The Great Fatted Bull
Introduction
Tablet #36
Translation
Annotations
Transliteration
Sumerian Images
Sumerian History
The Royal Tombs of Ur
The "Standard" of Ur?
Standard of Ur:  Narrative
Standard of Ur:  War
Standard Of Ur:  Peace
Std. of Ur:  End Panels
Eannatum
Vulture Stele Translation
Sumerian War Chariots
War Chariot Deconstructed
Sumerian Chariot  Model
Gudea Translation
The Face of Gudea
Unknown Portrait of Gudea
The Face of Ur-Ningirsu
The Face of Lugal-agrig-zi
Ur-Namma Translation
The Face of Ur-Namma
Face of Ur-Namma, part II
I am Ur-Namma
Shulgi
The Face of Shulgi
Who Were the Sumerians?
Other Sumerian Kings
The Princess Wife
Princess Wife sequel
Princess Wife whole story
The Great Fatted Jackass
Mesopotamian Prostitutes
Sumerian Queens
Unknown Sumerian Queen
Another Sumerian Queen
Pu-abi, the Queen?
A Sumerian Princess
Sumerian Lukurs
The Divine Right to Rule
Sargon's Victory Stele
Helmet: the King of Kish
The Standard of Mari?
The Battles of Ishqi-Mari
Miscellaneous
The Invention of Writing
Adventures in Cuneiform
The Sumerian Scribe
A Masterpiece
Links
FAQs, Copyrights, etc
Contact
Site Map
   
 


 The king on the Standard of Ur.

The King of Peace



The Royal Standard of Ur, peace side. 

[Click on any image. If an enlargement is available, it will display in a separate window]


The Victory Banquet


After the battle, the king sits at a banquet with his lords. He wears a kaunakes, a skirt made of woolen leaf petals. The kaunakes is the official attire of royalty. In one hand he holds a cup of wine. In his other hand he holds a royal scepter (or probably a date cluster, a symbol of royalty, as shown on a plaque). The front legs of his chair are shaped like ram legs. The king is drawn larger than everyone else to symbolize his great importance. He exceeds the decorative border of the panel.

The king is attended by a servant. Another servant waits on the lords. His left hand is tucked inside his right armpit, the gesture of submission and obedience. The servants are drawn smaller than the king and the lords to signify their lowly status. Even while standing they are no taller than the seated noblemen.

Each of the lords holds a cup of wine, raised in salutation to the victorious king.



The king and his noblemen listen to the music of a bull-headed lyre, accompanied by a
priest. Because of the long hair, it’s tempting to say this a woman, and thus a priestess
rather than a priest. Although Sumerian priests were usually shown with shaven heads,
some of them had long hair (or wore a wig), as shown on a Sumerian plaque from the
city of Mari. Besides that, the priest shown above is wearing male attire.


Standing behind the king is a servant. On the left is the damaged figure of a man with two unidentified objects at his feet.

  Enlarge.

I created a high-resolution photograph of the banquet scene by stringing together several
smaller pictures. The original composite photo is huge, about 4 feet long (but this one is just 25% size, the full-size version is too large to upload on this website).


The Victory Procession 



The Victory Procession on the Standard of Ur is actually one long line, but it's cut in two halves and stacked one on top of the other to fit onto the standard. I have reconfigured the procession into a single long line, the way it looked when it was passing by. The Sumerians lead the procession, the defeated Akkadians follow behind.


The second register of the Standard of Ur.



The Sumerians bring animals for food and for sacrifices during the victory feast.


The Sumerians in the victory procession  

The procession is led by a Sumerian with his hands folded in prayer.


The man behind him carries a flute (?).

They are followed by a man leading a bull by the horns, followed by three rams.


The bull is garlanded for the sacrifice (as explained below).


The bodies of the rams blend together. This was a common motif in Mesopotamian art, as seen on a Sumerian plaque from the city of Shuruppak and on an Akkadian cylinder seal.


Right:  A Sumerian has his left hand tucked under his right armpit. He performs this gesture of obedience for his king and the gods.

Middle:  A fisherman brings the catch of the day (for the banquet).

Left:  A Sumerian holds his hands folded in prayer.


Another bull is led by the horns (and a nose ring). Like the one above, he is adorned for the sacrificial ceremony. He wears an apron with an embroidered edge. Many animals in the procession also wear this garment (see an example of an ancient Roman bull that is clothed and garlanded for the sacrifice).

As previously mentioned, the Sumerians lead the victory procession. The defeated Akkadians follow behind.  


The Akkadians in the victory procession


An Akkadian leads a ram for the sacrifice. He wears his hair in the Akkadian fashion. It is long and curly on top but short on the sides. He also has a beard. He wears the “double belt” of the Akkadians. His angled-skirt is hidden behind the ram he is herding.

On the war side of the standard, all of the Akkadians are shown bald to deprive them of their individual and national identities, as a way of saying, “all enemies look alike.” On the
peace side, the Akkadians have their distinctive hairstyle. Their personal and national identities have been restored.


An Akkadian carries a small goat. On the left is an unidentified person. It is difficult to tell whether it is male or female. The long robe suggests this is a very important dignitary. Unfortunately, the figure is too damaged to be properly identified (I’m very curious about
this person).

With the arrival of the Akkadians, the narrative on the peace side of the standard gets really interesting.


The third register of the Standard of Ur.



Except for one Sumerian, all the men in the third register are Akkadians. It’s easy to see why the men in the angled-skirts were originally believed to be the friends and allies of the Sumerians. Here it seems they are joyfully bearing gifts to celebrate the king's victory; "bringing food to the picnic," as it were. However, the meaning and importance of this scene changes dramatically when it's realized that the men in the angled-skirts are actually the defeated enemies. They come bearing tribute for the conquering Sumerian king.

The replacement lords

The Akkadians are led by a man with his hands folded in prayer. He has the Akkadian hairstyle, but he doesn’t wear an angled-skirt. He wears a version of the kaunakes, the skirt worn by royalty.


These three figures are similarly attired. I suggest they are the "replacement lords,"
who were appointed to replace the captured lords that were executed after the battle.
The Akkadian lords must pay homage (show their allegiance) to their new Sumerian king.


Tribute

The Sumerians in the procession willingly bring food and sacrifices for the banquet because this is a thanksgiving celebration for the victory of their king. The same cannot be said for the Akkadians. They do not come bearing gifts. The goods they carry are not voluntary contributions. Instead, the Akkadians bear tribute for the Sumerian king. This is only to be expected. They lost the battle on the war side of the standard, so it's inevitable that they be seen on the "flip side" of the standard carrying tribute to the victors. The display of defeated enemies bearing tribute to the conquering king was a common motif in the ancient world.

Notice the different angles of the Akkadian skirts.

Two Akkadian tribute bearers. They carry the tribute in bags and in backpacks. The packs are supported by head straps.

The Akkadians carry lots of tribute to the conquering Sumerian king. The fact that many Akkadians in the procession are loaded like pack animals, carrying an abundance of goods, demonstrates to the Sumerian people that their king protects them from their enemies and he provides them with tribute from the hostile foreign lands.


There are three pairs of Akkadian tribute bearers. They are bent down under their loads.
They seem to reel and stagger beneath the weight. In the procession, the Akkadians
are the only ones who carry a load. None of the Sumerians carry a heavy burden.
Not even the donkeys carry a load.


Three Akkadian kings   


The three men in front of the pairs of tribute bearers are shown above. The two on the right (and presumably the one on the left) wear a distinctive kind of spiky headdress. It looks like
a crown. No one is quite sure what an Akkadian crown looked like, but I suggest it looked
a lot like this. It was a spiked headdress with tips that curve backwards. It resembles the
crown of the Akkadian king on the Mesannepada seal that is shown below.

These are the “replacement kings.” They were named to replace the Akkadian kings who
were killed in battle or executed afterward. They are the “client kings” (i.e., the puppet kings)
of the king of Ur. They are his men now. They owe him allegiance. They will administer the Akkadian kingdoms on his behalf, under his direct supervision, because he is now the new
King of Kings.

Interestingly, none of the kings wear the slightly-angled skirt of the king of Kish, who is conspicuously absent from the proceedings. There will be no “political appointee”
to fill this very important job. It belongs exclusively to the Sumerian king. He alone will be
the king of Kish.

Notice that the Akkadian peasants, lords, and kings, all pay homage to the new Sumerian King of Kings.

The heavy tribute may seem as though the Sumerian king is imposing a harsh peace on his Akkadian subjects, but actually the opposite is true.

What’s most interesting about the peace side of the Standard of Ur is what we don’t see.


We don’t see prisoners yoked in neck stocks and being marched into slavery.


We don’t see long lines of prisoners of war with ropes around their necks, being paraded before the Sumerian people to show the military might of their king.


We certainly don’t see anything like this:


Assyrian soldiers impale people to show everyone the dire consequences for resisting
the king (detail from the siege of Lachish, circa 700 BC).


In the victory procession, the Akkadian people are not paraded before the Sumerian king like trophies of war, as one would expect to see in this portion of the panel. If the defeated enemies were foreign barbarians (the Gutians, for instance) they would be displayed in the victory procession as slaves or prisoners of war (naked, bound, and in neck stocks) like in a thousand other victory processions throughout the ancient world. On the war side of the standard, the captured Akkadian lords are naked and degraded, with their arms cinched up behind them and ropes around their necks, but on the peace side, the Akkadians are free and unfettered. They are not displayed as miserable slaves, like spoils of war. They are not even under guard; there are no armed Sumerian soldiers in the victory procession.

On the war side, only a few Akkadian lords felt the wrath of the Sumerian king, for their “rebellion” against his “rightful” claim to the Akkadian throne. On the peace side, there are no reprisals against the Akkadian people.

The peace side of the standard perfectly illustrates the complicated relationship between the Sumerians and the Akkadians. The relationship was sometimes symbiotic, sometimes
bloody. They worshiped the same gods and they shared many of the same cultural values. They spoke different languages, but through the centuries developed a kind of bilingualism. They also benefited from their mutual trade. So far as the Sumerians and Akkadians were concerned, they were the only civilized people, everyone else was just foreign barbarians.

Most of the time they were at peace (the Sumerians usually fought against each other, the Akkadians fought among themselves). At other times they were locked in bloody combat, each seeking domination and control of the other. The Sumerians and Akkadians had been
at war, off and on, for thousands of years. They were like two neighbors who had fought
often enough to start making up some rules about it, like an unspoken Geneva Convention.

As a result, their wars were far more civilized than most wars in the ancient world. They
never waged “total war.” They never fought wars of genocide or annihilation. They never
sought to crush or destroy each other, or to enslave the opposing population. Instead, the
losing side simply became a vassal state of the winning side. The losers also had to pay
tribute (taxes) to the victorious king.

Sometimes it was the other way around. Sometimes the Sumerians were conquered by
an Akkadian king of Kish, most notably Sargon the Great. Sargon was a complete bastard
in most regards, but even he did not impose a punitive peace on the Sumerians. He did not destroy the Sumerian cities he conquered, but he merely made breaches in the city walls, rendering the cities indefensible and thereby discouraging rebellion.

On the Standard of Ur, the defeated Akkadians are treated firmly but fairly. This is how a Sumerian King of Kish ruled his Akkadian subjects, because he wanted to make allies
of his former enemies.

The defeated Akkadians bear lots of tribute to the conquering Sumerian king, but this is only right and proper, since they're the ones who lost the war. The heavy tribute shows the consequences for resisting the Sumerian king. Otherwise the Akkadians are treated quite leniently.  In fact, this must be the “kindest, gentlest” victory procession ever recorded. It speaks volumes that ever since the standard was discovered (90 years ago) the men were thought to be the allies of the Sumerians rather than the defeated enemy. Ironically, this had been the purpose of the scene all along, that the enemies now appear as allies.

On the Standard of Ur, the defeated Akkadians are now like the Sumerians, they are the subjects of the great king, the Sumerian King of Kish. It demonstrates that the king provides a just peace for all of his subjects.


The Sumerian King of Kish in peacetime


A similar message is conveyed on the personal seal of Mesannepada, the founder of the First Dynasty of Ur. He was a Sumerian King of Kish. Part of the inscription translates as “Mesannepada, the King of Kish.” This seal impression shows a Sumerian and an Akkadian involved in a struggle together rather than against each other. An Akkadian king is stabbing the lion that is attacking the Sumerian hero, Gilgamesh. This conveys the idea that the Sumerians and Akkadians are now allies, the same message that is shown on the Standard of Ur.


Note the spiky headdress with pointed tips that curve backward. This is the crown of an Akkadian king, the same kind of crown that is worn by the Akkadian kings on the Standard
of Ur. This is an Akkadian king of Kish, recognizable by his long flowing beard and the
knotted bun on the back of his head. Like Gilgamesh, he is a "mythical" king, because
real kings are never shown nude.

  Akkadian crowns

The "brand new" Akkadian kings on the Standard of Ur do not yet have the long hair and beard of  traditional Akkadian kings, which required many months to grow.


The new allied army

None of the common Akkadian soldiers who were captured in battle remained in captivity.
They are now the soldiers of the king of Ur. They have been enlisted into his new army,
the allied army of Sumer and Akkad.



A Sumerian King of Kish on the Standard of Mari. He holds a battle standard featuring a
bull statuette. Mari is an Akkadian city.  (See the page on The Standard of Mari)


In the new army of the Sumerian king, there are clean-shaven Sumerians and bearded men from the city of Mari (and other Akkadian cities). Their uniforms are a blend of Akkadian and Sumerian styles. The skirts and the helmets are Sumerian, the sashes are Akkadian.
The uniforms are spotted, like the uniforms on the Standard of Ur.

This is the new coalition army of a Sumerian King of Kish, the ruler of Sumer and Akkad.

Whenever a Sumerian king defeated his Akkadian enemies to become the new King of Kish,
he would portray himself as the legitimate ruler of both nations, and his former enemies
would then be portrayed as his loyal subjects (whether they liked it or not). In this regard,
the Standard of Ur and the Standard of Mari both serve the same purpose. (I personally believe it's the same king on both standards.)

The Standard of Ur is all about the Sumerian King of Kish, ruthless in war, but magnanimous in peace. On the war side, he is like the young Alexander the Great, a veteran of numerous battles, leading his troops from the front, and seeking out his enemies to engage in
personal combat. He is the king of war. On the peace side, he is like the mature Alexander.
In the same way that Alexander tried to unite the Greeks and Babylonians, the king of Ur
attempts to unite the Sumerians and Akkadians under a single beneficent rule. He is the
king of peace.


Who is the king on the Standard of Ur?

On the Standard of Ur: King, I make a very compelling case that he is Eannatum because the known history of Eannatum matches perfectly with the events portrayed on the standard. However, this may be something of a stretch since Eannatum was originally from Lagash,
not Ur (although he did conquer Ur to become its king). Perhaps a better choice would be Meskalamdug. Another possibility would be his son, Mesannepada. There were many Sumerian kings of Kish during this period of history. They all had a similar modus operandi, and they all had similar stories to tell. For now, the identity of the king on the Standard of Ur cannot be known with absolute certainty.


The king of Ur. The king of Kish. The king of Sumer and Akkad.

The king of war, the king of peace.

The King of Kings.



The end panels have their own story to tell. See the narrative of the end panels on the Standard of Ur.




July 13, 2018