Pageants and Processions
Pageants and Processions:
Images and Idiom as Spectacle
Edited by
Herman du Toit
Pageants and Processions: Images and Idiom as Spectacle,
Edited by Herman du Toit
This book first published 2009
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2009 by Herman du Toit and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-1249-8, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-1249-8
CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgements................................................................. xi
Introduction
Herman du Toit......................................................................................... xiii
Part I: Sacred Ritual as Spectacle
Chapter One
Makers of Meaning: Plays and Processions in Goddess Cults
of the Near East
Michelle Wimber ......................................................................................... 3
Chapter Two
The Holiest Day: The Rituals of Yom Kippur as Sacred Procession
David Nielsen ............................................................................................ 25
Chapter Three
From Marketplace to Mount Carmel: Eastern Pageantry
and the Spectacle of Folk Religion on the Bay of Naples
Elliott Wise ................................................................................................ 41
Chapter Four
Painted Processions: The Victorian Fascination with Christian
and Pagan Ritual
Rita Wright ................................................................................................ 57
Part II: Spectacles of Pomp and Circumstance
Chapter Five
The Pageants of Power and Society in the Republic of Venice
Marino Zorzi.............................................................................................. 79
Chapter Six
Processions in Burgundy: Late-Medieval Ceremonial Entries
Jesse D. Hurlbut ........................................................................................ 93
vi
Contents
Part III: Rites of Passage
Chapter Seven
Eluelie: An Aowin Renewal Celebration
Patricia Coronel...................................................................................... 107
Chapter Eight
An Asafo Fante Funeral: The Final Procession of Life
Michael Coronel...................................................................................... 117
Chapter Nine
Double-Entendre: Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”
as Pageant and Procession
Jerry L. Jaccard....................................................................................... 125
Chapter Ten
The Scottish National War Memorial: A Pageant in Stone and Glass
Rachel Grover ......................................................................................... 143
Part IV: American Pageantry at the Turn of Two Centuries
Chapter Eleven
Private Tribute, Public Art: The Masque of the Golden Bowl
and the Artistic Beginnings of American Pageantry
Annelise K. Madsen ................................................................................. 161
Chapter Twelve
Performing the National Body: Murals and Pageants at the Turn
of the Twentieth Century
Sarah J. Moore ........................................................................................ 183
Chapter Thirteen
Pageants of Nineteenth Century American Queens
Rosella Mamoli........................................................................................ 199
Chapter Fourteen
The Pageant People: A Latter-day Saint Appropriation of an Art Form
Claudia Bushman .................................................................................... 217
Notes on the Contributors........................................................................ 225
Index........................................................................................................ 229
LIST OF FIGURES
1-1
1-2
1-3
1-4
1-5
1-6
1-7
2-1
2-2
2-3
2-4
3-1
3-2
3-3
3-4
3-5
4-1
4-2
4-3
4-4
4-5
4-6
4-7
5-1
5-2
5-3
5-4
5-5
5-6
5-7
Plan of Eanna...................................................................................... 5
The Uruk Vase.................................................................................... 8
Drawing of the Uruk Vase.................................................................. 8
The Inandik Vase.............................................................................. 10
Drawing of the Inandik Vase............................................................ 10
Plan of the Syrian Sanctuary at Delos .............................................. 18
The temple of Atargatis at Dura Europos ......................................... 19
(fig. 1)............................................................................................... 26
Hebrew Lots ..................................................................................... 31
Ground Plan of the Tabernacle ......................................................... 34
Tabernacle ........................................................................................ 34
The Brown Madonna (“La Bruna”) .................................................. 43
Madonna dell’Arco........................................................................... 49
Votive Tablet, Church of Madonna dell’Arco.................................. 51
Votive Tablet, Church of Madonna dell’Arco.................................. 51
Detail of the Hodegetria procession from the Praise of the Virgin
with the Akathistos Cycle.................................................................. 52
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin...................... 62
Frederic Leighton, Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is Carried
in Procession .................................................................................... 65
Frederic Leighton, The Syracusan Bride Leading Wild Beasts in
Procession to the Temple of Diana................................................... 66
Frederic Leighton, The Daphnephoria ............................................. 67
William Blake Richmond, The Song of Miriam ............................... 70
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Vintage Festival.......................... 72
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Spring ................................................ 74
Procession to venerate the body of Saint Mark, Cathedral of San
Marco................................................................................................ 84
Apparitiona of Saint Mark, Cathedral of San Marco ........................ 85
Byzantine Emperor Basil II .............................................................. 86
Giacomo Franco, The Ducal Procession .......................................... 88
Matteo Pagan, The Ducal Procession............................................... 88
Matteo Pagan, The Ducal Procession............................................... 89
Gentile Bellini, The Procession of the Scuole in Piazza San
Marco ............................................................................................... 89
viii
5-8
7-1
7-2
7-3
8-1
8-2
8-3
9-1
9-2
9-3
9-4
List of Figures
Giacomo Franco, The Departure of Bucentaure............................... 90
Aowin paramount chief .................................................................. 109
Aowin priestly regalia .................................................................... 110
Aowin paramount priestess and sculptures..................................... 114
Asafo canoe..................................................................................... 120
Casket bearers................................................................................. 122
Flag of the deceased’s Asafo company ........................................... 123
Ilya Repin, Easter Procession ........................................................ 126
Photo of Modest Mussorgsky ......................................................... 128
Photo of Victor Hartmann .............................................................. 130
Cover page of original published edition of Pictures
at an Exhibition .............................................................................. 133
9-5 Rough sketches of Hut on Fowl’s Legs .......................................... 136
9-6 Finished pencil sketch of Hut on Fowl’s Legs................................ 137
9-7 Great Gate of Kiev Plot Plan .......................................................... 138
9-8 Great Gate of Kiev Front Elevation................................................ 139
9-9 Great Gate of Kiev Side Elevation ................................................. 140
9-10 Great Gate of Kiev Interior detail 1 ................................................ 141
9-11 Great Gate of Kiev Interior detail 2 ................................................ 142
10-1 Alice Meredith Williams, Bronze relief panel in the
Scottish National War Memorial .................................................... 147
10-2 Douglas Strachan, Window 1 in the Scottish National War
Memorial ........................................................................................ 151
10-3 Douglas Strachan, Window 2 in the Scottish National War
Memorial ........................................................................................ 151
10-4 Douglas Strachan, Window 3 in the Scottish National War
Memorial ........................................................................................ 152
10-5 Douglas Strachan, Window 4 in the Scottish National War
Memorial ........................................................................................ 152
10-6 Douglas Strachan, Window 5 in the Scottish National War
Memorial ........................................................................................ 153
10-7 Douglas Strachan, Window 6 in the Scottish National War
Memorial ........................................................................................ 153
10-8 Douglas Strachan, Window 7 in the Scottish National War
Memorial ........................................................................................ 154
10-9 Celtic groups section, National Pageant, Scottish National
Exhibition ....................................................................................... 155
10-10 Romans and Vikings, National Pageant, Scottish National
Exhibition ...................................................................................... 155
11-1 Augustus Saint Gaudens, Diana ..................................................... 162
11-2 Stage, A Masque of “Ours”............................................................ 164
Pageants and Processions: Images and Idiom as Spectacle
ix
11-3 Percy MacKaye as Hermes, A Masque of “Ours” ......................... 167
11-4 Tithonos painter, Hermes on lekythos vessel ................................. 167
11-5 Mabel Churchhill as Diana, A Masque of “Ours”.......................... 168
11-6 Cast, dress rehearsal, A Masque of “Ours” .................................... 169
11-7 Alice Kennedy as Fame, A Masque of “Ours”............................... 171
11-8 Embellished playbill, A Masque of “Ours”.................................... 174
11-9 Everett Shinn, Sketch of the procession, A Masque of “Ours” ...... 175
11-10 View of the masque site, Saint-Gaudens family memorial ........... 175
11-11 Eric Pape, “Masque given in Cornish, NH, in honor of SaintGaudens” ....................................................................................... 178
11-12 Hazel MacKaye as Dryad, A Masque of “Ours” .......................... 179
12-1 John White Alexander, Fire or Toil, first-floor mural .................... 187
12-2 John White Alexander, Fire or Toil, first-floor mural .................... 187
12-3 John White Alexander, Apotheosis of Pittsburgh, second-floor
mural............................................................................................... 188
12-4 John White Alexander, Apotheosis of Pittsburgh, second-floor
mural............................................................................................... 188
12-5 John White Alexander, March of Progress, third-floor mural........ 191
12-6 John White Alexander, March of Progress, third-floor mural ........ 194
13-1 Arthur, Duke of Connaught as the Beast at the Marlborough
House Ball ....................................................................................... 200
13-2 Alexandra, Princess of Wales, as Marguerite de Valois at the
Devonshire House Ball.................................................................... 201
13-3 The Ladies Churchill as Watteau Shepherdesses at the Devonshire
House Ball ....................................................................................... 201
13-4 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as Philippa and Edward III........ 202
13-5 Francesco Hayez, The Two Foscari ................................................ 204
13-6 Napoleon Sarony, photograph of Oscar Wilde in 1882................... 204
13-7 Anders Zorn, Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice........................... 208
13-8 Paolo Veronese, The Marriage of Cana, detail ............................... 209
13-9 The Boston Daily Globe, April 6, 1893 .......................................... 210
13-10 The Boston Daily Globe, “Artistic Spectacle” .............................. 211
13-11 Tableau vivant in Boston............................................................... 213
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This anthology of a selection of papers presented at the symposium
entitled Pageants and Processions: Image and Idiom as Spectacle, held at
Brigham Young University Museum of Art in Provo, Utah on March 7 and
8, 2008. The symposium attracted a significant number of proposals for
presentations by scholars both locally and abroad. The impetus for the
symposium came from the exhibition Minerva Teichert: Pageants in Paint
that opened at the BYU Museum of Art in the summer of 2007 and was on
view during the symposium. I am indebted to Marian Wardle, Curator of
American Art at the BYU Museum of Art, and curator of the exhibition,
for proposing a multidisciplinary symposium in conjunction with this
exhibition.
The exhibition examined how the American mural and pageantry
movements influenced the work of Minerva Teichert, a Mormon painter
who had studied at the Art Institute of Chicago during the early 1900s.
Teichert was captivated by the educational potential of large murals in
public buildings and their capacity to be seen by great numbers of people.
Later, during her studies at the Arts Student’s League in New York, the
noted American realist painter Robert Henri challenged her to paint the
“great Mormon story.” Henri’s admonition led Teichert to paint many
theatrical depictions of Mormon pioneers, the West, and Book of Mormon
scenes. Many of these paintings were strongly influenced by her interest in
the burgeoning pageantry movement of the day. On completion of her
studies, Minerva Teichert returned to her Wyoming ranch where she
enjoyed a long and productive career as an artist, wife, and the mother of
five children.
Teichert was not the only American painter to be influenced by Edwin
Blashfield and Percy MacKaye’s call for public art and spectacle during
the early 1900s. Both men were vociferous protagonists of pageantry and
mural painting, stridently advocating the civic function of public painting
as an instrument of ideological edification and social integration. Many
artists of this period—such as John White Alexander, who painted the vast
mural cycle The Apotheosis of Pittsburgh at the Carnegie Institute in
Pittsburgh—were also influenced and inspired by the strong Beau-Arts
xii
Preface and Acknowledgements
tradition that provided permanent and imposing neo-classical architectural
settings for their murals.
I would like to extend my gratitude to Bren Jackson and Shannon
Turner, two very able interns, who assembled the manuscript and finalized
publication rights and reproduction agreements. The work of obtaining the
necessary approvals for publication of the images in this anthology could
not have been accomplished without the generous assistance of Carl
Johnson of the university’s Copyright Services office and the timely
assistance of Adam Rhinehart, who also volunteered his time for this
project. I am similarly indebted to my colleague Lynda Palma for her
exemplary work as copy editor and proof reader for the publication. I am
grateful to Jeff Barney, a friend and colleague who volunteered his time in
producing the cover design for this publication. But most of all I would
like to thank the contributors—Claudia Bushman, Michael Coronel,
Patricia Coronel, Rachel Grover, Jesse Hurlbut, Jerry Jaccard, Annelise K.
Madsen, Rosella Mamoli, Sarah, Moore, David Nielsen, Michelle
Wimber, Elliott Wise, Rita Wright, and Marino Zorzi—who made this
publication possible. I have learned much from their scholarship and am
grateful for their support of this project.
Provo, Utah
H.d.T.
June 2009
INTRODUCTION
Humankind has had an ongoing fascination with pageantry and public
spectacle since the beginning of recorded history. From the bizarre rituals
of ancient Mesopotamian goddess worship, to the pretentious courtly
reenactments by upper-class Victorian divas in the New World, pageants
have been instrumental in personifying norms and values specific to a
particular community’s world view. Pageants have served to promote and
inculcate values, ideas, and aspirations of social, religious, and political
orders through the instrumentality of spectacle and dramatic engagement
throughout the ages. This collection of essays provides a unique and
insightful sampling of how significant pageants and processions have
served societies in both the Old and New Worlds, from Mesopotamia,
Italy, Burgundy, and Russia, to Ghana, Scotland, and North America. The
essays provide dimension and context for the extraordinary range of
subjects─historical, civic, religious, and patriotic─that have served as the
allegorical imagery for pageants, masques, tableaux, and murals from the
dawn of history to the present day.
Recent findings by primary researchers, and the insightful scholarship
of new voices in the field of cultural history, help to clarify and refine our
understanding of the role of pageantry in reinforcing and maintaining the
integrity of communal societies and even the identity of whole cultures.
Michelle Wimber’s study of the architecture of the ancient Mesopotamian
world reveals some of the cult rituals that were performed as public
spectacles in Sumerian culture. These performances and reenactments both
awed and inspired their audiences into accepting the precepts of goddess
worship while also providing a socially sanctioned avenue for the release
of behaviors that were ordinarily unacceptable to this culture’s norms. In
contradistinction to the opportunity that pageants provide for the
acceptable release of pent-up behaviors, David Nielsen writes in careful
detail how the annual rituals of Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement,
serve to reunite the Jewish people with their God and the essential tenets
of their faith through a sacred procession back to the divine, designed to
instill righteous behavior as the overarching norm in that society.
Elliott Wise explains how the spectacle of processions, art, and feast
days worked to mediate between the extremes of old and new, orthodox
and popular, in the legitimization of the Carmelite order in thirteenth
xiv
Introduction
century Naples, far from this ancient religious order’s original roots. It was
much later that the Victorian’s demonstrated their fascination with the
admixture of Christian and pagan rituals that was manifest during the
nineteenth century. Rita Wright explores how academically-trained
Victorian artists depicted both Christian and pagan rites in splendid
processional paintings. She explains how these artists, who were often
influenced by recent discoveries of ancient religious practices,
incorporated their new-found tolerance for the “other” in theatrically
famed works that were regarded typical of their day, while promoting a
culturally pluralist perspective that has received scant attention by scholars
of this period.
Mario Zorzi, former director of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Venice,
brings a librarian’s penchant for description and analysis to the role of
pageants and processions in the political life of the Republic of Venice. He
recounts the dramatic history of the Republic’s founding and explains how
the various ceremonies and their representations have, over time, served to
give Venetians a visual impression of their Republic’s antiquity, courageous
past, and its splendor, while simultaneously initiating newcomers into the
mystique of this great city and its traditions.
The importance of visual and dramatic spectacle in civic
communications between the citizenry and their duke is the focus of Jesse
Hurlbut’s study of ceremonial entries in Burgundy during the late
medieval period. Hurlbut brings original research to this study in the
number of municipal records that he located and translated, dating from
the early 1400s. These records detail the expenditures on the pageants that
took place and provide an invaluable record of the details of their
production. Entire cities participated in the broader communication of
ideas and ideals through the vehicle of social drama provided by these
pageants. Michael and Patricia Coronel are primary scholars on the Fante
and Aowin arts of Ghana and provide eye-witness accounts of the
pageants that punctuate the colorful lives of the people in these highly
structured societies. Their essays reveal how pageantry makes meaning of
the passage of life and its cycles in these communities. Jerry Jaccard, a
folk music scholar, also brings original research to his study of the
motivations underlying Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Jaccard’s
discovery of hitherto unpublished sketches confirms the original
devotional intentions for Hartmann’s Great Gate of Kiev and reveal how
the art of Hartmann and the music of Mussorgsky were united in a pageant
of human pathos.
Rachel Grover brings perspicuity to her study of the Scottish National
War Memorial. Her essay reveals how this pageant in stone and glass
Pageants and Processions: Images and Idiom as Spectacle
xv
seeks to unify and bring meaning to the cultural, social, and political
aspirations of Scotland at a time when the nation had been severely shaken
by the death and destruction wrought by WWI. Moving to the New World,
Annelise K. Madsen examines The Masque of the Golden Bowl, the
seminal event that laid the groundwork for a civic art of pageantry in
America. This small and relatively obscure artistic performance provided a
model for later pageants that were to become instrumental in fostering an
enormously successful public art that soon became a tool for civic
education and the assimilation of a burgeoning immigrant population.
Sarah Moore, an accomplished writer on women’s roles in art and civic
life, provides a comprehensive overview of the intersection between mural
painting and pageantry. Her essay looks specifically at the vast mural
cycle, The Apotheosis of Pittsburgh (1905-1908) by John White Alexander
at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, and the uncompleted Pittsburgh
Pageant written by Alexander and Percy MacKaye, as case studies for the
public performance of the national body – as a discourse about labor,
masculinity, progress, and national identity. Moore explains how murals
were used in a complimentary manner to pageants to give tangible form to
abstract but powerful concepts such as citizenship, patriotism, democracy,
progress, nationalism, and unity to Americans at the beginning of the
twentieth century.
Rosella Mamoli, a respected scholar in American studies at the
University of Venice, draws from newspaper reports of the day to paint a
vivid picture of the dramatic and ostentatious excesses of Boston’s high
society, as wealthy socialites expressed imaginary affiliations with the
royal courts of Europe through elaborate pageants and impersonations.
The historiography of pageantry is brought up to date with Claudia
Bushman’s engaging account of how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints continues to revitalize the pageantry tradition in America
through its appropriation of this art form in its drive to promote its
religious agenda and invoke veneration for the primary tenets of its faith.
Pageants and pageantry emerge as a fundamental mode of expression
in both primitive and sophisticated communities for engaging their
members in the primary discourses that bind and give meaning to their
association. They do this by communicating essential societal constructs
that work to unify and acculturate their members. Pageants also provided
opportunities for the cathartic release of frustrations and as a means to
exorcise unrealized aspirations, while simultaneously personifying the
hoped-for ideals and aspirations of their communities. As Percy MacKaye,
the noted pageant writer reflected of the American experience:
xvi
Introduction
Pageantry satisfies an elemental instinct for art, a popular demand for
poetry, [and is] capable of being educated, refined, and developed into a
mighty agency of civilization … providing popular symbolic form and
tradition for the stuff of a noble national drama.1
Percy MacKaye’s sentiment explains how pageants often functioned as an
expressive medium of public discourse, serving as instruments of both
communal action and personal engagement. And therein lies their power.
—Herman du Toit
1
Percy Mackaye, “American Dreams and Their Promise,” Scribner’s Magazine
46, no. 1 (July 1909); 34.
PART I:
SACRED RITUAL AS SPECTACLE
CHAPTER ONE
MAKERS OF MEANING:
PLAYS AND PROCESSIONS IN GODDESS
CULTS OF THE NEAR EAST
MICHELLE WIMBER
Pageantry and spectacle were integral to early Near Eastern cultures.
The clearest manifestation of pageantry in the ancient world can be found
in the devotional rituals that were practiced in these societies, particularly
those of goddess worship in ancient Mesopotamia. The architecture of the
period provides significant clues to the kinds of activities that constituted
these spectacles. The worship of female deities formed a very important
part of the religious life of these early communities. The earliest written
accounts of goddess worship in this region appeared in the records of the
first civilizations that developed in the fourth millennium BC. The
supreme fertility/mother deity emerges from these writings as the most
important goddess. One of the key elements of the worship of these
goddesses was the focus on raucous play-acting, theater, processions, and
rituals that defied social norms. The ritual of the sacred marriage between
a priest and priestess standing in for the major male and female deities was
often practiced in fertility goddess cults to maintain the religious hierarchy
and ensure fertility for the civilization. In addition to gender and speciesbending, a general carnivalesque atmosphere prevailed during fertility
goddess festivals.1
The Sumerian goddess Inanna and her Akkadian counterpart Ishtar
were two of the most prominent fertility/mother goddesses in the Bronze
1
Rivkah Harris, “Inanna-Ishtar as Paradox and a Coincidence of Opposites,”
History of Religions, 30, No. 3. (Feb., 1991), 273-275; Philip Jones, “Embracing
Inana: Legitimation and Mediation in the Ancient Mesopotamian Sacred Marriage
Hymn Iddin-Dagan A,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 123, No. 2
(April-June, 2003), 292.
4
Chapter One
Age. As the Greek Empire expanded into the East during the Hellenistic
period, the Greeks encountered the worship of these powerful female
deities and worshipped them under many names including Atargatis. The
Romans also worshiped Atargatis under the name Dea Syria. The Greeks
and Romans, in fact, came to embrace many practices of Near Eastern
religions in their own mystery cults. Many literary works from Sumerian
times down to Roman literature record evidence of the plays and
processions of Near Eastern fertility goddesses. Similar temple layouts
also attest to the continuation of plays and processions well into the Roman
period.
The continued practice of fertility goddess rituals represents the
staying power of tradition in the Near East and its influence on other
cultures. The art and architecture of these cults bear silent witness to the
fact that these rituals were an important part of Near Eastern religion
throughout the Greco-Roman period. In addition, the art and architecture
demonstrates that these rituals continued to serve their purpose of ensuring
fertility for the land, creating a cultural release for behaviors that were not
a part of the social norm, and making meaning in the Near East as well as
for other cultures that adopted them.
We do not know the exact nature, order, or purpose of every ritual. The
matter is further complicated by the fact that cult rituals often varied by
location and goddess. Fragments of rituals gleaned from written records,
visual artifacts, and the layout and furnishings of the temples give us some
clues about the cults, but no one cult in its entirety. When combined, this
evidence hardly offers a complete picture but reveals enough to understand
the importance and amazing longevity of these often strange, yet
unarguably vibrant and life-affirming rituals.
Ancient Mesopotamian Fertility Cults
and their Architecture
In studying the temple plans and cult rituals from ancient Mesopotamian
cultures, a pattern that indicates a certain degree of continuity or tradition
can be found in both the temple architecture and the cult rituals. The
continuity may exist because the deities of the region are thought to be a
product of Sumerian culture combined with subsequent Semitic traditions
that maintained their influence well into the Roman period.2
2
Gwendolyn Leick, A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology (London:
Routledge, 1998), 96; Ishtar’s name is Akkadian and was adopted by the
Babylonians, Assyrians, Eblaites, Canaanites, and many other Semitic cultures.
Makers of Meaning
5
The Sumerian culture offers some of the earliest developed temples
and cult rituals of fertility goddesses. Many cult rituals and temple
elements were shared among the cults of multiple Sumerian deities;
however, the most developed fertility rituals are naturally found in the cult
of the main fertility goddess, Inanna.3 In Uruk, one of the largest cities and
cult centers of Sumer, the temple of Inanna, called Eanna, became a major
sanctuary around 3300 BC and remained important until at least NeoBabylonian times, c. 522 BC (fig. 1-1).4
Fig. 1-1. Plan of Eanna, Uruk, c. 3300-3000 BC (Aruz, fig. 3)
Eanna features multiple cellae, courts, and storage areas that contribute
to a seemingly haphazard arrangement and a distinctly asymmetrical
layout, a hallmark of Mesopotamian temple architecture. It was common
in Sumerian temples to have one cella dedicated to the main god or
goddess of the sanctuary, with consorts or other associated deities sharing
smaller cellae to the side.5 The asymmetrical nature of the temples is
3
Jeremy A. Black, Anthony Green, Tessa Rickards, and the British Museum,
Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary
(London: Published by British Museum Press for the Trustees of the British
Museum, 1992), 174-177.
4
Susan B. Downey, Mesopotamian Religious Architecture: Alexander through the
Parthians (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1988), 32.
5
Black, Gods, 176.
6
Chapter One
further emphasized by entrances from outside of the sanctuary and from
room to room that do not line up. This creates a bent-axis approach, which
cuts off a direct line of sight to the cult rooms and the cult statues. This
arrangement seems to be deliberate; the shrines were usually not meant to
be seen by the general public from the outside of the temple because the
priests were often the only ones allowed in the room where the cult statue
stood.6 The bent axis also created a more dramatic experience for
participants in processions who would not see the statue of the goddess
until they turned into the courtyard in front of the main cella.7 This style of
temple is the prototype for temples of fertility goddesses through the NeoBabylonian period and may have influenced Greek and Roman fertility
goddess temples.
Despite the seeming lack of symmetry in Sumerian temples, they were
actually organized around multiple axes. Usually a main entrance
facilitated ritual processions by channeling priests and cult personnel into
the courtyard, and from where the priests could enter the cella. Subsidiary
entrances were used for bringing in food and more mundane functions of
the temple.8 Most rituals occurred in the open courtyards due to the cella’s
holiness and smaller size and because the altars were located there, a
typically Semitic or Near Eastern feature.9 The open-air courtyard is a
distinguishing element of ancient Mesopotamian temples. Altars probably
stood in the courtyard and sacrifices of animals and liquids as well as
burning of incense were performed on various altars.10 Ritual sacrifices to
the gods were common in Sumerian and later Semitic religions and are
well attested to in the Bible and other literary sources as well as
archaeological finds. Burnt offerings were most commonly used in
Mesopotamia during ritual banquets.11
The temples are the largest and most enduring evidence of the religious
observances that could have occurred within their walls. One can imagine,
6
J. Kaplan, "Mesopotamian Elements in the Middle Bronze II Culture of
Palestine," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 30 no. 4 (Oct., 1971), 295; Black,
Gods, 149.
7
Downey, 92; Kevin Butcher, Roman Syria and the Near East (Los Angeles:
Getty Publications, 2003), 354.
8
Ernst S. Heinrich, Ursula Seidl, and Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. Die
Tempel und Heiligtümer im Alten Mesopotamien: Typologie, Morphologie und
Geschichte (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1982), 315.
9
Lucian of Samosata with commentary and introduction by J. L. Lightfoot, On the
Syrian Goddess (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), Commentary, 472.
10
Black, Gods, 109, 159.
11
Marc J. H. Linssen, The Cults of Uruk and Babylon: The Temple Ritual Texts as
Evidence for Hellenistic Cult Practices (Leiden: Brill, Styx, 2004), 129.
Makers of Meaning
7
based on the temple layout, a long line of priests, royal family members,
cult personnel, and worshippers gathering along the processional way
outside of the temple. As the procession enters, the bent axis of the temple
turns the worshippers into the open courtyard signaling an entrance into a
holy realm and revealing the cella, the chamber housing the goddess. In
the courtyard the priests perform sacrifices on the altars, while others enter
the cella to make offerings to the statue of the goddess. The event
culminates with a sacred banquet accompanied by various forms of lively
entertainment.
The temples are not the only evidence that this kind of pageant actually
took place. Visual records exist which demonstrate the functionality of the
temple plan for processional purposes. An important ritual vase found in
the Eanna sanctuary in Uruk depicts a procession of the goddess Inanna
(fig. 1-2). Inanna is depicted standing in front of two pillars and an altar
upon which stand worshippers. A naked priest offers fruit—symbolizing
fertility—to the goddess. Behind this priest, scholars believe, stands a
representation of Dumuzi (or Tammuz in Akkadian), the spouse of
Inanna.12 In the register below, other cult personnel bring various offerings
while offerings of animals parade in the bottom register (fig. 1-3).
Another vase depicting the festivals and processions held in honor of
Inanna was found in Inandik in Turkey (fig. 1-4). The vase dates from the
17th century BC and is evidence of the spread of the sacred marriage ritual
to the Hittite civilization. This vase depicts musicians and acrobats along
with priests participating in what must have been an extremely lively
procession. The second register from the top depicts a man and a woman,
perhaps representing the gods or at least a priest and priestess representing
the gods, sitting on a bed in what is most likely the sacred marriage ritual
(fig. 1-5).13 Many scholars believe the Uruk vase also represents the sacred
12
Thorkild Jacobsen, “Religious Drama in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Unity and
Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religious of the Ancient Near
East, ed. Hans Goedicke and J. J. M. Roberts (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1975), 65; Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A
History of Mesopotamian Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press 1976), 24;
R. F. G. Sweet, “A New Look at the ‘Sacred Marriage’ in Ancient Mesopotamia,”
in Corolla Torontonensis: Studies in Honour of Ronald Morton Smith, ed. Emmet
Robbins and Stella Sandahl (Toronto: TSAR, 1994), 91.
13
Dorit Symington, “Hittite and Neo-Hittite Furniture,” in Georgina Hermann, ed.,
The Furniture of Western Asia, Ancient and Traditional (Mainz: Philipp von
Zabern,1996), 126; Tahsin Özgüç, Inandiktepe: An Important Cult Center in the
Old Hittite Period (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1988), 92-93, 102-104,
108; Uri Gabbay, “Dance in Textural Sources from Ancient Mesopotamia,” Near
8
Chapter One
Fig. 1-2. The Uruk Vase, c. 3000 BC (Frankfort, figs. 10 and 11)
Fig. 1-3. Drawing of the Uruk Vase (Roaf)
Eastern Archaeology, 66 no. 3, Dance in the Ancient World (September, 2003),
105.
Makers of Meaning
9
marriage of Inanna and Dumuzi, or the priestess (or perhaps the queen)
representing Inanna and the king standing in for Dumuzi.14 However, no
inscription or record links the vase to the ritual, and any literature
recording the sacred marriage dates to after the Uruk period. While the
vase was probably made between 3100 and 2900 BC, the earliest literature
on the sacred marriage dates from the early dynastic period (29002334BC) with many hymns coming from the Ur III and Isin periods
(2100-1800 BC).15
Ancient literature provides the final clues for ancient goddess rituals.
Some of the hymns used as sources for the sacred marriage ritual record
the event as it happened between the goddess and Dumuzi, and seem to
support the purely mythological nature of the sacred marriage. However,
other hymns record the king taking part in the ritual providing evidence
that the sacred marriage actually took place.16 The most revealing passage
comes from a hymn to Inanna dating to the reign of the king Iddin-Dagan
(referred to as Iddin-Dagan A), c. 1950 BC:
14
Scholars mention the vase and who is depicted: Jacobsen, Treasures, 24; Zainab
Bahrani, “Performativity and the Image: Narrative, Representation and the Uruk
Vase,” in Leaving No Stones Unturned: Essays on the Ancient Near East and
Egypt in Honor of Donald P. Hansen, ed. E. Ehrenberg (Winona Lake, Indiana:
Eisenbrauns, 2002), 18; scholars mentioning literature only as source for who
participated in the Sacred Marriage: Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sacred Marriage
Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in Ancient Sumer (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1969), 57, 63; Jerrold S. Cooper, “Sacred Marriage and Popular
Cult in Early Mesopotamia,” in Official Cult and Popular Religious in the Ancient
Near East, ed. Eiko Matsushima (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1993),
87; Gwendolyn Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature (New York:
Routledge, 1994), 106-109; Yitschak Sefati, Love Songs in Sumerian Literature
(Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1998), 30, 45.
15
Cooper, 83; Sweet, 89; Bahrani, 19.
16
Some of the main hymns include Šulgi X and a Praise Poem of Šulgi (c. 20942047 BC), A Love Song for Šu-Suen (c. 2037-2029 BC), Iddin-Dagan A, (c. 19531935 BC), A Love Song for Išme-Dagan (c. 1953-1935 BC) and A Praise Poem of
Lipit-Eštar (c. 1934-1924 BC), see Sefati and Jeremy Black, et. al., The Literature
of Ancient Sumer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); see also Kramer,
Jacobsen, “Religious”, Cooper, Sweet, and Sefati, for other hymnic evidence of the
sacred marriage.
10
Chapter One
Fig. 1-4. The Inandik Vase, 17th century BC (Özgüç, Plate F)
Fig. 1-5. Drawing of the Inandik Vase (Özgüç, fig. 64)
Makers of Meaning
11
When the black-headed people have assembled in the palace, the house
that advises the Land, the neck-stock of all the foreign countries, the house
of the river ordeal, a dais is set up for Ninegala [an epithet for Inanna]. The
divine king stays there with her. At the New Year, on the day of the rites,
in order for her to determine the fate of all the countries, so that during the
day (?) the faithful servants can be inspected, so that on the day of the
disappearance of the moon the divine powers can be perfected, a bed is set
up for my lady. Esparto grass is purified with cedar perfume and arranged
on that bed for my lady, and a coverlet is smoothed out on the top (?) of it.
In order to find sweetness in the bed on the joyous coverlet, my lady bathes
her holy thighs. She bathes them for the thighs of the king; she bathes them
for the thighs of Iddin-Dagan. Holy Inana rubs herself with soap; she
sprinkles oil and cedar essence on the ground.17
This hymn records Inanna’s preparations for the sacred marriage in the
temple on New Year’s Day and more importantly reveals the king, by
name, as Inanna’s holy spouse. The generally held theory, based on
hymns, is that the sacred marriage ritual was held to ensure the fertility of
the land and in the cases where the king was involved, to legitimate and
bless his rule.18 It seems, however, that based on the lively depictions on
the Uruk and Inandik vases, as well as in literature from the period, that
the rituals associated with Inanna and the later Ishtar, provided more than
just blessings for a good crop.
Inanna’s cult seems to have been one in which the general populace
could act out certain rituals in which social norms were ignored. Harris
relates that, “Bawdy theater was very much a part of the celebration in
which the goddess’s personnel enacted (probably with appropriate
costumes and masks) the roles of their goddess.”19 Some of the “bawdy
theater” may have reference to the ritual reenactment of the sacred
marriage between Inanna and her consort Dumuzi, as portrayed by a
priestess and priest (or priest-king).20 In addition, the performance of
music, ecstatic masked dancing, and acrobatic feats—as seen on the
Inandik vase and recorded in hymns—further contributed to the wild
17
Lines 169-186, Black, Literature, 267.
Hymns: “Blessing of Dumuzi on His Wedding Day”, Sefati, 301-306; “Hymn to
Shulgi”, Jacobsen, “Religious,” 69-70; “A Love Song for Isme-Dagan,” Black,
Literature, 205-206. Sefati, 39, 40, 42, 49; see also a list of scholars who support
this opinion in Jones, 291 n 3 and 4.
19
Harris, 275.
20
Jean Bottéro, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2001), 123.
18
12
Chapter One
atmosphere of the goddess’s cult.21 A great banquet in the temple concluded
the riotous sacred marriage festival and was also accompanied by singers
and entertainers.22 According to Roscoe, frenetic music and acrobatics
could have been used by the cultic personnel to create an atmosphere in
which transgressions of social norms could take place:
This was the function of the loud, shrill music…that accompanied their
performances. Sensory disorder…can create a liminal state of consciousness
in which normal distinctions…are suspended, and this state is the prelude
to a subsequent reintegration, which can be social, psychological, or
physiological. I believe a similar response, a collective catharsis on the part
of the onlookers, was the intended effect of the public rites of the [cult
personnel].23
In addition to singing, dancing, and acrobatics, many of her cult personnel
participated in bloodletting, and some may have performed ritual
castration.24 These eunuchs were responsible for singing laments during
the Lamentation festival which commemorated Inanna’s lamentation for
the death of Dumuzi.25
The eunuchs of Inanna and Ishtar were also important because of their
ability to break down traditional gender roles of society. They transcended
the gender roles not only because of their status as eunuchs but also
because they dressed and acted like women.26 Other cult personnel, who
may not have been eunuchs, also participated in cross-dressing.27 Inanna
and Ishtar’s relation to fertility and gender seems to have been quite fluid.
One hymn, dating from between 2000 and 1600 BC, describes how she
was often worshipped as an androgynous deity and referred to as being
21
Sefati 44; Gabbay, 104; Lines 3, 7, 12-14 in Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, “An
Oration on Babylon,” Altorientalische Forschungen, 18 no. 1 (1991), 10; Cooper,
92-93.
22
Sefati 41, 107; Iddin-Dagan A, 210-211, Black, Literature, 268; Cooper, 94.
23
Will Roscoe, “Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient
Religion,” History of Religions, 35 no. 3 (Feb. 1996), 202-203.
24
Roscoe, 216-217; Harris, 276.
25
Roscoe, 213-14; Harris, 276-277; Jacobsen, “Religious,” 67; Hymn to Inanna,
lines 88-93, in Ake Sjöberg, “In-nin sa-gur-ra: A Hymn to the Goddess Inanna by
the en-Priestess Enheduanna,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische
Archaeologie 65 (1975), 187.
26
Roscoe, 214-217; Harris 270, 276-277; Cooper, 92; Iddin-Dagan A, lines 60-8,
Black, Literature, 264; Jones 292.
27
Roscoe, 215; Jones, 292.
Makers of Meaning
13
bearded. 28 Her early worship involved an astral relationship with the
planet Venus as the male morning star and the female evening star.29 Her
dual characteristics as the goddess of sexuality and fertility and the
goddess of war further support this gender dichotomy.30
It seems strange for a goddess of fertility to have followers who were
eunuchs. However, they may have been attempting to emulate their patron
goddess who herself transcended gender boundaries.31 Their castration
may also reflect Inanna/Ishtar’s dual nature as goddess of creation and
goddess of destruction. In the The Descent of Inanna, which originates
from the Sumerian period in Nippur but was not recorded until around
1800 BC, all sexual activity on earth ceases because Inanna had descended
into the underworld.32 Since her power of attraction was what energized
the world, without her all fertility ceased. She, thus, may have possessed a
kind of “creative negation.” Since she was the one who perpetuated
fertility, she therefore had the power to end it.33 The Assyrian Great Hymn
to the Queen of Nippur records this idea saying that Ishtar “turns men into
women and women into men.”34 This ability is echoed in The Hymn to the
Goddess Inanna attributed to the priestess, and perhaps daughter of Sargon
I, Enheduanna.35
These hymns, along with others, record many examples of Inanna/Ishtar’s
contradictive and destructive nature. Her worshippers often emulated this
nature by participating in ritual war games and taunting the goddess using
28
Mark E. Cohen, “The Incantation-Hymn: Incantation or Hymn?,” Journal of the
American Oriental Society 95, no. 4 (October-December, 1975): 593.
29
Leick, Dictionary, 96.
30
Leick, Dictionary, 96; Harris, 268.
31
Harris, 277.
32
Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Tammuz and the Bible,” Journal of Biblical Literature,
84, No. 3 (September, 1965), 285; Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia:
Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1989), 158.
33
Harris, 275-6. Harris discusses “creative negation” only in connection with the
riotous nature of Ishtar’s festivals as a time to let loose of all thing productive and
indulge in animalistic things and does not specifically apply it to castration.
However, castration seems to be the ultimate form of “creative negation;” Roscoe,
218-219.
34
W. G. Lambert, “Great Hymn to the Queen of Nippur,” in Zikir Sumim:
Assyriological Studies Presented to F.R. Kraus on the Occasion of His Seventieth
Birthday ed. F. R. Kraus and G. van Driel (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982), 199: 71, 200:
28.
35
“To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inanna,” line
120, Sjöberg, 191.
14
Chapter One
vulgar speech, both of which she herself was known for taking part in.36
The purpose of this may have been to tap into the power of chaos and
destruction in order to overcome it.37 Harris relates that, “[r]itual
obscenity…attacked the conventional limits. Through farce and bawdy
songs the goddess's celebrants would find temporary release from societal
restrictions.”38
It is interesting to note that Inanna was the keeper of the mes, which in
Sumerian literature represented social institutions, behaviors, and ritual
practices that were the foundation of civilization. They came into her
keeping by her causing the god Enki to become drunk and tricking him
into giving them to her.39 Harris believed the mes represented the balance
of chaos and order in the universe and that Inanna’s ever varying character
was reflective of her power over them.40 The crossing of boundaries of
gender, appropriate speech, appropriate behavior, and sexual morality in
Inanna’s cult was not the normal behavior of ancient Mesopotamian
society, despite what our modern day ideas about pagan culture might be.
It may be that as the participants and viewers of these rituals participated
in controlled transgression (controlled in the sense of length of the festival,
frequency, location, and licensed participants), they were reminded of the
chaos that would result if they stepped out of line.41 These rituals were a
reaffirmation of the correct way to behave by demonstrating the wrong
way to behave. The sacred marriage may also have provided the king as a
mediator among humans and gods to ensure that order was maintained42
Cooper believes this act may also have reinforced the idea that sexual
powers were to be used within “a carefully circumscribe context that
entails a whole network of obligations between the partners and their kin”
or in other words, within a sanctioned marriage union.43
These early Mesopotamian cult rituals and objects of Inanna and Ishtar
demonstrate practices that may have influenced fertility goddess worship
through the Greco-Roman period. When the relatively young civilizations
36
Roscoe, 216; Games Text, Lines 9-10, Kilmer, 10; Harris, 274; A Hymn to the
Goddess Inanna, lines 20, 157, 159, 164, Sjöberg 181,193, 195.
37
Roscoe, 216.
38
Harris, 275.
39
The myth “Inanna and Enki” records the transfer of the mes;” see W. W. Hallo
and J. J. A. van Dijk, The Exaltation of Inanna (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1968).
40
Harris, 267-8.
41
Roscoe 224; Harris, 274-6.
42
Cooper, 91.
43
Cooper, 92.