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Hunting and Shooting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Dominique Collon
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Extract

When I was still a student, Dr. Barnett gave me the part-time job of sorting the cylinder seal collection in the Western Asiatic Department of the British Museum, of which he was then Keeper. Now, some twenty years later, the catalogue of Akkadian to Ur III seals, which this led to, has just appeared, and this article is based on two “firsts” (as S. N. Kramer would put it) to which my attention was drawn while I was studying the seals. I have found seals a fascinating and continuous source of inspiration and information and the fact that I am still writing about them after twenty years is a measure of the debt I owe Dr. Barnett.

Hunting: Cylinder seal BM 105159 (Pl. XVII(a)), is cut with a presentation scene: a deity leads a worshipper before a seated god. Behind the worshipper is a figure (Pl. XVll(b)), who wears a skirt, raises his left arm and holds, in his right hand, what I thought was a footed cup in which was a stirring rod or spoon. However, when I took this, and other seals, to the British Museum (Natural History) for identification of the animals, it was pointed out to me, by Mr. Colton, that the “cup” might be a falcon sitting on a falconer's wrist.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 33 , December 1983, pp. 51 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1983

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References

1 Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum – Cylinder Seals II: Akkadian-Post Akkadian-Ur III (London, 1982)Google Scholar – henceforward BM Cat. II.

2 Another “first” – the lute – has already been discussed by Collon, D. and Kilmer, A. Draffkorn in Mitchell, T. C. (ed.), Music and Civilisation, The British Museum Yearbook 4 (London, 1980), 13–28Google Scholar.

3 He also introduced me to Edith Porada and gave me my PhD. subject (see Collon, D., The Seal Impressions from Tell Atchana/Alalakh, AOAT 27 (Kevelaer, 1975), p. VIIGoogle Scholar for details).

4 BM Cat. II, No. 214.

5 See n. 10.

6 Martin, Henry in La Grande Encyclopédic (Paris, n.d.)Google Scholar, s.v. Fauconerie.

7 Cade, T. in Encyclopedia Americana (1977)Google Scholar, s.v. Falconry.

8 Quoted from Sumer 23 (1967), 161Google Scholar:13; see also CAD, s.v. kasūsu: “…like a bird which, in the presence of a falcon, in the lap of a man took shelter” (lit. entered).

9 Quoted from Gibson, J. C. L., Canaanite myths and legends, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1978), 112Google Scholar: “I will put you like an eagle on my wristlet, like a hawk on my glove…”

10 I am indebted to Dr. Dalley for the textual information. For the use of sulûm as “lure” in connection with falcon and bā'irum, see CT 15, 5.ii.6. See also Salonen, A., Vögel und Vogelfang im alten Mesopotamien (Helsinki, 1973), 82–3, 207–8Google Scholar. For the Hittite representations see Akurgal, E., Hittite Art (New York, 1962), Pl. 47Google Scholar; Muscarella, O. W. (ed.), The Norbert Schimmel Collection (Mainz, 1974)Google Scholar, No. 123. Examples of a figure with similar attributes on seal impressions from Kültepe of the nineteenth century B.C. provide less conclusive evidence since the birds depicted rarely resemble birds of prey – see Özgüç, N., The Anatolian group of cylinder seal impressions from Kültepe (Ankara, 1965)Google Scholar, Nos. 17, 50, 62, 63, 65, 66, 69 and the discussion on pp. 66–7.

11 Referred to in Ebeling's entry ‘Falke’ in the RLA which also gives textual references to falcons used for omens.

12 T. Cade, loc. cit.

13 Hitti, Philip K., Memoirs of an Arab-Syrian Gentleman or An Arab Knight in the Crusades, Khayats Oriental Reprints 7 (Beirut, 1964)Google Scholar.

14 Layard, A. H., Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (London, 1853)Google Scholar.

15 It may be for this reason that Dr. Dalley has been unable to find any Akkadian word that might correspond to (rufter-)hood or cadge. (She informs me, incidentally, that the cadge was carried by a “cad” – i.e. a man fit for nothing more strenuous, and from it derives the expression “To cadge a lift”!)

16 I am grateful to Mr. M. J. Weller of “The Wales Archery Specialist” at Crick, near Newport, for bibliographical information and for putting me in touch with Mr. A. Webb of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, who has kindly read a draft of this paper, made many helpful suggestions, and contacted Dr. G. D. Gaunt on my behalf. The terminology of the bow, arrow, quiver and bow-case in Akkadian has been discussed by Salonen, A., Jagd und Jagdtiere im alten Mesopotamien (Helsinki, 1976), 24 ff., 64–5Google Scholar.

17 Yadin, Y. in The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands (Jerusalem, 1963), 46–8Google Scholar, and Heath, E.G., The Grey Goose Wing (Reading, 1971), 38 ffGoogle Scholar. disagree with this statement but Heath later amended his views in Archery – a Military History (London, 1980), 13Google Scholar to accord with those in favour of an Uruk composite bow expressed by Rausing, G., The Bow, Ada Archaeologica Lundensia Series in 8° No. 6 (Bonn and Lund, 1967), 82, 137Google Scholar, Fig. 40.

18 This was the view put forward by General Pitt-Rivers in 1877. For a discussion of this question see G. Rausing, op. cit., 145.

19 Rausing, op. cit., 149, suggests “the wide area north of Anau” as a possible homeland for the composite bow. He argues (p. 146) that it must have post-dated the invention of pottery or metal vessels since these would have been essential for boiling up the glue which is a basic requirement of the composite bow.

20 BM 131440 published by Mallowan, M. E. L. in Baghdader Mitteilungen 3 (1964), 65–7Google Scholar and Pl. 8; = our Plate XIX(a).

21 This stele has been frequently illustrated, e.g. in Parrot, A., Sumer (Paris, 1960), p. 75 Fig. 92Google Scholar.

22 Amiet, P., Glyptique susienne, MDAI XLIII (Paris, 1972)Google Scholar, No. 695. Other, less distinctively dressed archers, appear on seal impression s Nos. 600–2, 604 (hunting scenes), Nos. 688, 689, 691 (processions). A lion archer, wearing a quiver, appear son No. 1014 which is a Proto-Elamite seal.

23 Korfmann, M., Schleuder und Bogen in Südwestasien, Antiquitas Reihe 3 (Serie in 4°), Vol. 13 (Bonn, 1972), 277 ffGoogle Scholar. (English summary). Where they are depicted in sufficient detail, all the arrows in Uruk representations (see Pl. XIX(a) and notes 20–2) seem to be transverse and the arrow carried by the Akkadian archer on Pl. XX(b) would appear to be of this type also. Not one of the five types of arrows used in Pre-Dynastic Egypt had a conventional arrowhead (Emery, W. B., Archaic Egypt (Harmondsworth, 1961), 113 fGoogle Scholar. and Fig. 71), and the archers on the Hunter's Palette also seem to have carried arrows with transverse heads (ibid., 113 Fig. 70 and Pl. 1(b)). These facts should be taken into account when assessing Korfmann's patterns and frequency of distribution which may need to be revised.

24 Rausing, op. cit., 137 (Indus); 121, 137 f. (Pribajkalja); 121, 148 (Japan). However, in a review of evidence for archery in Prehistoric India (in preparation), Dr. Gaunt considers that the bows incorporated into certain Indus Valley pictographs are not composite, but large, simple segment bows, as are most other representations of bows from this civilization. He does, though, draw attention to two unique representations of double-concave composite bows from the Indus Valley, for which, because of close similarity in shape and size, he suspects the possibility of Akkadian influence. I am grateful to Dr. Gaunt for his helpful comments which have been incorporated in this paper.

25 “Arpachiyah 1976”, Iraq 42 (1980), 131–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. Fig. 10 No. 342a. I am indebted to Dr. Hijara for permission to use his drawing of the Halaf pot discussed here.

26 Until now, the earliest quivers known, were that illustrated on Pl. XIX(a), the slightly later one worn by a lion-archer on a Proto-Elamit e seal from Susa (Amiet, op. cit., No. 1014) and fragments of what may have been a bronze (sic!) quiver mentioned in the Uruk inventory (W. 18725d) as having been found with a large number of arrows in the Riemchen building (Korfmann, op. cit., 199, 211).

27 For tassels hanging from a quiver, see Heath, E. G., The Art of Archery (London, 1978) 6Google Scholar Fig. 1 showing Ladies' Day in 1903 (middle lady).

28 Parrot, op. cit., p. 174 Fig. 210.

29 Boehmer, R. M., Die Entwicklung der Glyptik während der Akkad-Zeit (Berlin, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Abb. 288, 352, 359, 377, 390, 391, 717, 722, 724. See also Abb. 127, 324, 720, 721 for archers without quivers.

30 Parrot, op. cit., 176–7 Figs. 212, 213.

31 BM Cat. II, 29.

32 Two archers feature on a serpentine seal which probably came from the same workshop and which shows a hunting scene; their quivers also have tassels. The seal was used to illustrate a New Year 1982 greetings' card sent by Hadji Baba (Ancient Art), Davies Street, London W. 1. I am grateful to Professor W. G. Lambert for supplying me with a copy.

33 Pritchard, J. B., Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, 1969), 80Google Scholar. In this context it is interesting that the only later Near Eastern example of a quiver and tassel I have been able to find, occurs on a Syrian cylinder seal which, though based on an Old Babylonian prototype, is probably to be dated to the third quarter of the 2nd millennium B.C.: it is carried by a Syrian god who, together with an archer, is attacking a Huwawa/Humbaba figure – see AfO 11 (1936–1937), 13Google Scholar Fig. 21. I am grateful to W. G. Lambert for drawing my attention to this seal.

34 Barnett, R. D., Assyrian Palace Reliefs (London, n.d.)Google Scholar, Pl 26 (Ashurnasirpal II); id., Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668–627 B.C.) (London, 1976), 12–13, 37 ff., Pls. V–XIII.