Books by Ludovico Portuese
Zaphon, 2022
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marru 11. Zaphon, 2020
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PHILIPPIKA 141, 2020
Proceeding of the workshop "Researching Metaphor in the Ancient Near East", held at the 65th RAI ... more Proceeding of the workshop "Researching Metaphor in the Ancient Near East", held at the 65th RAI in Paris, July 12th, 2019.
Contributions by Stephanie Anthonioz, Esther Brownsmith, Joseph Lam, Davide Nadali, Judith Pfitzner, Claudia Posani, Nelson Henrique da Silva Ferreira, Silvia Salin, Lisa Wilhelmi
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Papers by Ludovico Portuese
Henoch, 2023
This paper re-constructs the ways that divine statues were worshipped in ancient Assyria, by anal... more This paper re-constructs the ways that divine statues were worshipped in ancient Assyria, by analyzing the protocols and etiquette that were adhered to by worshippers during their encounter with the divine. Textual and archaeological evidence does not offer exhaustive descriptions in this respect, but a polyphonic reading of these sources helps the modern scholar to explore the protocols that were followed and the gestures that were performed by the suppliant. It is concluded that the essence of divine statues, as well as the emotions experienced by the suppliant, produced those worshipping acts that today we may refer to as “etiquette”.
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Eating and Drinking in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 67th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Turin, July 12–16, 2021, 2024
This paper explores the Assyrian royal banquet through a sociological and anthropological analysi... more This paper explores the Assyrian royal banquet through a sociological and anthropological analysis of the extant visual evidence from the first millennium BCE. It focuses specifically on the immaterial aspects of commensality (hierarchies, positions, gestures, etiquette, proxemic, hygiene), the study of which reveals that these contributed to the integrity of a culture and the evolutionary success of the group.
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Architecture, Iconography, and Text. New Studies on the Northwest Palace Reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II (edited by J. Caleb Howard), 2023
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KASKAL, 2022
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Ancient Near Eastern Weltanschauungen in Contact and in Contrast. Rethinking Ideology and Propaganda in the Ancient Near East, 2022
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Ancient Near Eastern Weltanschauungen in Contact and in Contrast. Rethinking Ideology and Propaganda in the Ancient Near East, 2022
The doors of the Neo-Assyrian palaces were highly guarded by a great variety of protective creatu... more The doors of the Neo-Assyrian palaces were highly guarded by a great variety of protective creatures, whose aspects and characteristics change with time, from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Kalhu to the palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. In fact, in each royal palace, doorways receive a different protective treatment and both old and new solutions are introduced in the apotropaic repertoire. This paper focuses on the introduction of new doorway creatures in the royal palaces of Sargon II and Sennacherib and proposes that these new figures were conceived as less direct ways through which an Assyrian king built his self-representation and laid claim to present a new ideology. It is concluded that doorway creatures were used to persuade king’s supporters, such as aristocrats and scholars, to accept the new king.
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Oriens Antiquus, 2021
This article discusses the background, methodology and digital implementation of the project GALA... more This article discusses the background, methodology and digital implementation of the project GALATEO “Good Attitudes for Life in Assyrian Times: Etiquette and Observance of Norms in Male and Female Groups”, which aims to understand anew the importance of etiquette in late Assyrian society (10th-7th centuries BCE). The first results from a brief analysis of banquet scenes are offered at the end.
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Researching Metaphor in the Ancient Near East
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Die Welt des Orients 51/1, 2021
The doors and gates of the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Kalhu were highly guarded by a... more The doors and gates of the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Kalhu were highly guarded by a great variety of protective figures. These are known as lamassu or šēdu (bulls and lion colossi) and apkallū (genies), which acted both as architectural elements and as overseers of persons moving in and out. Their protective role derives not only from their simple presence, but also from apotropaic objects they hold: ritual buckets, pinecone-shaped objects, maces, various species of plants, deer, goats, kids, and lambs. From the presence of these assorted attributes, one may deduce that doorways provided not only the settings for ritual activities, but were themselves recipients of and/or participated in actual rituals. On this premise, the article analyses the protective figures and their attributes in the light of textual references in Mesopotamian incantations in order to recreate apotropaic rituals performed at doorways in the palace. Additionally, a link between ritual activity and internal movement will be proposed, thereby assigning specific doors to individual groups of people circulating within the palace. The analysis concludes that rituals and protective figures cooperated to protect the palace and were meant as strategies to cope with collective fear and anxiety on different levels, both in space and time.
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West & East Monografie, 3. Boradening Horizons 5, Civilizations in Contact. Proceedings of the 5th "Broadening Horizons" Conference (Udine 5-8 June 2017), 2020
The Neo-Assyrian palace was the centre of power and its access was obviously highly regulated, bu... more The Neo-Assyrian palace was the centre of power and its access was obviously highly regulated, but not impossible. In fact, both material and textual evidence proves that foreigners coming from neighbouring kingdoms were on occasions hosted in the palace. Admittance was not immediate but mediated by procedures and formalities, and presence before the king entailed following a number of rules of conduct, etiquette, decorum, courtesies and good form. This is the so-called ‘royal protocol’, on which iconographic sources, architectural settings, and royal texts shed light. Nonetheless, despite studies on a variety of aspects, there appear to be few or even no specific studies on the ‘royal protocol’ at the Neo-Assyrian court, with special regard to foreigners.
This paper fills part of this gap by analysing the evidence coming from Sargon II’s reign: 1) texts and bas-reliefs, which outline rules of access, foreigners’ behaviour and king’s appearance, and 2) architectural hints, which help in reconstructing routes and rooms earmarked for foreigners.
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Ash-Sharq, 2020
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Ash-Sharq, 2020
Psychology of art and neuroesthetics remain largely unknown to current scholarship in Mesopotamia... more Psychology of art and neuroesthetics remain largely unknown to current scholarship in Mesopotamian art studies and only a few contributions have recently dealt with artefacts relying on these methods of investigation. The goal of this paper is to identify cues for the cognitive process of attention in ancient Mesopotamian art, aiming to find confirmation of their possible use by ancient Mesopotamian artists and audiences. A similar approach was used in ancient Greek art and this contribution represents an attempt to pave the way to open new perspectives for how ancient Near Eastern art can be analysed. The results show the universality of the audience’s attention towards art, probably connected with basic responses of cognitive processes.
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Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft , 2020
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The mutual dialogue(s) between Archaeology and Bildwissenschaften has often been avoided as an is... more The mutual dialogue(s) between Archaeology and Bildwissenschaften has often been avoided as an issue in the discussion of Ancient Mesopotamian Art. In particular, pictures have too often been analysed out of their original context with biased results and judgments on the aesthetic, meaning and exploitation of images within the ancient societies. This paper brings to the fore such dialogue by using some case studies from Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs of first millennium BCE according to a twofold topic.
Archaeology in Bildwissenschaften: this topic uses the architectural tradition of the royal palace throne room as a case study for illustrating some principles of the way reliefs were arranged along the walls of the room. The analysis will disclose that the arrangement of each image can only be fully understood in its architectural context and specifically in the light of a ‘bipolarity’ of the throne room, namely reliefs sparking negative emotions were confined at some distance from the royal throne while those evoking positive emotions were set close to the throne as well as the doubling of the body of the king.
Bildwissenschaften in Archaeology: in dealing with hunt rituals ‒ specifically the scene of the king pouring libations over dead lion or bull ‒ this topic focuses on its emergence as a strong Assyrian tradition in the times of Assurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE) and Assurbanipal (668–631 BCE). Since there are no hunt rituals recorded on palace wall panels between the reigns of these two kings, it seems that Assurbanipal, as a known antiquarian, consciously adopted an antique iconographic motif. This phenomenon, which can be interpreted as an imitation, quotation, allusion, and perhaps homage, will be evaluated according to the modern notion of linguistic intertextuality applied to the realm of visual arts, namely intericonicity (or Interbildlichkeit).
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Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires, 2020
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Eikón Imago , 2020
In Orientational Conceptual Metaphor, a system of ideas is organized in the relation and interact... more In Orientational Conceptual Metaphor, a system of ideas is organized in the relation and interaction in space like up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) called this group of metaphors "Orientational," because they give a concept a spatial orientation: in the example, "happy is up," the concept happy is oriented up leading to English expressions like "I'm feeling up today." Such metaphorical orientations have a basis in our physical and cultural experience, thus they vary from culture to culture. Drawing on this theoretical and methodological framework, this paper argues for the existence of Orientational Metaphors in Neo-Assyrian sources, which are largely attested in textual and visual references concerning the relationships between king and subjects.
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Philippika 141, 2020
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Books by Ludovico Portuese
Contributions by Stephanie Anthonioz, Esther Brownsmith, Joseph Lam, Davide Nadali, Judith Pfitzner, Claudia Posani, Nelson Henrique da Silva Ferreira, Silvia Salin, Lisa Wilhelmi
Papers by Ludovico Portuese
This paper fills part of this gap by analysing the evidence coming from Sargon II’s reign: 1) texts and bas-reliefs, which outline rules of access, foreigners’ behaviour and king’s appearance, and 2) architectural hints, which help in reconstructing routes and rooms earmarked for foreigners.
Archaeology in Bildwissenschaften: this topic uses the architectural tradition of the royal palace throne room as a case study for illustrating some principles of the way reliefs were arranged along the walls of the room. The analysis will disclose that the arrangement of each image can only be fully understood in its architectural context and specifically in the light of a ‘bipolarity’ of the throne room, namely reliefs sparking negative emotions were confined at some distance from the royal throne while those evoking positive emotions were set close to the throne as well as the doubling of the body of the king.
Bildwissenschaften in Archaeology: in dealing with hunt rituals ‒ specifically the scene of the king pouring libations over dead lion or bull ‒ this topic focuses on its emergence as a strong Assyrian tradition in the times of Assurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE) and Assurbanipal (668–631 BCE). Since there are no hunt rituals recorded on palace wall panels between the reigns of these two kings, it seems that Assurbanipal, as a known antiquarian, consciously adopted an antique iconographic motif. This phenomenon, which can be interpreted as an imitation, quotation, allusion, and perhaps homage, will be evaluated according to the modern notion of linguistic intertextuality applied to the realm of visual arts, namely intericonicity (or Interbildlichkeit).
Contributions by Stephanie Anthonioz, Esther Brownsmith, Joseph Lam, Davide Nadali, Judith Pfitzner, Claudia Posani, Nelson Henrique da Silva Ferreira, Silvia Salin, Lisa Wilhelmi
This paper fills part of this gap by analysing the evidence coming from Sargon II’s reign: 1) texts and bas-reliefs, which outline rules of access, foreigners’ behaviour and king’s appearance, and 2) architectural hints, which help in reconstructing routes and rooms earmarked for foreigners.
Archaeology in Bildwissenschaften: this topic uses the architectural tradition of the royal palace throne room as a case study for illustrating some principles of the way reliefs were arranged along the walls of the room. The analysis will disclose that the arrangement of each image can only be fully understood in its architectural context and specifically in the light of a ‘bipolarity’ of the throne room, namely reliefs sparking negative emotions were confined at some distance from the royal throne while those evoking positive emotions were set close to the throne as well as the doubling of the body of the king.
Bildwissenschaften in Archaeology: in dealing with hunt rituals ‒ specifically the scene of the king pouring libations over dead lion or bull ‒ this topic focuses on its emergence as a strong Assyrian tradition in the times of Assurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE) and Assurbanipal (668–631 BCE). Since there are no hunt rituals recorded on palace wall panels between the reigns of these two kings, it seems that Assurbanipal, as a known antiquarian, consciously adopted an antique iconographic motif. This phenomenon, which can be interpreted as an imitation, quotation, allusion, and perhaps homage, will be evaluated according to the modern notion of linguistic intertextuality applied to the realm of visual arts, namely intericonicity (or Interbildlichkeit).
La tipologia dei soggetti rappresentati muta con il passaggio da una sala all’altra, sovente aderendo ad un criterio di variatio figurativa in seno al medesimo contesto. Ne è testimonianza la tecnica di raffigurazione degli abiti del re, il cui ornatus si articola in motivi decorativi di diversa matrice, avente ciascuno un valore intrinseco precipuo: il tipo di veste indossata, le movenze gestuali ritratte, gli oggetti di sua pertinenza. Elementi su cui incide in modo significativo anche la struttura della sala, ove la disposizione delle immagini sembra obbedire ad un rigoroso ordinamento interno, strettamente connesso al tenore sociale dell’audience per cui essa era stata concepita.
Una complessa varietas semantico-figurativa di cui il presente contributo analizzerà, in particolare, le incisioni degli abiti regali di Assurnasirpal II nei bassorilievi delle sale B, C e S: i cosiddetti spazi “di transizione” o “di confine” del palazzo. L’indagine proposta muoverà dallo studio degli abiti e degli attributi del sovrano, per volgersi poi all’esame più ampio delle sale del palazzo e della loro funzione.
These gestures were largely explored by scholars and attention was focused on their meaning in texts and images. This paper proposes a new approach to understand their sociological and anthropological value. In detail, from a sociological perspective, gestures can play a role in maintaining social and psychological order and can become a clear marker of collective identity even through time, generations, and changes. From an anthropological perspective, gestures are not innate, but they are shaped by socio-cultural environments and cultural ideologies. Thus, they must be contextualized to the immediate situation linking gestures to material objects, space, the preceding discourse, communicative exchanges, communicative purposes, the relationship between interlocutors and their shared knowledge.
Building on these premises, this article provides an examination of the ubāna tarāṣu and the appa labānu gestures relying on Middle and Neo-Assyrian sources (ritual and literary texts, visual evidence) in order to understand: 1) why the ubāna tarāṣu became part of an established repertoire in the Assyrian tradition, surviving from the second to the first millennium BCE, 2) how identities, relations of power and language intersect in the use of gestures, and 3) to what extent social concerns, social relations and ideological values play a role in the representation of gestures.
Cultural contact between Syro-Hittite states and the Assyrian empire during the first millennium BCE have been notoriously intensive, and it involved many aspects and affected material culture, social practices, and social structures to varying extents. Situations of cultural contact may have initiated a process of self-reflection, within the collective group, or may have had the potential to induce cultural change. On the material level, this encounter may have had different effects, ranging from spontaneous rejection to acceptance of specific visual motifs.
This article provides an examination and comparison of visual representations of submission gestures and of drinking acts in Syro-Hittite and Assyrian monumental art, in order to highlight the ways through which these visual motifs were rejected, or were appropriated and re-instrumentalized by both parties. It is concluded that the interaction between Syro-Hittite and Assyrian art reveals 1) a dialectic between the embrace and rejection of specific visual motifs, and 2) a conscious consequent creation of nonverbal expressions as signs of collective identity.
Archaeology in Bildwissenschaften: this topic uses the architectural tradition of the royal palace throne room as a case study for illustrating some principles of the way reliefs were arranged along the walls of the room. The analysis will disclose that the arrangement of each image can
only be fully understood in its architectural context and specifically in the light of a ‘bipolarity’ of the throne room, namely reliefs sparking negative emotions were confined at some distance from the royal throne while those evoking positive emotions were set close to the throne as well as
the doubling of the body of the king.
Bildwissenschaften in Archaeology: in dealing with hunt rituals ‒ specifically the scene of the king pouring libations over dead lion or bull ‒ this topic focuses on its emergence as a strong Assyrian tradition in the times of Assurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE) and Assurbanipal (668–631 BCE). Since
there are no hunt rituals recorded on palace wall panels between the reigns of these two kings, it seems that Assurbanipal, as a known antiquarian, consciously adopted an antique iconographic motif. This phenomenon, which can be interpreted as an imitation, quotation, allusion, and
perhaps homage, will be evaluated according to the modern notion of linguistic intertextuality applied to the realm of visual arts, namely intericonicity (or Interbildlichkeit).
La tipologia dei soggetti rappresentati muta con il passaggio da una sala all’altra, sovente aderendo ad un criterio di variatio figurativa in seno al medesimo contesto. Ne è testimonianza la tecnica di raffigurazione degli abiti del re, il cui ornatus si articola in motivi decorativi di diversa matrice, avente ciascuno un valore intrinseco precipuo: il tipo di veste indossata, le movenze gestuali ritratte, gli oggetti di sua pertinenza. Elementi su cui incide in modo significativo anche la struttura della sala, ove la disposizione delle immagini sembra obbedire ad un rigoroso ordinamento interno, strettamente connesso al tenore sociale dell’audience per cui essa era stata concepita.
Una complessa varietas semantico-figurativa di cui il presente contributo analizzerà, in particolare, le incisioni degli abiti regali di Assurnasirpal II nei bassorilievi delle sale B, C e S: i cosiddetti spazi “di transizione” o “di confine” del palazzo. L’indagine proposta muoverà dallo studio degli abiti e degli attributi del sovrano, per volgersi poi all’esame più ampio delle sale del palazzo e della loro funzione.
At the same time, in the royal iconography that goes from Tiglath-pileser III onward (8th century BCE), sculptures and wall paintings often show the ruler holding a plant or flower either in his lowered left hand, or in his upraised right hand placing the plant/flower close to his nose. In images, the king exhibits sometimes the plant/flower in ‘audience scenes’ when he receives foreign vassals and court members.
Despite studies on a variety of aspects of life-giving plants in Mesopotamian literature and iconography, there appear to be few or even no specific studies on the ‘plant of life’ in Neo-Assyrian texts and images. This paper fills part of this gap by analysing the portraits of the kings in the light of textual evidence in order to identify the function of the ‘plant of life’. A link between texts and images will be proposed, thereby suggesting that the plant was used primarily by the king to express his mercy and metaphorically to indicate himself as a ‘life-giving’ ruler.
The presence of these numerous countermeasures can be explained as a desire, expressed in images and words, that good or evil may befall someone or something. They express inherent fear and anxiety over the safety of something or somebody. In particular, from the presence of assorted attributes and the use of formulae, one may reasonably deduce that doorways provided not only the settings for ritual activities, but were themselves recipients of and / or participated in actual rituals. Nonetheless, very few academic studies have featured this specific topic and, where they have, the authors have barely recognised this hypothesis or at most made only a passing reference to it.
This paper fills this gap by analysing the protective figures and their attributes in the light of textual references in Mesopotamian incantations in order to re-create apotropaic rituals performed at doorways in the palace of Aššurnaṣirpal II. A link between ritual activity and internal movement will be proposed, thereby assigning specific doors to individual groups of people circulating within the palace.
This paper fills part of this gap by analysing the evidence coming from Sargon II’s reign: 1) texts and bas-reliefs, which outline rules of access, foreigners’ behaviour and king’s hospitality, and 2) architectural hints, which help in reconstructing routes and rooms earmarked for outsiders.
Indeed, among the different roles in which the Assyrian king is depicted, the most unusual is the king as ‘shepherd’, shown holding a long staff. This image, which throughout the Assyrian royal inscriptions can be read as the metaphor of the shepherd who cares for his flock, is most frequently represented in peaceful scenes. However, very few academic studies have focused on such a specific and unusual image and, where they have, the authors have barely recognised this role or at most made only a passing reference to it.
This paper fills part of this gap by analysing the king as shepherd depicted on the figurative programmes of the Neo-Assyrian kings, from Ashurnasirpal II up to Sargon II. The paper will 1) examine the subtle peculiarities within such image, 2) scrutinise the related architectural context(s) and 3) present a ‘reconstruction’ of the steps by which the viewer would have approached, perceived and ‘consumed’ the images, the aim being to outline the identity of the expected audience.
Despite many insightful ideas on some particular aspects, there appear to be few works or even no specific studies on this room as a whole, with special regard to the audience.
This paper fills part of this gap by reconsidering the throne room as transitional or borderline context – both for Assyrians and guests – and as a sensory space that is both manipulative and synesthetic. In this way the room is evaluated holistically: the images and the so-called „Standard Inscription“ are seen to cooperate with the immaterial aspects, such as 1) the management of the entrances and the space – judged on the basis of a ‘seen’ and ‘unseen’ rule; 2) the manipulation of fields of view, interplay of light and shadow; 3) the emotional responses to the auditory, visual and olfactory stimuli which allowed the audience to fully experience the space, even activating what is commonly referred to as ‘non-sense’ or ‘sixth sense’.
Following the methodologies used in the recent archaeology of the senses, I argue that the throne room of Ashurnasirpal II was a melting pot of sensorial stimuli, intended to cause the phenomenon of the arousal for a psychological control of the minds.