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Iconography of military triumph in Egypt and Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE: royal and private strategies of representation
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Yury Sergeevich Reunov
Centre for Egyptological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (CES RAS), Moscow
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Submitted:
July 7, 2026
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Abstract.
This study is devoted to a comparative analysis of the visual representation of military triumph in Egypt and Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE. Based on royal monuments (the Narmer Palette, King Den’s sandal label, the reliefs of Sahure, Niuserre, and Pepi II, the Stele of the Vultures, and the Victory Stele of Naram-Sin), as well as private funerary complexes (the tombs of the nomarch Inti in Deshasha and the official Khaiemheset in Saqqara), a three-level methodology is applied for the first time in an intercultural comparison of Egyptian and Mesopotamian monuments: monuments of the same social rank are compared (king with king, private individual with private individual) both within each culture and across cultures. Scientific novelty lies in developing a three-level methodology and in demonstrating that the differences in the visual representation of triumph, traditionally attributed to the “civilizational specificities” of Egypt and Akkad, may be determined above all by the social status of the patrons. It is shown for the first time that when monuments of the same rank (royal monuments) are compared, both cultures display similar strategies for representing power. The aim of the study is to identify the universal and specific features of the visual representation of military triumph in royal and private monuments of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and to explain the differences between these monuments through an analysis of the patrons’ social status and estate-based restrictions. The results demonstrate that in Egypt canonical artistic rules allowed private individuals to borrow military motifs, but forbade the depiction of the patron as a triumphant figure, whereas in Akkad battle scenes depicting private individuals are absent, which indicates a complete ban on such iconographic schemes.
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Key words and phrases:
Древний Египет
иконография триумфа
Древнее царство
палетка Нармера
Стела коршунов
стела Нарам-Сина
гробница Инти
Ancient Egypt
iconography of triumph
Old Kingdom
Narmer Palette
Stele of the Vultures
Victory Stele of Naram-Sin
tomb of Inti
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