The only known examples of standards actually depicted in a battle scene during the third and fourth millennia BCE are those on the Victory Stele of Naram-Sîn, which portrays Naram-Sîn’s — and therefore the Akkadian Empire’s — victory over the Lullubi tribes of the Zagros Mountains (Figure 5).  On the left of the stele, the Akkadian army marches in neat rows beneath these two standards, indicating how well-organised and disciplined the Akkadian army is. This is in stark contrast to the Lullubi army on the right which is scattered in disarray. The two standards on Naram-Sîn’s Victory Stele were associated with and representative of the deities who granted divine protection to the Akkadian army — although who exactly these deities are remains uncertain.

What is far more common than battle standards are what we call “architectural standards”: standards associated with buildings, specifically sacred buildings. In the Late Uruk/Jemdet Nasr Period, these buildings could be the shrine or sanctuary of a deity, or the cowsheds and sheep pens which housed and protected the sacred herds and flocks (Figure 6). The standard could form a part of a building, be associated directly with a building, or indicate divine space (Figure 7). This association of standards with architecture continued throughout the third millennium BCE, but by the Neo-Sumerian Period standards were no longer depicted as part of a building or as an architectural element; they only indicated a divine space.

This change in how divine space was represented in iconography correlates with changes in depictions of deities in the visual repertoire. In images dated to the Late Uruk/Jemdet Nasr Period, there are no known depictions of a god or goddess. Instead, the presence of a standard in a scene may express the presence of the deity. The first depictions of deities are from the Early Dynastic Period, and through the third millennium BCE there is an increase in deities in the visual record. In the earliest depictions, it is difficult to identify specific deities, but by the Akkadian Period individual deities can be identified by various identifying attributes. For example, Inana/Ištar had weapons emerging from her shoulders, while the sun god Utu/Šamaš had rays of light emerging from his (Figure 8). It should come as no surprise that with this increase in the number of deities in the visual culture, there was also an increase in the number of individually identifiable standards, and by the Neo-Sumerian Period these “divine standards” themselves could serve as an identifying attribute (Figure 9).

Figure 10: Drawing of a cylinder seal depicting a presentation scene in a sanctuary: a worshiper is brought before a seated deity (Geštinanna) and a standard indicates the sacred space. Neo-Sumerian Period. BM 18805 (van Dijk-Coombes 2023:395 NS90).

Because standards were associated with divine space, they could therefore serve not only to identify a particular deity but also to indicate their shrine or sanctuary. This is clear in the “presentation scene”, the most popular type of scene depicted on cylinder seals during the Neo-Sumerian Period (Figure 10). In the presentation scene, a worshipper is brought directly before a god or goddess. In these scenes, the standard indicates that this meeting takes place in the sanctuary of the particular deity. These changes over time suggest a development in the concept of the divine, and in the human relationship with the divine: the deity is absent in the Late Uruk Period/Jemdet Nasr, with their presence being marked by a standard, but by the Neo-Sumerian Period the human worshipper interacts directly with their deity. This reveals a more intimate and personal interaction between the worshipper and their god or goddess — or at least a more intimate and personal image of that interaction.

To summarize, according to the iconographic evidence, standards in early Mesopotamia could function as divine standards, battle standards, and architectural standards, and some standards may also have served to denote specific places through their association with a particular deity. These functions were not mutually exclusive. A standard could be a divine standard (representing a deity) and also, at the same time, function as an architectural standard (signifying sacred space). The standards of early Mesopotamia, therefore, reflect the social and religious context of their time. The public display and use of a rich variety of standards continued through the subsequent millennia.

Renate Marian van Dijk-Coombes is a Mellon-funded postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Pretoria. Her book, The Standards of Mesopotamia in the Third and Fourth Millennia BCE: An Iconographic Study, was recently published by Mohr Siebeck.

Further Reading:

Mayer-Opificius, R. 1996. Feldzeichen, in Gasche, H. and Hrouda, B. (eds). Collectanea Orientalia histoire, arts de l’espace et industrie de la terre: Études offertes en homage à Agnès Spycket. CPOA I 3, Neuchâtel, 213–226.

Seidl, U. 2011-2013. Standarte. B. Archäologisch, RlA [=Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie] 13: 110–116.

Szarzyńska, K. 1987–1988. Some of the Oldest Cult Symbols in Archaic Uruk, Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society “Ex Oriente Lux” 30: 3–21.

Szarzyńska, K. 1996. Archaic Sumerian Standards, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 48: 1–15.

Van Dijk, R.M. 2016. The Standards on the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin. Journal for Semitics 25(1): 33–50.

Van Dijk-Coombes, R.M. 2018. The Architectural Origin of Mesopotamian Standards in late Uruk/Jemdet Nasr Period Iconography. Antiguo Oriente 16: 117–146.

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