To understand the Iraqi people, societies and the historical fabric of Iraq, you need to sail into the immense world of Iraqi history, language, culture, religion, traditions, development of its military forces, the psyche of its infra and sub-structure of its various social and religious communities, and above all, you must be knowledgeable of Iraq's language and  art. Is it the proper time to talk about Iraqi art and historical culture amidst the turbulent Iraq passage toward  new political and social metamorphoses?  Absolutely, for nations were initially born through the original written and verbal expressions of individual and shared feelings, ideas, concepts and ideologies transmitted and illustrated through the medium of language, music, poetry and art. Equally true is the survival of nations and the preservation of their heritage, history and national pride through language and art in all their forms and styles. No country will ever survive if its art and language die out. Many  Western analysts, commentators and political observers failed to understand Iraqis and to communicate with the people of Iraq, because of their lack of knowledge of the Iraqi language and arts. Failing to communicate in Arabic with Arabs and meager knowledge of the Arabic social and religious culture will lead toward Arabs distrust  for foreigners who seek residence and work in the Arab world. Arabs and particularly, the Iraqis are proud of their language. History of Islam and global Arab literature revealed that the greatest Arab poets and writers, came from Iraq, and particularly from Al Basra. Hassan Bin Thabet Al Ansari, Abou Teeb Al Mutanabi, considered as the greatest Arab poets and authors were Iraqi. And today, the most illustrious contemporary Arab abstract artists are unquestionably Iraqis. What’s left from the might and glorious past of Rome are not the centurions, the Roman saber or the military genius of Julius Cesar but, the temples, the frescoes, Via Apia, the Latin literature and the Roman law, in brief the Roman Art. What’s left from the illustrious history of the Egyptian civilization is not the military might of the Pharos, the bowed arch, the war chariots but, the pyramids of Gizah, the temples of Luxor, the art treasures, the tomb paintings and unsurpassed ancient Egyptian architecture. In other words, the Egyptian Art. What’s left from the fabulous Hellenistic culture and history is not the formidable “Water Fire” of their mighty naval forces, the swords and shields of the Macedonians or the  strategic genius of Alexander the Great but, the glorious temples of Athena, the Pantheons, the teachings of Sophocles, Aristotle, the superb Greek statues, and the magnificent Greek frescoes. In short, the Greek Art! Thus, it is always proper and necessary to talk about art, to nourish art and to protect art in order to revive and preserve a nation. Art is an immortal human necessity. If art never existed, humanity would have not lasted throughout centuries. Politicians, strategists, diplomats and urban architects are working on re-building Iraq. And that’s is fine. But, without preserving the modern art of Iraq, this glorious country will never survive. I hope the present work will shed light on the glorious artistic heritage of Iraq, the good nature of the Iraqis, the nobility of their traditions and unsurpassed contributions to the world civilization and Western modern thought.

 Photo: An  ancient Iraqi silver riverboat,  UR, 2600 B.C.

The credit for the rediscovery of the ruins of Babylon goes to an Italian, Pietro della Valle, who correctly identified the vast ruins north of modern Al-Hillah,(60 miles south of Baghdad); he must have seen there the large rectangular tower that represented the ancient ziggurat. Previously, other travelers had sought the Tower of Babel in two other monumental ruins: Birs Nimrud, the massive brick structure of the ziggurat of ancient Borsippa (modern Birs, near Al-Hillah), vitrified by lightning, and the ziggurat of the Kassite capital, Dur Kurigalzu, at Burj 'Aqarquf, 22 miles west of Baghdad.  Pietro della Valle brought back to Europe the first specimens of cuneiform writing, stamped brick, of which highly impressionistic reproductions were made.

Photo: Gold lamp, UR, 2600 B.C. 

Photo: Leaves necklace made out of pure gold, UR, 2650 B.C.

Thereafter, European travelers visited Mesopotamia with increasing frequency, among them Carsten Niebuhr (an 18th-century German traveler), Claudius James Rich (a 19th-century Orient list and traveler), and Ker Porter (a 19th-century traveler). In modern times a third Middle Eastern ruin drew visitors from Europe-- Persepolis, in the land of Persia east of Susiana, near modern Shiraz, Iran. In 1602, reports had filtered back to Europe of inscriptions that were not in Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Georgian, or Greek. In 1700 an Englishman, Thomas Hyde, coined the term "cuneiform" for these inscriptions, and by the middle of the 18th century it was known that the Persepolis inscriptions were related to those of Babylon. Niebuhr distinguished three separate alphabets (Babylonian, Elamite, and Old Persian cuneiform). The first promising attempt at decipherment was made by the German philologist Georg Friedrich Grotefend in 1802, by use of the kings' names in the Old Persian versions of the trilingual inscriptions, although his later efforts led him up a blind alley. Thereafter, the efforts to decipher cuneiform gradually developed in the second half of the 19th century into a discipline of ancient Oriental philology, which was based on results established through the pioneering work of Emile Burnouf, Edward Hincks, Sir Henry Rawlinson, and many others.

Photo from L to R: #1: Iraqi gold Helmet, UR 2600 B.C. Photo #2: Golden Lyer Detail, UR 2600B.C.

Photos from L to R:  #1. Woman, UR 2600B.C.  Photo #2. Gold Dagger, UR 2600 B.C. #3. Ornament, UR 2650 B.C.

Today this subject is still known as Assyriology, because at the end of the 19th century the great majority of cuneiform texts came from the Assyrian city of Nineveh, in particular from the library of King Ashurbanipal in the mound of Kuyunjik at Nineveh.

The emergence of Mesopotamian civilization:

The Late Neolithic Period and the Chalcolithic Period. Between about 10,000 BC and the genesis of large permanent settlements, the following stages of development are distinguishable, some of which run parallel :-

1. The change to sedentary life, or the transition from continual or seasonal change of abode, characteristic of hunter-gatherers and the earliest cattle breeders, to life in one place over a period of several years or even permanently.

2. The transition from experimental plant cultivation to the deliberate and calculated farming of grains and leguminous plants.

3. The erection of houses and the associated "settlement" of the gods in temples.

4. The burial of the dead in cemeteries.

5. The invention of clay vessels, made at first by hand, then turned on the wheel and fired to ever greater degrees of hardness, at the same time receiving almost invariably decoration of incised designs or painted patterns,

6. The development of specialized crafts and the distribution of labor.

7. Metal production (the first use of metal--copper--marks the transition from the Late Neolithic to the Chalcolithic Period).

only rarely be dated on the basis of a sequence of levels at one site alone. Instead, an important role is played by the comparison of different sites, starting with the assumption that what is simpler and technically less accomplished is older. In addition to this type of dating, which can be only relative, the radiocarbon, or carbon-14, method has proved to be an increasingly valuable tool since the 1950s. By this method the known rate of decay of the radioactive carbon isotope (carbon-14) in wood, horn, plant fibre, and bone allows the time that has elapsed since the "death" of the material under examination to be calculated.

Photo: Mabel head, Warka, 3000 B. C. 

Photo: Black jug, Warka, 300 B. C.

Although a plus/minus discrepancy of up to 200 years has to be allowed for, this is not such a great disadvantage in the case of material 6,000 to 10,000 years old. Even when skepticism is necessary because of the use of an inadequate sample, carbon-14 dates are still very welcome as confirmation of dates arrived at by other means. Moreover, radiocarbon ages can be converted to more precise dates through comparisons with data obtained by dendrochronology, a method of absolute age determination based on the analysis of the annual rings of trees. The first agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the transition to sedentary life took place in regions in which animals that were easily domesticated, such as sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs, and the wild prototypes of grains and leguminous plants, such as wheat, barley, bitter vetch, pea, and lentil, were present. Such centers of dispersion may have been the valleys and grassy border regions of the mountains of Iraq, Iran, Anatolia, Syria, and Palestine, but they also could have been, say, the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush. As settled life, which caused a drop in infant mortality, led to the increase of the population, settlement spread out from these centers into the plains--although it must be remembered that this process, described as the Neolithic Revolution, in fact took thousands of years. Representative of the first settlements on the borders of Mesopotamia are the adjacent sites of Zawi Chemi Shanidar and Shanidar itself, which lie northwest of Rawanduz. They date from the transition from the 10th to the 9th millennium BC and are classified as pre-potterry. The finds included querns (primitive mills) for grinding grain (whether wild or cultivated is not known), the remains of huts about 13 feet in diameter, and a cemetery with grave goods. The presence of copper beads is evidence of acquaintance with metal, though not necessarily with the technique of working it into tools, and the presence of obsidian (volcanic glass) is indicative of the acquisition of non indigenous raw materials by means of trade. The bones found testify that sheep were already domesticated at Zawi Chemi Shanidar. At Karim Shahir, a site that cannot be accurately tied chronologically to Shanidar, clear proof was obtained both of the knowledge of grain cultivation, in the form of sickle blades showing sheen from use, and of the baking of clay, in the form of lightly fired clay figurines. Still in the hilly borders of Mesopotamia, a sequence of about 3,000 years can be followed at the site of Qal'at Jarmo, east of Kirkuk, some 150 miles north of Baghdad. The beginning of this settlement can be dated to about 6750 BC; excavations uncovered 12 archaeological levels of a regular village, consisting of about 20 to 25 houses built of packed clay, sometimes with stone foundations, and divided into several rooms. The finds included types of wheat (emmer and einkorn) and two-row barley, the bones of domesticated goats, sheep, and pigs, and obsidian tools, stone vessels, and, in the upper third of the levels, clay vessels with rough painted decorations, providing the first certain evidence for the manufacture of pottery. Jarmo must be roughly contemporary with the sites of Jericho (13 miles east of Jerusalem) and of Çatalhüyük in Anatolia (central Turkey).

Photo: Inana Temple, Uruk Warka, 2900 B.C.

Photo: Vase, Warka, 3000 B.C.

Those sites, with their walled settlements, seem to have achieved a much higher level of civilization, but too much weight must not be placed on the comparison because no other sites in and around Mesopotamia confirm the picture deduced from Jarmo alone. Views on the earliest Neolithic in Iraq have undergone radical revisions in the light of discoveries made since the 1970s at Qermez Dere, Nemrik, and Maghzaliyah.  About 1,000 years later are two villages that are the earliest so far discovered in the plain of Mesopotamia: Hassuna, near Mosul, and Tall Sawwan, near Samarra'. At Hassuna the pottery is more advanced, with incised and painted designs, but the decoration is still unsophisticated. One of the buildings found may be a shrine, judging from its unusual ground plan. Apart from emmer there occurs, as the result of mutation, six-row barley, which was later to become the chief grain crop of southern Mesopotamia. In the case of Tall Sawwan, it is significant that the settlement lay south of the boundary of rainfall agriculture; thus it must have been dependent on some form of artificial irrigation, even if this was no more than the drawing of water from the Tigris. This, therefore, gives a date after which the settlement of parts of southern Mesopotamia would have been feasible.

The emergence of cultures:

For the next millennium, the 5th, it is customary to speak in terms of various "cultures" or "horizons" distinguished in general by the pottery, which may be classed by its color, shape, hardness, and, above all, by its decoration. The name of each horizon is derived either from the type site or from the place where the pottery was first found: Samarra' on the Tigris, Tall Halaf in the central Jazirah, Hassuna Level V, Al-'Ubaid near Ur, and Hajj Muhammad on the Euphrates, not far from As-Samawah (some 150 miles south-southeast of Baghdad). Along with the improvement of tools, the first evidence for water transport (a model boat from the prehistoric cemetery at Eridu, in the extreme south of Mesopotamia, c. 4000 BC), and the development of terra-cottas, the most impressive sign of progress is the constantly accelerating advance in architecture. This can best be followed in the city of Eridu, which in historical times was the centre of the cult of the Sumerian god Enki. Originally a small, single-roomed shrine, the temple in the Ubaid period consisted of a rectangular building, measuring 80 by 40 feet, that stood on an artificial terrace. It had an "offering table" and an "altar" against the short walls, aisles down each side, and a facade decorated with niches. This temple, standing on a terrace probably originally designed to protect the building from flooding, is usually considered the prototype of the characteristic religious structure of later Babylonia, the ziggurat. The temple at Eridu is in the very same place as that on which the Enki ziggurat stood in the time of the 3rd dynasty of Ur (c. 2112-c. 2004 BC), so the cult tradition must have existed on the same spot for at least 1,500 to 2,000 years before Ur III itself. Remarkable as this is, however, it is not justifiable to assume a continuous ethnic tradition. The flowering of architecture reached its peak with the great temples (or assembly halls?) of Uruk, built around the turn of the 4th to 3rd millennium BC (Uruk Levels VI to IV). In extracting information as to the expression of mind and spirit during the six millennia preceding the invention of writing, it is necessary to take account of four major sources: decoration on pottery, the care of the dead, sculpture, and the designs on seals. There is, of course, no justification in assuming any association with ethnic groups. The most varied of these means of expression is undoubtedly the decoration of pottery. It is hardly coincidental that, in regions in which writing had developed, high-quality painted pottery was no longer made.

UR 2100BC - Stone Tablet

The motifs in decoration are either abstract and geometric or figured, although there is also a strong tendency to geometric stylization. An important question is the extent to which the presence of symbols, such as the bucranium (a sculptured ornament representing an ox skull), can be considered as expressions of specific religious ideas, such as a bull cult, and, indeed, how much the decoration was intended to convey meaning at all. It is not known how ancient is the custom of burying the dead in graves nor whether its intention was to maintain communication (by the cult of the dead) or to guard against the demonic power of the unburied dead left free to wander. A cemetery, or collection of burials associated with grave goods, is first attested at Zawi Chemi Shanidar. The presence of pots in the grave indicates that the bodily needs of the dead person were provided for, and the discovery of the skeleton of a dog and of a model boat in the cemetery at Eridu suggests that it was believed that the activities of life could be pursued in the afterlife. The earliest sculpture takes the form of very crudely worked terra-cotta representations of women; the Ubaid Horizon, however, has figurines of both women and men, with very slender bodies, protruding features, arms akimbo, and the genitals accurately indicated, and also of women suckling children.

Photo: "God Kill" at Sin Tempel, 1800 B.C.

It is uncertain whether it is correct to describe these statuettes as idols, whether the figures were cult objects, such as votive offerings, or whether they had a magical significance, such as fertility charms, or, indeed, what purpose they did fulfill. Seals are first attested in the form of stamp seals at Tepe Gawra, north of Mosul. Geometric designs are found earlier than scenes with figures, such as men, animals, conflict between animals, copulation, or dance. Here again it is uncertain whether the scenes are intended to convey a deeper meaning. Nevertheless, unlike pottery, a seal has a direct relationship to a particular individual or group, for the seal identifies what it is used to seal (a vessel, sack, or other container) as the property or responsibility of a specific person. To that extent, seals represent the earliest pictorial representations of persons. The area of distribution of the stamp seal was northern Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Iran. Southern Mesopotamia, on the other hand, was the home of the cylinder seal, which was either an independent invention or was derived from stamp seals engraved on two faces. The cylinder seal, with its greater surface area and more practical application, remained in use into the 1st millennium BC. Because of the continuous changes in the style of the seal designs, cylinder seals are among the most valuable of chronological indicators for archaeologists. In general, the prehistory of Mesopotamia can only be described by listing and comparing human achievements, not by recounting the interaction of individuals or peoples. There is no basis for reconstructing the movements and migrations of peoples unless one is prepared to equate the spread of particular archaeological types with the extent of a particular population, the change of types with a change of population, or the appearance of new types with an immigration.  The only certain evidence for the movement of peoples beyond their own territorial limits is provided at first by material finds that are not indigenous. The discovery of obsidian and lapis lazuli at sites in Mesopotamia or in its neighboring lands is evidence for the existence of trade, whether consisting of direct caravan trade or of a succession of intermediate stages. Just as no ethnic identity is recognizable, so nothing is known of the social organization of prehistoric settlements. It is not possible to deduce anything of the "government" in a village nor of any supraregional connections that may have existed under the domination of one centre. Constructions that could only have been accomplished by the organization of workers in large numbers are first found in Uruk Levels VI to IV: the dimensions of these buildings suggest that they were intended for gatherings of hundreds of people. As for artificial irrigation, which was indispensable for agriculture in south Mesopotamia, the earliest form was probably not the irrigation canal. It is assumed that at first floodwater was dammed up to collect in basins, near which the fields were located. Canals, which led the water farther from the river, would have become necessary when the land in the vicinity of the river could no longer supply the needs of the population.