This is part of a cylinder seal impression (Louvre AOD 126).
It shows a man having sex with a woman while she drinks beer through a long
straw. It was found in Susa, which is an Elamite city, but it looks very Babylonian to me. Three similar scenes appear on the page about Babylonian
Prostitutes. There are many other examples in Babylonian art. It's a common
motif. Allof them are depictions of
men consorting with prostitutes in taverns.
All of them except for this one. This
is the only exception to the rule, as shown in the complete photograph:
I call this picture In
Flagrante Delicto. A frantic husband has just caught his wife cheating on
him. As I will later explain, there is something very unusual about this picture.
In flagrante
delicto is a legal term, borrowed from Medieval Latin, which translates as “in blazing offense.” It basically means “caught in the act," and it usually
applies to a sexual situation.
The image is from the Achaemenid period (6th - 4th century
BC), so needless to say, this is history’s first illustration of in flagrante delicto.
Although it was the first illustration, it certainly wasn’t
the last.
What is so unusual about the Babylonian version
of In Flagrante Delicto?
As previously mentioned, there are many similar scenes in
Babylonian art. They were the Babylonian version of pornography. All of them are
terracotta plaques that were formed in a mold and then fired in a kiln.
In Flagrante Delicto
is different. It was formed by a cylinder seal. (Note: In this display, the stone is upside down.)
Cylinder seals with a sexual theme
are rare, but they have been around since the beginning. Leonard Woolley found
several in the city of Ur, as described in Leon Legrain’s book, Ur Excavations III: Archaic Seal-Impressions.
See some examples. Legrain calls them "marital scenes," I suggest these seals were not made for identification purposes, but were created by the seal-engravers as "practice seals" (during training) or as "novelty items."
One of the seals mentioned above.
This seal looks like it may be an example of in flagrante delicto, but I don't believe it is. It shows a servant woman being sexually abused by her master and physically abused by her mistress (pulling her hair). The servant is shown in the middle of work, so the scene symbolically represents the the hard life of a servant and not necessarily "caught in the act."
A cylinder seal
and the impression it makes when rolled across wet clay. Generally, a cylinder
seal was used for identification. It was the official “signature” of the owner (at a time in history when most people didn’t know how to write their name). Seals were used to “sign” important documents. See an example of a Sumerian document with a seal impression.
Cylinder seals were owned by noblemen, rich merchants, and high-ranking
officials. The owner was often pictured on the seal itself. So it’s
inconceivable that a man would use the bawdy In Flagrante Delicto as his personal
identifier, especially since it implies that he is either a cuckold or an
adulterer (depending on which man he is in the picture).
I think it’s safe to say that In Flagrante Delicto, unlike thousands of other cylinder seals,
wasn’t used for personal identification. It was only used to reproduce the erotic image multiple times. Even so, a cylinder seal is not a practical choice
for the production of pornography. A cylinder seal is expensive, it’s too
small, and it lacks sufficient detail.
The manufacture of a cylinder seal was a very
difficult process. The engraver had to carve the hard stone using only simple
tools. The images (and lettering, if present) had to be carved in both spatial
and photographic reverse, so they were raised from the surface and facing in
the proper direction. For instance, as shown above, for the woman to face left,
she was engraved facing right (a mirror image). Counterintuitively, the images
that were raised higher on the surface had to be carved deeper into the stone.
Plus, it was difficult to ensure that the picture fit precisely on the round
circumference of the cylinder. By necessity, the engraver had to be a talented
artist and a skilled craftsman. It also it took a long time to create a seal. As
a result, “pictorial” cylinder seals (like the one shown above) were very expensive,
to pay for the many hours of skilled labor. (Other seals with simple abstract
designs were less expensive.)
Left: A clay
plaque showing the goddess Inanna. Right:
The mold that was used to form it.
By comparison, the creation of a mold was relatively simple.
First, the image was easily modeled in soft clay, rather than hard stone, and there
was no need to worry about photographic and spatial reverse. Then it was fired
in a kiln to harden it. Afterwards, the image was covered in clay to form a
mold. Then the mold was fired. The mold was later used to make countless
reproductions.
Ease of manufacture and reduced costs are not the only benefits
of a mold compared to a cylinder seal. There are two other advantages:
First, a mold can be more highly detailed and more three-dimensional
than a cylinder seal. It can be sculpted in “high relief,” like the Inanna
plaque shown above. As a result, it can produce erotic scenes that are much more realistic.
Second, a mold is usually much larger than a cylinder seal. Cylinders
seals are very small.
It looks larger in the other photographs, but this is the approximate
size of In Flagrante Delicto. Notice
how small it is.
For comparison, this is another seal impression. The size is
shown relative to a penny.
Sure, an expensive cylinder seal can make multiple copies
of a pornographic image, but it isn’t well suited for this purpose, so why was
it used?
Here’s what I think:
This seal wasn’t commissioned by a paying customer. It’s
difficult to believe that a client told a seal engraver, “Imagine there’s a man
and woman having sex while the woman is drinking beer. You know what I mean? Then
the husband shows up! Make me a cylinder seal with this scene. I’ll pay you
good money for it.”
I think this cylinder seal was created by the engraver
himself, not for identification purposes, but for his own amusement. Expense was
not an issue because he made it himself. His only cost was the nominal price of
the stone (yellow marble).
Even so, he didn’t spend a lot of time on it. He did not
attempt to sculpt the curves and contours of the human figures, making them three-dimensional, like the other seals shown on this page. The people on this cylinder
seal are very sketchy. They are drawn with a few simple lines, and everything is carved
to the same shallow depth.
The engraver wasn’t trying to portray a realistic scene of
graphic pornography. He had a different purpose in mind.
The left half of the picture is similar to many Babylonian
plaques.
It’s the right half of the picture that makes it unique. This
story is all about the husband.
Here is the husband. He is very animated.
With one leg up and his hands raised, he may be in a posture
of shock and agitation, as if he is saying, “Oh my god! What are you doing?!”
On the other hand, he may be running into the room with his
arms outstretched, ready to throttle his wife and her lover.
Either way, it is meant to be comical.
This isn’t pornography, like the other Babylonian plaques. It
is a cartoon. It isn’t meant to be lewd and lascivious. It is meant to be funny.
A cartoon is defined as “a simple
drawing showing the features of its subjects in a humorously exaggerated way,
especially a satirical one.”
I personally think the seal is Babylonian, and the people portrayed on it are Elamites, but that is just my opinion. I think the Babylonian is making fun of the Elamites.
I’m tempted to say this is the
first cartoon in all of history, but the Greeks probably had something similar that I
don’t know about. In any case, this is probably the first cartoon about in flagrante delicto.
Antwerp,
1607.
America,
circa 1900.
One of the seals mentioned above.
Actual
size.
