamen.

The examples from the Seventeenth Dynasty are particularly unattractive, as the attached photos will show. The coffins are carved from sycamore logs rather than from high quality cedar wood imported from what is now Lebanon. They are poorly crafted, the faces are badly carved and the painted decoration is unattractive. Often, a line of text which runs from the waist of the coffin down to the feet, contains the names and titles of the deceased. Sometimes the name of the deceased does not appear in the inscription; there is a blank space for it but the “undertaker” never bothered to fill it in.

Other decorative devices include an overly large painted “collar” worn around the neck of the coffin's lid and extending down over the chest (for some nice examples of real collars of this sort you can again look at the ones found in the tomb of Tutankhamen). Above the inscription there is often a painted representation of the goddess Nekhbet (sometimes accompanied by Uadjet).

The Seventeenth Dynasty was a period of political unrest and of declining artistic standards. Thebes was a provincial center which was possibly paying tribute to the “Hyksos” pharaohs who ruled northern Egypt. These coffins display the declining artistic standards of the period quite clearly and serve to remind us that there is more to ancient Egyptian culture than the huge statues and golden jewellery of the Pharaohs.

Khentkawes - A Female Pharaoh?

In the most recent issue of World Archaeology Magazine, Mark Lehrner suggests that Khentkawes, the Fourth Dynasty wife of Menkara, may have managed to become Pharaoh after her husband's death.

The theory is based on a proposed restoration of a carving representing her, which may have shown her with a false beard and an uraeus on her brow.

Dr. Lehrner also discusses his recent excavations near her tomb at Giza, which includes the re-excavation of a small Fourth Dynasty town.

While the evidence presented for this theory is hardly overwhelming, it is interesting and worth discussing. For more information, check in at the Ancient Egypt Research Associates website.

Egypt Preparing to Ask for Nefertiti Bust (Again)

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's antiquities service has been given copies of the documents related to the discovery of the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti by the museum in Berlin that currently has the bust. Dr. Hawass claimed on his blog today that, "These materials confirm Egypt’s contention that Borchardt did act unethically, with intent to deceive: the limestone head of the queen is listed on the protocol as a painted plaster bust of a princess".

As some readers will remember, I posted a while back that KMT Magazine had published an article indicating that there may have been deception involved in Berlin retaining the famous bust of King Akhenaten's wife, and that Egypt was likely to ask, again, for the return of this famous work of art.

The Law Code of Ur-Nammu (Part 2)

In many ways the law code of Ur-Nammu was much less "heavy handed" than the later code of Hammurabi. For instance, compare this law from each code and note the different punishments:

Hammurabi (Law 127):
If a man has pointed a finger at a priestess or another man's wife but does not prove her guilty, they shall beat that man in front of the judges. In addition they may half-shave his hair (shaving a man's hair is a public humiliation).


Ur-Nammu (Law 14):
If a man accuses the wife of a young man of promiscuity but the river ordeal clears her, the man who accused her shall weigh and deliver 20 shekels of silver.

Note the differing punishments for a false accusation. In Hammurabi's code physical punishment was meted out, while in Ur-Nammu's code the penalty was an (admittedly stiff) fine.


Again note the difference in punishments in the next two laws. In Hammurabi's code the punishment is physical, while the law code of Ur-Nammu calls for a fine.

Hamurabi (Law 197):
If he has broken another man's bone, they shall break one of his bones.

Ur-Nammu (Law 19):
If a man shatters the ... bone of another man with a club, he shall weigh and deliver 40 shekels of silver.


One last example:

Hammurabi (Law 200):
If a man has knocked out the tooth of a man who is his colleague, they shall knock out his tooth.


Ur-Nammu (Law 22):
If [a man knocks out another man's] tooth with [..., he shall] weigh and deliver [X shekels of silver].

It should be noted however, that Law 201 of Hammurabi's Code does call for a fine if a man knocks out the tooth of a social inferior.

The Law Code of Ur-Nammu

I mentioned in my last post that the law code of Ur-Nammu was somewhat different than the (later) law code of Hammurabi. The primary difference is in the punishments prescribed for similar offences in the two law codes. Over the next couple of posts I will try to highlight these differences by comparing laws from the two codes.

This is not to say that different punishments are always prescribed for the same crime. For instance, law one of the Ur-Nammu code reads, "If a man commits a homicide, they shall kill that man", while Law 153 of Hammurabi's code says, "If a woman has let her husband be killed because of another man, they shall stick that woman on a stake."

Law 1 of Hammurabi's code also states that if a man makes a false accusation of homicide, the accuser shall be executed.

So homicide was punishable by death in both codes, with Hammurabi's code also stipulating that false accusations of homicide were punishable by the death penalty.

Another example of similarly harsh punishments in both law codes would include law number six of Ur-Nammu's code and Hammurabi's law number 130, both of which call for the death penalty for a man who de-flowers the virgin bride of another man.

In the next post we shall look at some crimes where the punishment is very different in the two law codes.


References:
Richardson, M. E. J., "Hammurabi's Laws", Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000.

Roth, Martha, "Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor", Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1997.

Ur-Nammu

Ur-Nammu was a ruler of the city of Ur and the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur (somewhere around 2097 – 2080 B.C.). Ur-Nammu, who reigned for about sixteen years, claimed the titles “the mighty man, King or Ur, King of Sumer and Akkad” and expanded his control from Ur to a large part of Mesopotamia.

The earliest known law code in world history dates either to the reign of Ur-Nammu or his son Shulgi. We know the contents of this code from three texts. The Nippur tablet preserves the prologue and laws 4 – 20. The Ur tablets, preserve laws 7 – 37 while the “Sippar” tablet (which may actually be from Nippur) contains the end of the prologue and the first ten laws . The law code is somewhat different from the famous law code of the Babylonian King, Hammurapi and I will do several posts soon to highlight some of the differences.

The stela pictured here was originally about five feet cross and ten feet high. It shows the god Nanna seated on a throne and holding a measuring rod and line. The god is wearing a multi layered wool garment and sitting in front of a potted (?) tree.

Many inscriptions from Ur-Nammu’s reign have survived. A large number of these texts describe the building of the walls of the city and a ziggurat which survives to this day. This ziggurat is one of the best known buildings to have survived from the ancient near east. On the north-east side of the ziggurat there are three stairways which meet at the top of the first level. The central stairway then continues up to the second level. It is uncertain if there was a third level. No remains have survived of the temple that, it is assumed, existed at the top of the ziggurat.