A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Art by Ann C. Gunter

Author:Ann C. Gunter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781118336731
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Published: 2018-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

Figuring Protection

Visual and material aspects of apotropaic practice also reveal the tropes of liminality and condoned transgression of divine power. The histories and identities of apotropaic figures engender various mythical and supernatural forms associated with civilization and the protection of humankind (see Figure 13.5). While the apkallu figures represent the mythological antediluvian sages who first brought the arts of civilization to humankind, the “defeated enemies” consist of eleven “monsters” bred by the female divinity Tiamat, which became the servants of Marduk (Lambert 2013: 224–32). These monsters provide appropriate figures of protection as the powerful subversives defeated and redirected by divine will and rule. But apotropaic beings take on different attributes depending on the nature of their character. The apkallus act as purifiers and exorcists to expel and ward off evil forces, while monsters, lesser deities, and dogs defend the house from demonic intruders (Wiggermann 1992: 96–97). Strikingly, most characters display composite human‐animal forms.

Hybrid forms manifest a communion of things generally held to be opposed to or different from each other. The blending of humans and animals in this context may simply present a forceful combination of various desirable traits and capacities. They might also capitalize on the tension between Mesopotamian conceptions of a structured, civilized human world and a chaotic, untamed natural world. Hybrids materialize a unity of self and other, human and animal as an equivocal being that is at once knowable and controllable and unknowable and uncontrollable. As beings in‐between, hybrids embody potential, transition, and similarity in difference. As the embodiment of liminality, they are generally associated with dangerous power (for further discussion in the ancient Near Eastern context, see Nakamura 2005, 2008; Wengrow 2014; Feldt 2015: 84–88).

In diminutive form, however, such power could be better directed and controlled. The miniaturized scale mediates the human enactment of a variety of desires and actions as it invites activities of play and fantasy. In this case, the āšipu’s creation of powerful supernatural beings in diminutive, portable clay form mimics the divine creation of being from primordial clay. This transgressive act of appropriating divine creative power is not only mitigated by various suppliant acts (see Wiggermann 1992: Texts I/II) but also finds cover in the opacity of the figurine object itself, which presents itself to the world as a small, doll‐like object that invites relations of play and mastery. According to Roger Caillois (2001: 157), play “constitutes an area of ‘limited and provisional perfection,’ in which one is the master of destiny.” In the realm of play, humans are free to “master” any relation, being, reality, or power, immune to any apprehension or consequence regarding their actions; this is especially true when such play is circumscribed by human‐object relations. The specific materiality of apotropaic figurines, as miniature, portable, enclosable objects, thus provides an ideal form for channeling protective power in certain locales.

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