The Glazed Steatite Glyptic Style: The Structure and Function of an Image System in the Administration of Protoliterate Mesopotamia.
Collon, Dominique
This book is a revised version of the author's 1989 doctoral
dissertation written at Columbia University under Edith Porada. It
originated, as the author tells us (p. xi), from a study of the glyptic material from Tall-i Malyan - a site in highland Iran which was the
capital of the so-called proto-Elamite state at the turn of the fourth
to third millennium B.C. She found that the different styles of glyptic
used at that period "played a distinct if related role in the
administrative system." She has focused on one of these styles,
whose imagery, she believes, is "closely related in formal and
structural terms to the proto-Elamite script with which it was
used." She followed others in seeing a close connection between
images and writing (pp. xi-xii).
The glazed steatite seals "are carved with distinctive imagery
that is either fully abstract or combines abstract elements with
representations of animals, usually horned quadrupeds" (p. xv). She
has found in the imagery of this style "a complex visual system
made up of a large number of individual design elements combined
according to discernible rules." In the introduction (pp. xv-xxii)
the author discusses the evolution of the different methods of looking
at glyptic material over the years.
In chapter one (pp. 1-20) the author summarizes studies relating to the role played by glyptic art in economic administration. Her aim is to
test Dittmann's suggestion that seal images were
"forerunners" of the earliest scripts by comparing them with
characteristics of such scripts, which she enumerates (pp. 16ff.) In
chapter two (pp. 21-40) Pittman reviews the evidence for the development
of early administrations and the role of seals in this development. Her
views, which posit "the simultaneous . . . use of several symbol
systems," are summarized on pp. 37-38 (and cf. an alternative view
on pp. 3334). She supports her reconstruction of administrative
development by pointing out that "when signs were introduced, the
use of seals on tablets diminished," "some design elements
find close parallels in the Uruk sign list" and that "one of
the first styles of glyptic art to exhibit . . . abstraction is the
glazed steatite style" (p. 40). A recent addition to the corpus of
earliest Middle Uruk cylinder seals (p. 26) is one from Tell Brak in
north-eastern Syria (D. and J. Oates, "Excavations at Tell Brak
1992-93," Iraq 55 (1993): 176-77, 186, figs. 31 and 44). In chapter
three (pp. 41-71) the various types of administrative document are
described (tablets, hollow clay balls, door locks, wall locks or labels,
container stoppers and sealings, rims of vessels) and the various
"symbol systems" associated with them are discussed (scripts,
miscellaneous markings, seal impressions). The different categories of
seal imagery used during the proto-Elamite period are illustrated on p.
62. Throughout the study, and particularly on pp. 65-66, Pittman refers
to wheelcut designs. A recent study by M. Sax and N. D. Meeks, "The
introduction of wheel cutting as a technique for engraving cylinder
seals: Its distinction from filing," Iraq 56 (1994): 153-66, has
demonstrated most convincingly that such designs are in fact filed. In
chapter four (pp. 73-126) the distribution of the glazed steatite style
is discussed site-by-site, first in Iran, then in the Diyala and Hamrin,
and in northern Mesopotamia at Nineveh and Tell Mohammed 'Arab (see
fig. 2).
Finally, in chapter five (pp. 127-39) the actual glazed steatite
seals are examined. Earlier discussions of the style are summarized, and
the material is described (pp. 133-35; see also pp. 222-23). The seal
images are divided into two groups: a Hatched Group (ch. six, pp. 141-69
and fig. 3) and a Multiple Element Group (ch. seven, pp. 172-206 and 4).
In the Hatched Group geometric motifs (band, triangle, rhomb, arcade,
wave, circle, and miscellaneous - including some animals) are emphasized
by hatching and combined with subordinate design elements (illustrated
on fig. 6), the selection of which is primarily determined by shape
(figs. 7-12). The Multiple Design Element Group (figs. 13-19) is divided
into two categories (one combining abstract and schematic elements and
one incorporating animals) structured around four or five
"frequently-occurring design elements" which are combined with
each other or with other design elements (ranging from frequently
occurring to unique) according to a "rationale . . . embedded in
the individual significance of each of the individual design
elements" (p. 206). The Hatched and Multiple Element Groups overlap
but the latter appears first (pp. 221-22).
The glazed steatite seals are considered "co-terminous with the
proto-Elamite script, a period of approximately 100 to 150 years that is
conventionally dated in the range 3100 and 2800 B.c." (p. xxii).
Fig. 1 is only comprehensible when viewed in conjunction with the
relative chronology discussed on pp. 20717 in chapter eight, as it has
no dates or periods (reference to it on pp. xix-xx, n. 7 is confusing).
An analysis of the function of the glazed steatite seals (pp. 223-30)
shows that it was almost invariably directly related to storage; in fact
many of the impressions sealed containers which could easily have been
brought from elsewhere. This affects the next section where the
distribution of images by site or area, depending on the size of the
sample, is discussed (pp. 230-42), catalogued (pp. 265356), mapped and
tabulated (figs. 20-29 and table I), with an index of motifs (pp.
357-64) referring back to the catalogue and a comprehensive, and
updated, bibliography (pp. 365-93). But there is no differentiation
between actual seals and impressions on locking devices, which were
presumably local seals, and impressions on imported goods which would
have originated elsewhere within the trade network.
In chapter nine (pp. 243-64) Pittman finally draws the material
together in an attempt to prove her thesis. She describes the basic
elements of the proto-Elamite script as at present understood. The
number of signs is considerable, with some five thousand variations of
between two hundred and four hundred signs, but of these only a handful
(figs. 28 and 29) are identifiable on the seals and for many the
identification is hardly convincing (e.g., the leaf and the hour-glass
for which the equivalents in the script differ in the two figs.).
Pittman also sees a relationship in the way the signs are combined in
the script and on the seals (pp. 254-57). However, on p. 260 she admits
that "it is almost certain that the glazed steatite style crossed
language barriers" as indicated by its distribution along the
piedmont regions of western Iran-eastern Iraq, along what I have termed
the "Susa-Syria trade-route" (First Impressions [London:
British Museum Publications, 1987], 20-23). She suggests that they might
be equivalent to the contemporary "city seals" which seem to
reflect a largely separate trade network grouping certain cities of
southern Mesopotamia, whose names appear in a stylised form on the
seals. As Pittman herself concludes (p. 263), much work remains to be
done. She suggests that the "change in the administrative
system" at the end of the Early Dynastic I period marked the end of
the existing glyptic styles. The new seals depicted two main themes,
contest and banquets, and signs "were no longer mixed with the
imagery"; this, she suggests, may have been due to the fact that
writing had developed sufficiently by then to reproduce natural language
and the complex alternative forms of communication based on seal imagery
were no longer required; "glyptic imagery . . . was freed from the
restrictions demanded by the requirements of explicit communication to .
. . develop pictorial communication as narrative and decoration"
(p. 264).
The main text is printed in large type, extravagantly spaced, which
makes it easy to read. The line illustrations are clear (there are no
half-tones) although the maps are all wrongly landscaped and the setting
of some of the captions of figs. 3 and 4 is not up to the standard of
the remainder.
The author is to be congratulated on presenting an interesting and
challenging idea which will condition the way we look in future at the
various artifacts of this fascinating period.
DOMINIQUE COLLON THE BRITISH MUSEUM
