13 December 2022

Why every Biblical scholar should
visit the British Museum in London

A roaring lion from the Throne Room of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon … on loan from the Pergamon Museum to the British Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

When Charlotte and I were visiting the British Museum in London earlier this month, I was interested to see some items I had already seen in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin four years ago (September 2018).

They include a glazed brick panel showing a roaring lion from the Throne Room of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon, in what is now southern Iraq. This panel is on loan from Vorderasiatisches Museum or Near East Museum in Berlin. This museum is part of the Pergamon Museum and has one of the world's largest collections of Southwest Asian art.

King Nebuchadnezzar II, who reigned in Babylon in 605-562 BCE, commissioned major building projects in Babylon to glorify the capital of his empire. Glazed bricks in bright shades of blue, yellow and white were favoured for public monuments in order to emphasise both divine and royal power.

The Processional Way and the Ishtar Gate linked the city’s outer fortifications to Nebuchadnezzar’s Southern Palace. Beyond them stood the main temples and the great ziggurat tower that stretched seven storeys high. The roaring lions on the walls of the Processional Way and Palace Throne Room represent Nebuchadnezzar himself.

Museum exhibits like this are of interest to every Biblical scholar and student, for the great seven-storey ziggurat tower in Babylon was none other than the tower of Babel.

Nebuchadnezzar the Great is regarded as the empire's greatest king in the Babylonian Empire, and is known for his military campaigns in what we now know as the Middle East, his building projects in Babylon, and his important role in Jewish history.

Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Kingdom of Judah and its capita, Jerusalem in 587 BCE. The destruction of Jerusalem led to the Babylonian captivity as the city’s population and people from the surrounding lands were deported to Babylonia. For ever after, Jews thereafter referred to him as a ‘destroyer of nations’. The Book of Jeremiah paints Nebuchadnezzar as a cruel enemy, but also as God’s appointed ruler of the world and a divine instrument to punish disobedience.

Biblical scholars are also interested in display items from other empires in the region, including the Persian and Sumerian kingdoms.

A plaster cast from the palace in Persepolis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

On the same floor, a plaster cast from Persepolis is made from part of one side of a huge doorway to a palace built in 470-450 BCE. The scene shows the king sitting on a throne and holding a sceptre and lotus flower. An attendant stands behind, and above is a richly decorated canopy. The throne is supported by a huge platform with lion’s paws and three figures. The people wear different costumes from across the Persian Empire, which stretched from Libya to India.

The king is seated under a canopy with an attendant behind. The top row of supporting figures are an Elamite, Armenian, Lydian and Assyrian. The middle row of figures represent an Egyptian, possibly an lonian, a Gandharan, possibly a Sagartian and a Sogdian. The bottom row represents a Skudrian, Scythian, Arab, and Libyan and Scythian.

Lorenzo Giuntini travelled with Herbert Weld to Persepolis in 1892, when he created the moulds, and he made this plaster cast on his return to London.

The Standard of Ur, dating from ca 2500 BCE, was found by Leonard Woolley (Photographa: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

On the same floor too is the Standard of Ur, dating from ca 2500 BCE. It was so named at the time of excavation by the archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley (1880-1960) because it was found near the shoulder of a man, as if it were being carried on a pole like a battle standard. It is a hollow box and its original function is not yet known. It was found in a large royal grave with several tomb chambers, which had been thoroughly robbed in antiquity.

The standard is decorated on all four sides with mosaic scenes made with incised shell, red limestone and lapis lazuli inlay, which were originally set in bitumen on a wooden frame. It was found crushed by the weight of soil and stones and the wooden structure had completely decayed. The arrangements of the inlay pieces were ingeniously preserved by Woolley by applying wax.

Each side is divided into three registers. The end panels show fanciful scenes, they were the most damaged and their restoration is uncertain. The two long sides show a scene of war and a scene of peace and prosperity. These two scenes also address two aspects of Sumerian kingship – the ruler as a warrior and as a mediator between his people and the gods.

This side of the standard presents a completely different theme from the scene of battle on the other side. In the top register a banquet with religious overtones is shown. Banquet scenes, often shown on cylinder seals of this period, were associated with religious rituals. The king is distinguished by being the largest figure in the scene and by his fleece skirt.

Sitting with the king are six men who all hold cups in their right hands. On the left, three standing attendants administer to the banquet participants, while on the right a lyre is played by a musician. The person with long hair and clasped hands next to the musician may be singing or reciting words in accompaniment.

The middle register shows the abundance of the land. Bald Sumerians wearing fringed skirts lead bulls and goats and carry fish. On the left, a man standing behind a bull has hair, a beard and a different belt and skirt. It seems he is leading the people from the bottom register, who carry produce and backpacks supported by headbands. Their different appearance indicates that they may come from northern regions.

There are other objects from the Royal Cemetery in this gallery that are illustrated on the side of the standard, including lyres with bull’s heads and silver cups held by the banqueters.

There was personal pleasure in seeing a photograph by Charlotte’s grandfather among the exhibits. John Hunter’s photograph from the Middle East Archive is a view of the remains of the Kassite ziggurat at Dur-Kurigalzu, photographed in the 1930s.

Dur-Kurigalzu (modern `Aqar-Qūf) was a city in southern Mesopotamia, near the confluence of the Tigris and Diyala rivers, about 30 km west of the center of Baghdad. It was founded by a Kassite king of Babylon, Kurigalzu I, who died ca 1375 BCE and was abandoned after the fall of the Kassite dynasty ca 1155 BCE.

The city was of such importance that it appeared on toponym lists in the funerary temple of the Egyptian pharaoh, Amenophis III (ca 1351 BC) at Kom el-Hettan. The city included a ziggurat and temples dedicated to Mesopotamian gods, as well as a royal palace extending to 420,000 square meters.

The ziggurat at Aqar Quf, standing 52 metres high, has been a very visible monument for centuries, signalling the near approach to Baghdad. Because of its proximity to Baghdad, it has been one of Iraq’s most visited and best-known sites. The ziggurat was often confused with the Tower of Babel by Western visitors to the area from the 17th century onwards.

John Hunter’s 1930s photograph of the Kassite ziggurat at Dur-Kurigalzu, near Baghdad (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Praying in Advent with Lichfield Cathedral
and USPG: Tuesday 13 December 2022

A statue of Samuel Johnson on the south-east wall of the Lady Chapel, Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (13 December 2022) remembers Saint Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304, with a Lesser Festival, and Samuel Johnson, Moralist, 1784, with a Commemoration.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was born in Lichfield and is best known as a writer of dictionaries and a literary editor. Yet in his lifetime he was renowned for his religious beliefs and as a firm supporter of the practice and order of the Church of England. He had been converted to Christianity as a young man after reading William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, and his support of the High Church party was unstinting. Amongst his other writings, his essays entitled The Rambler, which appeared twice-weekly between 1750 and 1752, earned him the nickname ‘The Great Moralist’, then a term of affection and honour. He died on this day, 13 December 1784.

I am back in Stony Stratford this morning after yesterday’s day visit to Dublin. Before today gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

During Advent, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, The reading suggested in the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced by Lichfield Cathedral this year;

2, praying with the Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

John Myatt’s mural of Samuel Johnson on a corner wall in Bird Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 33-36 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 33 ‘No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar, but on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.’

The bust commemorating Samuel Johnson in the south transept, Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar:

Lucy was put to death for her faith in 304. Her name in Latin means ‘light’. She is therefore associated with Jesus, the light of the world, the light that banishes the darkness and lets the eyes of all see the Truth of Christ incarnate. Pray for the people of Scandinavia who have special customs to celebrate Saint Lucy (young women dress in white and wear headdresses with candles). As we prepare for Christmas, pray that all who encounter the church may glimpse Christ’s light.

Collect:

God our redeemer,
who gave light to the world that was in darkness
by the healing power of the Saviour’s cross:
shed that light on us, we pray,
that with your martyr Lucy
we may, by the purity of our lives,
reflect the light of Christ
and, by the merits of his passion,
come to the light of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr Lucy:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(or)

Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr Lucy:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘Walking Together.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Right Revd Maria Grace Tazu Sasamori, who became Bishop of Hokkaido in Japan in April 2022. She shared her reflections on this year’s Lambeth Conference with Archbishop Justin Welby.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for the worldwide Church, for different Churches and denominations. May we be open to receive the riches from each other’s traditions.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The body of Saint Lucy is preserved in the Chiesa di S. Geremia e Lucia in Venice (Photograph: Charlotte Hunter, 2022)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org