Visualizing Emotions in the Ancient Near East ed. by Sara Kipfer (review)

Essays in the present volume contribute to a growing body of scholarly work that seeks to identify and interpret emotions across ancient cultures. Since no term for emotion exists across ancient cultures there are many possible challenges in the study of emotion in antiquity. The present volume primarily treats emotion in ancient Near Eastern visual art and the theoretical and methodological questions that impinge upon such an endeavor. Emotion in ancient Near Eastern literature receives limited treatment, mostly for its methodological value.

Largely the result of a workshop at the 2015 Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (RAI), this collection consists of an introduction by Sara Kipfer, “Visualizing Emotions in the Ancient Near East: An Introduction,” which is followed by eleven essays divided into two parts. Part 1, “Facial Expression, Gestures and Body Posture: Different Aspects of Visualizing Emotions (Case Studies),” includes Othmar Keel, “Porträts altorientalischer Herrscher? Individualität oder Rolle”; Dominik Bonatz, “Der stumme Schrei: Kritische Überlegungen zu Emotionen als Untersuchungsfeld der altorientalischen Bildwissenschaft”; Elisabeth Wagner-Durand, “Visualization of Emotions—Potentials and Obstacles: A Response to Dominik Bonatz”; Wolfgang Zwickel, “The Iconography of Emotions in the Ancient Near East and in Ancient Egypt”; Izak Cornelius, “‘The Eyes Have It and the Benign Smile’—The Iconography of Emotions in the Ancient Near East: From Gestures to Facial Expressions?”; and Silvia Schroer, “Kulturelle Rollen—keine Gefühle! Eine Response zu Izak Cornelius.”

Part 2, “Comparative Methodology, Linguistics and Art Historical Analyses: Theoretical Reflections on Visualizing Emotions,” includes Florian Lippke, “Analyzing ‘Emotions’ in Ancient Media: Between Skepticism and Conceptual Autonomy (‘Eigenbe-grifflichkeit’)”; Margaret Jaques, “The Discourse on Emotion in Ancient Mesopotamia: A Theoretical Approach”; Andreas Wagner, “Emotionen in Text, Sprache und materialen Bildern: Eine Skizze aus Sicht der Metaphernanalyse”; Karen Sonik, “Emotion and the Ancient Arts: Visualizing, Materializing, and Producing States of Being”; John Baines, “Epilogue: On Ancient Pictorial Representations of Emotion. Concluding Comments with Examples from Egypt.” Brief indexes of subjects and authors conclude the collection.

Before introducing each article, Kipfer sketches the topic and the challenges faced by the contributors. The origins of the concept of emotion in the Enlightenment and its persistently inconsistent definition prove challenging. Ancient texts may help identify emotions and how they were understood in antiquity, but the value of texts remains limited. Scholars appear most confident identifying represented emotions when focused on particular features (e.g., facial expressions, gestures, and postures) and general systems of signs (Zeichensystem, pp. 5–9). Finally, the emotional impact of ancient Near Eastern art on viewers merits attention in the overall discussion (pp. 9–10; see also Sonik, pp. 242–45, and Baines, p. 265).

At the outset, Keel and Bonatz recall the physiognomic approach of Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801) and Henry Hunter (1741–1802), which identified personality and character profiles of historical figures by “reading” their physical features in art. Since emotion manifests physiologically by any definition (Wagner-Durand, p. 79; Cornelius, pp. 123–24), one might anticipate merit in a physiognomic approach. But its problems are legion. For starters, readers must utilize stereotypes across vast historical and cultural divides. As Lippke would point out, respect for each culture’s conceptual autonomy (Eigenbegrifflichkeit) demands forswearing such an approach (p. 171). Wagner-Durand (among others) would remind readers that emotion is more than a physical/biological manifestation; in fact, “biological essentialist” and “social constructivist” definitions of emotion probably harmonize different elements (pp. 79–80). Keel’s study of leaders in ancient Near Eastern art confirms the need to account for social context. Indeed, all contributors recognize that numerous contextual variables play a role in identifying emotion in ancient Near Eastern visual art.

One striking difficulty of identifying emotion in ancient Near Eastern art is the conventional rendering of faces and bodies (Keel, Bonatz, Wagner-Durand, Zwickel, Schroer, and others). As a result, gestures garner a great deal of attention among contributors, though Cornelius is not prepared to discount facial expressions just yet (pp. 132–41). Schroer reminds readers...