This is a Sumerian door plaque. It served as a backplate for a door handle. The handle fit into the square hole in the middle.
There are many similar examples of Sumerian door plaques. They all have the same motif. In the top register, a king and queen enjoy a feast while being attended by their servants. In the lower registers, the servants bring food and drink. Animals are led to the sacrifice, meaning this is a religious festival.
The king and queen hold date clusters.
On all the plaques shown on this page, every king and queen has a date cluster.
Holding a date cluster while eating dinner is highly unusual behavior, to say the least. This isn't something that people normally do, so it clearly has a symbolic or ceremonial
meaning.
It has been suggested that the date cluster was a symbol of
fertility, but this is not correct, for the simple reason that Inanna is sometimes
shown holding a date cluster. She was not a goddess of love, marriage,
childbearing, or fertility. She was the goddess of lust and war (the very
opposite of fertility) and she had no children. So far as Inanna is concerned, a
date cluster has nothing to do with fertility.
Inanna
holds a date cluster while her brother the sun god rises above the
mountains.
Inanna was the most important goddess in Sumer. She was “The
Queen of Heaven,” and in her role as a goddess of war, she was often praised in
connection with royal power and military might.
I therefore suggest that the date cluster is a symbol of power
and royalty.
In Sumerian art, the date cluster tells us two things about the men and women who hold it.
First of all, they are royals. They are members of the
kingdom's ruling family, meaning they are kings and queens, and
not just lords and ladies. There are several examples of known kings and queens holding a date cluster. Ever conscious of their rank, they would not use this unique symbol of power if it also represented mere lords and ladies.
Second, and more important, the date cluster associates the king and queen with
Inanna and it thus symbolizes their divine right to rule.
The date cluster means the king and queen have been ordained by the goddess herself. By extension, their right to rule is sanctioned by all the other gods of heaven.
This means that the king and queen were also divine (or semi-divine). They were deified monarchs. They were regarded and treated as gods, whether or not they were actually worshiped as gods in temples. These are some of the earliest known examples of the divine right to rule, which became the royal tradition throughout most of the world until the modern era.
Sumerian monarchs had other secular symbols of royalty, such as robes, crowns, and scepters, but they used the date cluster of Inanna to symbolize their divine right to rule.
Sumerian door plaques showing kings and queens holding date clusters:
These are followed by other examples in Sumerian and Akkadian art.
In the top register, the servant standing before the queen has his right hand tucked under his left armpit. This is a gesture of submission and obedience. The king is on the right.
The missing portion of the bottom register would show the chariot of Inanna being drawn by mythic animals (griffins?).
On some of the plaques, the date cluster looks like a leaf frond. That's because the cluster was often simplified to make it easier to carve on a small scale.
At the lower left, a musician plays a harp.
On all of the plaques, various animals are brought in to be sacrificed, emphasizing the religious nature of the festivities. I suggest that all of the banquet scenes occur at a festival/feast of Inanna.
In the bottom register, two men have their hands folded in prayer. The lion at the lower left is the "animal familiar" of Inanna.
In the upper register, the man standing before the king has his hands folded in prayer, suggesting the king was deified as a living god, worshiped in his lifetime.
A female musician plays a bull-headed lyre. A servant performs the gesture of obedience.
Kings and queens holding date clusters also appear in other examples of Sumerian art.
Shell inlay: The Met Museum states, "The
figure’s gender cannot be determined by any surviving features or by the
garment. The body is fully covered except for the left hand, which holds a
branch-like object, either a palm frond, date spathe, or an implement such as a
whip or fly whisk." Actually, the figure is identifiable as a queen because the vertical hem of her dress is the same as the two plaques shown above and the picture shown below.
The date cluster is similar to other frond-like examples on this page that were simplified to make them easier to carve on a small scale (this inlay is only two inches high).
A Sumerian queen from the Early Dynastic II period (2700 - 2550 BC).
A Sumerian queen. She sits on a throne and she
wears a kaunakes, a flounced dress with woolen leaf
petals, the official attire of royals that was worn during ceremonial occasions.
A Sumerian queen (c. 2550 - 2400 BC). From the temple of Inanna.
With only two exceptions, every royal woman on this page was labeled simply as "a woman" or "a female." None of them were properly identified as a queen.
They are all queens. Every single one of them. Any woman holding a date cluster is a queen.
It has always been believed that depictions of Sumerian queens were rare, but actually there are quite a few of them.
The same is true for the men. Any man holding a date cluster is a king. There are many more images of Sumerian kings than anyone ever suspected.
Known Sumerian kings and queens
This woman is a Sumerian queen. She sits on a throne that has carved animal legs, and she
wears a kaunakes, the flounced dress with woolen leaf
petals. She also wears a polos, the
headdress of a Sumerian queen in her role as a high-priestess. On her
lap she holds a
date cluster.
The polos, the kaunakes, and the throne, are enough to show that the woman is a queen. She holds a date cluster to show that she is actually a deified queen, ordained by Inanna.
The
statue was found in the temple of Ishtar in the Akkadian city of Mari.
It was placed there during the Sumerian occupation, after the city was
conquered by a Sumerian King of Kish. See the page about Sumerian
Queens.
Ishtar is is the Akkadian name for Inanna. The Sumerians and the Akkadians practiced the same religion.
This is the king on the Standard of Ur. He wears a royal kaunakes. He sits on a throne at his victory banquet (notice that it is the same kind of throne as the one shown above).
He holds something in his hand. Part of the object is missing due to damage. It may be a royal scepter. Then again, it may be a date cluster. It has a slight bend, it tapers in thickness, and the bottom is cut at a slight angle. Click here to enlarge the picture so you can decide for yourself whether it is a date cluster or a royal scepter.
When this king was buried in the Royal Tombs of Ur, men and women were sacrificed to serve him in the afterlife. The same is true for some other kings who were buried in the royal tombs during the Early Dynastic period of history. Many people were sacrificed to serve them for all eternity.
This means the kings were deified monarchs. People weren't sacrificed for mortal kings. This honor was reserved only for divine kings who were chosen by the gods.
This is Queen Pu-abi. She wears a regal robe, she sits on a throne, and she holds a date cluster. See the page about Queen Pu-abi on this website.
Like the king shown above, Pu-abi was buried with human sacrifices to serve her in the afterlife. She was a deified monarch, ordained by Inanna with the divine right to rule.
Akkadian Kings and Queens
Since the
Sumerians and the Akkadians practiced the same religion, Inanna/Ishtar
also bestowed her blessings on Akkadian kings and queens.
The inscription is difficult to read. Part of it says, "... Wife of... King of Mari." In other words, she is the queen of Mari. She appears in the top register. She wears a ceremonial shawl draped over her head. It is similar to the kind worn by Sumerian queens.
Like Queen Pu-abi, this Akkadian queen is holding a date cluster.
(Note: Although this seal is commonly assumed to be Akkadian (because it was found in the Akkadian city of Mari) I believe it may be Sumerian, based on the dresses, the ceremonial shawl, and the musical banquet. It's possible that the seal was placed in the Mari temple during a period of Sumerian occupation. It may belong to the wife of a Sumerian king who was appointed to be the king of the newly conquered city of Mari.)
Ishqi-Mari, formerly known as Lamgi-Mari:
This is Ishqi-Mari. He was the king of Mari in Akkad. He wears the royal kaunakes.
He wears his hair in a knotted bun, the hairstyle of Akkadian royals.
Ishqi-Mari appears at the top left. He is older and he has a beard. He is shaded by a parasol held by a royal retainer. The eight-pointed star of Ishtar rises above him.
A battle scene occurs at the bottom of both seals.
On each seal, Ishqi-Mari sits on a throne. He wears the royal kaunakes. His hair is worn in the knotted bun of Akkadian royals. He holds a royal scepter, symbolizing his authority.
In both cases, King Ishqi-Mari also holds a date cluster.
The throne, the kaunakes, the knotted bun, and the royal scepter − all of these are secular symbols of royalty. The date cluster shows that Ishtar has also bestowed upon Ishqi-Mari the divine right to rule.
