Reinforced Ideologies: Repetitive Rhythm and Doubled Images in Mesopotamian Art

My Chau

This article analyzes the Warka Vase, the Great Lyre of Ur and the pedestal of Tukulti-Ninurta, three Mesopotamian self-portrait objects or--artworks that depict an image of itself on the object itself. The images of the vase, lyre, and pedestal served as symbols for some of the larger religious ideologies of the elites, and the use of doubling in these images and putting them into circulation via cylinder seals was a way to spread these ideologies. Since repetition and reference was important in the general Mesopotamian system of visual communication, a perceptual change such as the shift of the god's headdress from profile to frontal view on one of the major Mesopotamian monuments, the Code of Hammurabi, has significant socio-political implications. The study of repetition in the visual arts opens discussions for an inclusive analysis about spatial and perceptual changes such as the shift from the five to four legged bull colossi in Neo-Assyrian art and the change in narrative reliefs from the use of single registers to the entire spatial surface.

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