Burney's Queen of the Night: A Critical Analysis by Diane Irby
Burney's Queen of the Night: A Critical Analysis
by Diane Irby
The Queen of the Night, also known as “The Burney Relief,” is a terracotta high relief sculpture of the Isin-Larsa period, originating from the southernmost region of ancient Mesopotamia, now known as modern day Iraq. Debuted to the public in the June 13, 1936 edition of The Illustrated London News, the piece, which, at the time was part of a collection owned by British art and antiques dealer and collector Sydney Burney, was—and remains—somewhat puzzling. Possessing some comparable qualities of other artifacts of the period while simultaneously introducing iconography not observed in similar works, the Queen of the Night continues to present her viewers with perhaps more questions than answers.
Researching this artwork offers many interesting avenues to explore, as one will discover conflicting theories and analyses regarding who this Queen of the Night was and what she was about. Since its discovery, there has been much controversy surrounding the identity of “The Burney Relief's” mysterious goddess. Some have recognized her as Inanna, the Sumerian Goddess of Love, Sensuality, Fertility, and War. Others argue that this Queen could be symbolically recognized as Ishtar, Ereshkigal, or Lilith, as well as various other monikers. Possessing the quintessence of the collective qualities culturally assigned to that of the feminine Divine Being in the time of the Sumerians, the relief's formal qualities of composition, form, and scale suggest that the Queen of the Night was meant to depict a semi-androgynous incantation of the Great Goddess of Heaven and the Underworld, Love and Death, and Creatrix of All, known by many names throughout history.
Having no record of its discovery, the artist, as well as the original provenance of this heavenly masterpiece, remains unknown. However, we do know that in modern times the piece has changed hands on many occasions. In the mid-1930s, after the British Museum declined to purchase the piece from a Syrian dealer, London antiquarian Sydney Burney acquired the plaque, coining it “The Burney Relief.” Thereafter, the piece was accrued by a number of collectors, and in 1980 was offered as a loan to, and was displayed by, the British Museum. Finally, in 2003, the British Museum officially purchased the piece and renamed it Queen of the Night.
The British Museum, where the Queen of the Night remains today, has dated the plaque circa 19th - 18th c. BC during the Old Babylonian Period. It was a time of many industrious and creative advances, such as toolmaking and metalworking, the establishment of a cuneiform writing system, the devising of techniques in utilizing the plentiful supply of dirt and clay as a medium to create pottery, building materials, and writing tablets, as well as the invention of the irrigation system. Samuel Noah Kramer, who was one of the world's leading Assyriologists, as well as a world-renowned expert in Sumerian history and language, explained in his book Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character that, despite the hot, dry, and desolate terrain, Sumerians “turned Sumer into a veritable Garden of Eden and developed what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man.”
The early part of the Old Babylonian Period was also a time of much conflict. As city states battled for power, many rulers came and went, only to be defeated by the next. In 1792 BC, Hammurabi took the throne and went on to conquer the surrounding city states, until most of Mesopotamia came under Babylonian rule. The city of Babylon, once a small, provincial town, grew to become a metropolis – a political, religious, economic, and cultural hub. The Babylonians had not only a multitude of rulers, but also a plethora of deities. As a result of the rapid succession of conflicts and conquests, an infusion of cultures formed a melting pot of beliefs and traditions. As explained in Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, written by Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, when studying artwork and writings of the time, because of this overlap and intermixing of spiritual ideas and imagery, quite often depictions of deities appear to be inconsistent with inscriptions on the pieces themselves and in related literary works. This creates a fun challenge for those attempting to unlock the ancient mysteries these artifacts hold.
The Queen of the Night is depicted as a winged female form with bird-like feet standing tall within the center of the composition. She wears a horned headdress and braids in her hair. Distinctly joined eyebrows and a slight smile on her lips accentuate the fullness of her face. The full frontal view of the Goddess demonstrates her status as an idol to be worshiped, while her nudity seems to symbolize fertility and motherhood. Holding her shoulders broadly, lifting both arms to their height, semi-extended wings of clearly defined feathers cascade down her back in triangular form; she embodies the essence of a celestial being. Holding the rod and ring symbols of divine justice, her forward facing palms display the delicate manner in which the artist detailed their head, heart, and life lines - an eloquent way to associate her with Divinity.
The Queen appears to hover atop a pair of lions which lie in seemingly relaxed but opposite horizontal positions. Their heads are turned and directly face the observer, as though they are acutely aware and ready to defend their Mistress. On either side, owls are depicted as if bookends, completing the symmetrical composition of this group of mythological creatures. The mirrored arrangement creates a balance that suggests this Goddess has it all together, and is not only strong, but beautiful as well. The emphasis placed on symmetry within the composition conveys to the observer that this Goddess' beauty is a fundamental component of her power.
“The Burney Relief” is a moderately sized fired clay plaque, measuring twenty by fifteen inches, with the sculpt projecting just under two inches at its thickest point. The forms and figures of the plaque appear to have been hand molded and arranged upon the surface of a flat slab which serves as the canvas. The main features of the sculpt remain in beautiful condition with only slight blemish, even after more than 3,500 years. The Queen's body is shapely, with full breasts and proportioned hips. Her deep naval suggests her humanity, while her bird-like feet tell a different story. Equally curious is that, although it is highly suggested that the Queen of the Night is female, the manner in which the pubic area was formed shows is no indication of sex. Lacking distinction, having no outer labia or penis, but simply a mound of skin, exhibits a sense of totality, that she is both Goddess and God in One. Just below her distinct kneecaps, the Queen's legs transform into those of a bird, featuring dewclaws and talons. Human-like figures with wings, such as this Goddess with her arrangement of intricate, individually formed feathers, have been referred to as creatures originating from a spectrum of spiritual realms, from angels descending from Heaven to demon monsters associated with Death and the Underworld. Considering the sharply shaped talons which have replaced her feet, readied to latch hold of her prey, one is influenced to believe that she may be the latter.
The irregular scale of the figures within the composition propose that the artist has employed a hieratic scale, emphasizing the importance of this Goddess and her owl cohorts over that of their lion companions. Has she just captured the lions, or are they her pets? Perhaps the owls are her children, lesser goddesses, or are symbolic representations of an aspect of her psyche. One absolute in regard to the scale of the Queen is the considerable volume of space that she occupies and how it represents her prominence. With her body extended from the topmost border of the plaque all the way down to her barbed, avian-like feet, as she towers over tamed beasts, her mysterious accomplices beside her, she exudes eminence and seduction.
The Queen of the Night takes on a voluptuous and exotic form whose aspects can be observed in an infinite number of artworks representing a variety of goddess deities spanning all of history and theologies. Her individually detailed and slightly expanded wings can be seen in depictions of Isis of Egypt, and Nike and Hebe of Greece. Likewise, a similarly fashioned Mesopotamian relief plaque currently housed at the Louvre features a comparable likeness of a feminine human-owl hybrid, and has been named, as translated in English as simply “Naked winged goddess probably figuring the great goddess Ishtar.” The Hindu Goddess Kali is frequently illustrated standing on the backs of captured wild cats, while Lilith, possibly the oldest known female deity in history, is often portrayed as having not only taken on a bird-like form, but also with her arms uplifted, palms facing the observer, in the same manner as the Queen of the Night. As it were, myth, folklore, and fables, as well as admittedly fictional literary works, have long featured extraordinarily beautiful women in avian-humanoid form, whose ability to metamorphosize into and tame the birds and beasts of the wild seem to indicate her authority over Nature and Her creatures, including Man.
The enormous amount of research material that I was able to acquire regarding this fascinating piece of Mesopotamian artistry indicates the curiosity it has piqued among historians, archeologists, researchers, and artists alike. Through age-old stories, told and retold, it could be considered that, over time, being known more for their character and traits rather than by physical features alone, deities mentioned in writings and artwork were given what we would call nicknames. Although identifiers and themes can certainly be observed, and one can generally ascertain which deity is represented in a work based on motifs or iconography, it is through nuanced artistic distinctions such as composition, form, and scale, that reveal the idiosyncratic elements of the subject's epithet, of which each individual observer will assign.
By the time Hammurabi became ruler, cuneiform writing had become more highly developed. In her writings, Sumerian poetess, Enheduanna used this written language to not only describe the scenery and characters in her stories, but to also exemplify emotion and contemplation. From Inanna – Queen of Heaven and Earth – Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer, written by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, Enheduanna's The Huluppu Tree tells a Genesis-like folktale. As an allegorical entity representing Inanna's fears and desires, the early poetess depicted Lilith as an embodiment of these human aspects:
“And the dark maid Lilith built her home in the trunk.
The young woman who loved to smile wept,
How Innana wept!
(Yet they would not leave her tree.)”
Diane Irby, 2022
All Rights Reserved
Bibliography
Albenda, Pauline. “The Burney Relief Reconsidered.” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 2, no. 2 (1969). https://janes.scholasticahq.com/article/2116
Albenda, Pauline. "The "Queen of the Night" Plaque: A Revisit." Journal of the American Oriental Society 125, no. 2 (2005): 171-90. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20064325
Black, Jeremy and Green, Anthony. Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, London: The British Museum Press, 1992.
Cabrera, Rodrigo. “The Three Faces of Innana: An Approach to her Polysemic Figure in her Decent to the Netherworld.” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 44, no. 2 (2018) 41-79. https://www.academia.edu/37967339/
Collon, Dominique. "The Queen under Attack — A Rejoinder." Iraq 69 (2007): 43-51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25608646
Davis, Frank. “A Puzzling “Venus” of 2000 B.C.: A Fine Sumerian Relief in London.” The Illustrated London News, June 13, 1936. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001578/19360613/068/0015
Du Ry, Carel J. Art of the Ancient Near and Middle East. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, 1969.
Harris, Rivkah. "Inanna-Ishtar as Paradox and a Coincidence of Opposites." History of Religions 30, no. 3 (1991): 261-78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062957
Jacobsen, Thorkild. “Pictures and Pictorial Language (The Burney Relief).” Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East, 14-22. London: School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, 1987.
Kleiner, Fred S., Mamiya, Christin J. and Tansey, Richard G. Gardner's Art Through the Ages (11th edition). Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers, 2001.
Kramer, Samuel Noah. The Sumerians – Their History, Culture, and Character, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963.
Mark, Joshua J. "The Queen of the Night." Ancient History Encyclopedia. February 19, 2014. https://www.ancient.eu/article/658/
“The Burney Relief/Queen of the Night” The British Museum Online Collection. https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1355376&partId=1
Wolkstein, D. and Kramer, Samuel Noah. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1983.