Losing One's Head in the Ancient Near East

Interpretation and Meaning of Decapitation

Rita Dolce

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351657099
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

In the Ancient Near East, cutting off someone's head was a unique act, not comparable to other types of mutilation, and therefore charged with a special symbolic and communicative significance. This book examines representations of decapitation in both images and texts, particularly in the context of war, from a trans-chronological perspective that aims to shed light on some of the conditions, relationships and meanings of this specific act. The severed head is a "coveted object" for the many individuals who interact with it and determine its fate, and the act itself appears to take on the hallmarks of a ritual. Drawing mainly on the evidence from Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia between the third and first millennia BC, and with reference to examples from prehistory to the Neo-Assyrian Period, this fascinating study will be of interest not only to art historians, but to anyone interested in the dynamics of war in the ancient world.

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Chapter 1

1.1. From the distant past to the recent past

In today’s standard usage, the expression “to lose one’s head” serves to describe a variety of sometimes conflicting states in which an individual may find him or herself. We talk of “losing one’s head” as the result of grief, love, rage or a broad range of traumatic events, either physical or psychological in nature, and so forth.

The expression is thus transposed from its primary meaning, describing an extreme condition afflicting the individual, fatal to their very existence, to convey other meanings that generally relate to a momentary or sometimes even permanent loss of the mental faculties. But in all its uses, the expression contains a meaning inherent from the outset in the condition of anyone who “loses their head,” in either the metaphorical or the real sense: a sort of extraneity or alienation, in other words a “loss of self-control.”

The artwork used to illustrate the title and the topic of this book is a precious embroidered sixteenth-century tapestry with the story of Judith and Holofernes as its central episode, accompanied by short descriptive legends¹ (Figure 1.1a and 1.1b). I chose this piece, from a very different time and place, because a number of its figurative and compositional components are developed in a similar way in the history of representations of this supreme act in the Ancient Near East – with the exception of the female protagonist – and thus form a sort of paradigm for decapitation of unusual expressive efficacy.

In the sequence that unfolds in this work, we see conditions and actions connected directly or indirectly to the decapitation of human beings in the Near East thousands of years earlier. These include both the significant relationships depicted and the meanings to be found here, presented within a “narrative framework” that is differently constructed in its temporal coordinates but effected through analogous visual “expedients.”

Figure 1.1a The banquet of Judith and Holofernes. Sixteenth century AD.

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To summarize selectively: we first see the banquet of the two protagonists in a luxurious tent surrounded by plants, perhaps palm trees,² in an army camp also evoked by the armed soldiers, during the siege of the enemy city. This scene forms a counterpoint to the famous banquet of the Neo-Assyrian imperial couple in the gardens of Nineveh, crowning a victory over powerful adversaries and the decapitation of the Elamite king Teumman depicted on a relief of the seventh century BC³ (Figure 1.2a and 1.2b). This is then followed – not explicitly depicted, but perceptible – by Holofernes becoming drunk on too much wine and “losing his head,” his mental faculties and his self-control.

The narrative sequence culminates with the physical decapitation of the conqueror, again not directly shown, but presented as a fait accompli, as is almost always the case in the visual documentation of the Ancient Near East. Judith holds up the severed head of Holofernes by his hair in full view, about to place it in a sack (held by her maid) to transport it elsewhere as irrefutable proof of the annihilation of the enemy and as a trophy to be displayed to her people. The final destination of Holofernes’ head is atop a spike planted on the tower of the walls of the besieged city, as a perennial warning to the retreating enemy and a glorious spoil for the victors.

Figure 1.1b The decapitation of Holofernes (detail). Sixteenth century AD.

The sequence in which these acts are presented and the conditions under which they occur are reminiscent of at least three recurrent and I would say key “situations” in the Near Eastern depictions of severed heads in war-related contexts over the course of three millennia (from the third to the first millennium BC). These are: the exhibition of the severed head held up by the hair by the victor; its transportation from one place to another; and the display of the head, placed on the city walls or another representative part of the city architecture, such as a gate or a tower.

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Figure 1.2a Teumman at the banquet in the gardens of Nineveh (detail). Nineveh, North Palace. Mid-seventh century BC.

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1.2. An unrepeatable act

The topic of decapitation in times of war occupies a special place in the visual communication of the procedures (or, rather, the rituals) that accompany and conclude armed conflicts, with long-lasting repercussions on the visual narratives that form the focus of this book and on the written sources, which will be referenced when they are of particular importance to my analysis.

The evidence considered here is far from exhaustive; instead, I have selected some specific examples of relevance to my chosen trans-chronological approach in order to illustrate a number of the conditions, relations and values gravitating around this specific act, mainly but not exclusively in war-related contexts.

The aim of this book is to provide a selective picture of the issues linked to the representation of severed heads in the Ancient Near East, drawing on the vast repertoire of images currently known. To this end, it will consider a variety of relevant case studies, from Prehistory to the Neo-Assyrian Period, outlining the multiple meanings of decapitation and its peculiarities with respect to other forms of punishment, across time and space, leaving the results of the analytical study of individual works to other future publications.

During the process of this research, I have developed the conviction that in the figurative cultures of the Ancient Near East, and particularly of Mesopotamia and Syria, decapitation cannot be assimilated to other forms or acts of violence inflicted on the human body, such as dismemberment, as some other scholars have claimed.⁴ Rather, decapitation is from the outset, and perhaps always, a stand-alone procedure with complex meanings that are in any case linked to the focal point of the individual, of their energies and their power, and equally to the focal point of statues representing mortals and gods.⁵

Figure 1.2b The banquet of the royal couple. Nineveh, North Palace. Mid-seventh century BC.

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The prevailing opinion among scholars is that the loss of the head represents the definitive act of annihilation of the enemy. This is certainly true, but it is more than that: it is the exemplary way of reducing the other to an inanimate object, lacking the breath of life.⁶ Given the unique nature of this act and its effects, which will be illustrated below, decapitation is distinct from all those other mutilations, envisaged or actually inflicted, that do not in themselves entail the loss of life (the severing of the hands and limbs, the tongue, the nose and the ears, or even the genitals), and that therefore lead to a different level of alienation or disabling of the enemy, in fact and in meaning.

Finally, it should be noted that in the visual representations, in contrast to the anonymity of headless corpses, the head severed from its body is a “coveted object,” something desirable so to speak; an object at the mercy not only of those directly responsible for the act of decapitation, but also of others who participate and interact in the events surrounding the severed head.

1.3. The headless body: anonymity/identity

A general reflection that follows on from these considerations concerns any potential further treatments that may have been reserved for the bodies of enemies deprived of their heads, and thus of their recognizable identity. Were these human remains assimilated to those that had been variously dismembered an...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• “Losing One’s Head” in the Ancient Near East
• Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Image Credits
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Bibliography
• Index