feldman. ambiguous identities the ‘marriage’ vase of niqmaddu ii and the elusive egyptian...

8/21/2019 Feldman. Ambiguous Identities the ‘Marriage’ Vase of Niqmaddu II and the Elusive Egyptian Princess. Journal of M…

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Introduction

Rulers of the ancient Near East arranged inter-dynastic marriages among themselves and theiroffspring as a primary mechanism for develop-ing and preserving international alliances. Thispractice, in its intensified and formulaic struc-ture, is well documented in the written sourcesof the fifteenth through thirteenth centuriesBC

(the ‘extended Amarna age’). In general, thesetransactions involved the giving of a king’sdaughter to another king to be installed in hiscourt. The event was preceded by elaboratenegotiations and accompanied by the exchangeof great quantities of wealth in the form of bothbride-price and dowry. At least four of themajor powers of this time are known to haveparticipated in such marriage alliances—Mit-

tani, Babylonia, Hatti, and Egypt—as well asmany of the less powerful kingdoms (Figure 1).

Reciprocity of relations and equality of rankcharacterize certain diplomatic relations of theextended Amarna age. The kings who enteredinto marriage negotiations viewed themselvesand their fellow rulers as occupying exaltedranks of international status and interactedwith one another in supposedly balanced rela-

tions. The rhetoric of parity should thereforehave included reciprocity of exchanged royalwomen. Yet Egypt’s participation, as one of thepreeminent powers, remains uncertain withrespect to its attitude toward these interdynas-tic marriages. Subtle expressions of imbalanceappear throughout the documentation forinternational relations, but none so blatantlyas that of Egypt’s declaration against giving a

Ambiguous Identities: The ‘Marriage’ Vase of Niqmaddu IIand the Elusive Egyptian Princess

Marian H. Feldman

Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USAE-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

A fourteenth-century BC alabaster vase found at Ugarit on the coast of Syria bears a representation of a man and a woman often interpreted as husband and wife. The man is identified as Syrian both in an inscription stating he is Niqmaddu, ruler of Ugarit , and in his physical rendering. The identity of the lady, dressed in Egyptian court fashion, remains uncertain. The image has been used both to support and refute a claim made in a contemporary international letter that Egypt never gave its princesses in marriage to foreign rulers. This art icle examines how the image deploys the indeterminate identity of the woman within an explicit ly identified scene of royal representation. The rationale for such intentional ambiguity lies in U garit’ s role in the political relations of the Late Bronze Age, a world of diplomacy in which the Ugaritic king operated on both the foreign and domestic levels. The element of ambiguity serves as a critical component in status negotiations, and images present an ideal vehicle for coding flexible messages in diplomatic maneuvers.

Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 15.1 (2002) 75-99ISSN 0952-7648

©TheContinuumPublishingGroup Ltd 2002, The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX and 370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA.

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©The Continuum Publishing Group Ltd 2002.

princess in marriage, which is quoted in adiplomatic letter from the king of Babylonia,‘from time immemorial no daughter of theking of Egy[pt] is given to anyone’ (EA 4,translation by Moran 1992). Coupled with thelack of any other textual evidence for suchbehavior, some scholars have postulated that

in this particular area, Egypt did not ‘play bythe rules’ of international protocol. The intro-duction of visual evidence, specifically frag-ments of an alabaster vase depicting a possiblediplomatic marriage between an Egyptianprincess and a foreign ruler, complicates theinterpretation (Figures 2 and 3). The vessel fragments, found in the palace at

Ugarit (present-day Ras Shamra on the coast of

Syria), bear an incised representation of anencounter between a woman and a man. Theman is identified by an accompanying Egyptianhieroglyphic inscription as Niqmaddu, ruler of Ugarit. The lady appears in Egyptian court fash-ion as she stands before him pouring liquid froma small vase. Debate over the identity of this

woman has raged concerning whether she is oris not an Egyptian princess given in marriage byan Egyptian king (for most recent discussion seeSinger 1999: 624-26). The possibility that thisfigure may represent an exchanged Egyptianprincess has fueled arguments both for andagainst Egypt’s willingness to reciprocate in thegame of diplomatic alliances. While the man inthe scene is explicitly identified as Syrian in

Figure 1. Map of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East during the ‘extended Amarna age’ (After Cohen and

Westbrook 2000).



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Ambiguous Identities 77


Figure 2. Photograph of alabaster vase fragments from royal palace at Ugarit (Ras Shamra), Syria, Damascus

National Museum (courtesy of the Mission de Ras Shamra).

Figure 3. Drawing of alabaster vase fragments from royal palace at Ugarit (Ras Shamra), Syria, Damascus National

Museum (after Schaeffer 1956: fig. 118).



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both the inscription and in his physical render-

ing, the woman’s identity remains indetermi-nate. It is precisely this visual ambiguity of identity and rank that this paper explores inlight of diplomatic marriages and political nego-tiation. Ambiguity and multivalency are reliedupon as tools in the process of negotiation thatis central to political relations, and evidence of their deployment survives in written diplomaticdocuments of the time (Meier 2000: 173). Yetvisual forms and images present more con-ducive vehicles for coding ambiguous messages,being removed from the verbal realm by whichthe ancient participants evaluated claims(Baxandall 1985: 1-11; Uehlinger 2000: xxvii).As has been noted by many art historians,‘unlike words, even those fixed in a written text,visual images have an almost infinite capacityfor verbal extension, because viewers mustbecome their own narrators, changing theimages into some form of internalized verbalexpression’ (Brilliant 1984: 16). In other words,no image, and especially not one depicting anelite person on a prestige object, reflects a sim-

ple, literal reality. Rather, it presents a view thatwas carefully constructed by the patron and/orartist with the intention of conveying particularsignification. Because of this, we must acceptthat images were important means of expres-sion, and like all forms of expression, could bemore or less explicit depending on the desires of the producer (here, the patron, rather than themanufacturer, is taken as the primary agent indetermining the iconography of the work). It issuggested in this article that the lady’s visuallyambiguous identity and lack of inscription per-mitted implicit messages that were intention-ally deployed for purposes of status negotiation.

The enigmatic imagery on the vase fragments,when connected with the Late Bronze Ageworld of political (both international anddomestic) relations, can be understood as avehicle for expressing diplomatic rhetoric.

Niqmaddu’s ‘Marriage’ Scene

The alabaster fragments in question wererecovered along with other alabaster vesselsfrom the royal palace of Ugarit (RS 15.239/Damascus Museum 4160; Caubet 1991: 230).

The two pieces were found in room 31, whichopens onto court IV (Schaeffer 1956: 164).Court IV as well as its adjoining and upperrooms housed the so-called ‘central archive’that included records of the gifts and exchangesof land overseen by the king, most of whichdate to the reign of Ammistamru II (ca .

1263–1220 BC; Bordreuil and Pardee 1989: 81-152; van Soldt 1991: 74-96). Room 31 and itsneighboring room 30 contained fragments of approximately five other alabaster vessels,including three bearing Egyptian royal car-touches of Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Ramses II,as well as another bearing the cartouche of Amenhotep III (found in Court IV), whichlink them to the international world (Schaeffer1956: 164; Caubet 1991: nos. 15.201-203, 15.258, and 16.340). A recent analysis of thealabaster vases has reiterated the difficulty in

distinguishing between actual imports fromEgypt and local Levantine products, or evenEgyptian pieces manufactured specifically forLevantine export, although those vessels bear-ing Egyptian royal names are generally consid-ered to be products of Egyptian workshops(Caubet 1991: 218). Material analysis of thestone cannot resolve the problem since un-worked Egyptian alabaster could be importedinto Syria for local production. Found in themain palace as well as in elite residences and

tombs, the Egyptian/Egyptianizing vases of alabaster would have carried a high degree of prestige (Caubet 1991: 219). Those that bearEgyptian royal cartouches are only found in theroyal palace or, in two cases, close by the palace(Caubet 1991: 214). The fragmentary vessel inquestion, which probably belonged to a largeamphora-type table vessel, is unique among the

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Ras Shamra finds both in its imagery and its ref-

erence to a specific Ugaritic ruler (Caubet1991: 213). The carefully incised design preserves the

upper part of a meeting between a woman anda man that takes place beneath a portico orkiosk supported on either side by columns sur-mounted with ornate lotus, papyrus andvolute capitals of Egyptian type. The corniceand columns frame the upper and side bound-aries of the image, while the lower extent doesnot survive. Five columns of Egyptian hiero-glyphs run below the cornice and read fromright to left, ‘the chief [ruler] of the land of Ugarit, Niqmaddu’ (wr n h st Jkrt,Nyq mdy ). Immediately below the inscrip-tion is the upper part of a man’s head; the restof his body is lost beyond the break. Facinghim to the right stands the woman in Egyptiandress, coiffure and headdress. She holds acloth in one hand and with the other poursliquid from a slender vessel. In between thetwo figures sits a profile rendering of a spottedcow’s head that resembles rhyta of Aegean

type known from examples found on Creteand pictured as tribute in early 18th DynastyEgyptian private tombs (Desroches-Noble-court 1956: 191). Comparable scenes of women pouring wine for the king seated undera columned portico appear in Egyptian art.One example, from the tomb of Meryra II atAmarna, presents an almost identical compo-sition, though in reverse, to that on thealabaster vase fragments (Figure 4; Davies1905: pl. 32). In the tomb relief, Queen Nefer-titi bends slightly forward as she pours winefrom a tall slender vessel, through a strainerand into a shallow cup held by the seatedAkhenaten. The two are enclosed in an elab-orately ornamented portico supported by twocolumns. The double cornice features tworows of closely set uraei .

In addition to the inscription on the vase frag-ments, which explicitly identifies the man as an

Ugaritic ruler, the representation provides phys-

iognomic and dress-related markers of his Syrianidentity (Desroches-Noblecourt 1956: 190;Caubet 1991: 213). Although only the upperpart of his head survives and the alabaster frag-ments are relatively small in size, the features of the upper profile and headdress are clearly visi-ble. The face and head (bearing headdress) are,moreover, generally the most important loca-tions for signaling personal/group identification(Wobst 1977: 328-35). His full rounded headand prominent nose recall images of men fromthe Syro-Palestine area, as well as depictions of Syrians in Egyptian tombs, as does the hairstylebound by a wide fillet.1 The larger size of hishead relative to the woman’s figure indicatesthat he was probably seated. The proportions of the woman’s body and the detailing of the cor-nice and columns when compared to datedEgyptian examples provide a late fourteenth-century date, roughly contemporary with theend of the 18th Dynasty, from the reign of Akhenaten through Ay (Desroches-Noblecourt1956: 209-18). The vase can therefore be placed

in the reign of Niqmaddu II (ca . 1350-1315),the only Ugaritic king by that name to havereigned during the time to which the imagerystylistically belongs.

A brief review of scholarly art historical opin-ion regarding this piece serves to emphasize thecompeting interpretations and general lack of consensus. In all cases, interest has rested withthe identification of the woman and its impli-cations for the work as a whole. In the initial1956 publication, Christine Desroches-Noble-court proposed that the scene might commem-orate a marriage between an Ugaritic king andan Egyptian princess. Although the lady wouldbe smaller than the seated man should he stand,she occupies an important position within theportico and faces him at eye level, whichDesroches-Noblecourt (1956: 191) interprets asindicating roughly equal rank. According toEgyptian parallels such as that from the tomb of

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Figure 4. Drawing of Queen Nefertiti pouring wine for Akhenaten, Tomb of Meryra II, Amarna, Egypt (after

Davies 1905: pl. 32).



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Meryra II, the woman shown on the fragment

from Ugarit might be interpreted as a subject of high enough rank to occupy a royal portico, afavorite daughter, or an attentive wife(Desroches-Noblecourt 1956: 197). Desroches-Noblecourt rejects the second possibility, claim-ing that the Egyptian-looking lady could notpossibly be the daughter of an Ugaritic king asthey are two different ‘ethnic types’, that is,physiognomically they appear ethnically differ-entiated.2 She excludes the first possibilitybecause if the woman in question is a subject,then she is an Egyptian sent to Ugarit on offi-cial business (e.g. as a messenger or ambassador)and such a role is not known for a woman

except as a wife. Thus, only the third identi-

fication remains as a possibility for Desroches-Noblecourt. The iconography of the scene mayfurther support this interpretation. The act of pouring liquid before a man carries potentiallyerotic or sexual overtones in Egyptian art, seenfor example in a panel on a gold shrine from

Tutankhamun’s tomb (Troy 1986: 59, fig. 38).For Desroches-Noblecourt (1956: 198), the

headdress—a box-like platform surmounted bycircular flowers—is the most critical icono-graphic element in the identification of thefigure, and she uses it to support her interpreta-tion: that the woman is an Egyptian married toNiqmaddu. The best-known Egyptian image

Figure 5. Drawing of detail of the daughters of Menna, Tomb of Menna (Theban Tomb 69), Egypt (after Troy

1986: fig. 50).



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that depicts women wearing such a headdress is

in the tomb of Menna, whose daughters aredesignated in the inscriptions as h krt nsw or‘ornaments of the king’, a phrase commonlyassociated with royal women and members of the harem (Figure 5; Davies 1936: 104, pl.LIII). In a discussion of this title, Troy (1986:78) associates these women with royal wivesand the cultic rites of Hathor. One can alsocompare the headdress of Niqmaddu’s compan-ion with that worn by the princess Sitamun,daughter of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiyi.On the back reliefs of two chairs found in thetomb of Tiyi’s parents Yuya and Tuya, the royaldaughter is shown as a young, presumablyunmarried, girl wearing the platform (or ‘mod-ius’) crown ornamented with flowers (Figures 6and 7; Davis 2000: 37-44; Quibell 1908: 52-53,nos. 51112 and 51113; Eaton-Krauss 1989: n.g.). Sitamun is described elsewhere as a royalwife of her father, Amenhotep III (Arnold1996: 8). The headdress, however, remains elu-sive with regard to its meaning, especiallybecause variations mark each known example.

For instance, in the tomb of Menna, the fore-most daughter’s platform is surmounted by cir-cular flower ornaments, while the seconddaughter’s is not. In both, the platform crown isassociated with a wide fillet fronted by a gazelleprotome.3 On the larger chair of Sitamun, theplatform crown is surmounted by open andclosed lotus flowers, not circular rosettes, andshe wears a long sidelock of youth (Figure 6). Acloser comparison with the headdress depictedon the alabaster fragments occurs on thesmaller chair of Sitamun, where she wears theplatform crown with circular ornaments and afillet fronted by a lotus flower; although, againshe is shown with the youthful sidelock (Figure7). The platform crown without any ornamentson top appears not just on Menna’s seconddaughter, but also on the daughters of Amen-hotep III and the so-called ‘great ones’ depictedin the tomb of Kheruef (TT 192; Epigraphic

Survey 1980: pls. 32 and 57). Troy (1986: 121)

discusses the platform crown, which was popu-lar in the 18th Dynasty. She notes that in thevisual record, it is worn by royal women (thatis, what Troy calls the ‘feminine aspect of king-ship’, which includes the king’s mother, wife,sister, and daughters; 1986: 2) and by promi-nent members of the harem. Therefore, sur-mises Desroches-Noblecourt (1956: 204), thelady wearing a platform crown is shown in theattitude of a wife and could be either an Egypt-ian princess or the daughter of a very highEgyptian official placed in the king’s harem.

Because it was inconceivable to Desroches-Noblecourt (1956: 204) that a king of Ugaritwould settle for a wife of non-royal blood, sheconcludes that an Egyptian princess was sentto Ugarit as a token of Egypt’s esteem for theSyrian kingdom and that this image commem-orates the union. This conclusion of courseremains speculative, and there appear to beseveral possible examples of queens of non-royal lineage during the New Kingdom inEgypt itself, including Amenhotep III’s wife

Tiyi (Kozloff and Bryan 1992: 41-43). Basedon the reasoning of Desroches-Noblecourt,any of three possibilities persist: she could bean Egyptian royal woman, she could be anEgyptian harem lady of royal favor, or shecould be a simple Egyptian lady arrayed in theclothes of status of her native land. That shewas not Egyptian, however, is never consid-ered by Desroches-Noblecourt.

Despite her conclusion that the vase com-memorated an interdynastic marriage, Des-roches-Noblecourt argues that the scene wasprobably not carved by an Egyptian artist. Forher, several details, such as slightly misinter-preted features of the headdress and dress inaddition to the use of ibex heads along theupper cornice of the portico instead of the tra-ditional Egyptian royal iconography of uraei ,suggest a non-Egyptian manufacture. Bryan(1996: 60) reiterates this point of view, ‘The

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Figure 6. Drawing of relief from back of larger chair of Sitamun, from the Tomb of Yuya and Tuya, Egypt (after

Troy 1986: fig. 59).

Figure 7. Drawing of relief from back of smaller chair of Sitamun, from the Tomb of Yuya and Tuya, Egypt (after

Davis 2000: 43, fig. 4).



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alabaster bowl fragment of Niqmaddu (late

18th Dynasty) is so faithful to the originalsource that it uses a hieroglyphic inscriptionbut at the same time carefully avoids using[Egyptian] royal iconography for the Ugariticking by substituting a Syrian ibex head friezefor the original uraei .’ Desroches-Noblecourt(1956: 219) interprets these irregularities assigns that this vessel was a copy by a localUgaritic artist after an original Egyptian vasesent as a wedding present. Such an explana-tion seems rather cumbersome, and I prefer toconsider this work as a carefully composed andplanned scene. The excavator Schaeffer concurred with

Desroches-Noblecourt, viewing this piece ascommemorating an alliance between Egyptand Ugarit, an opinion maintained by manyscholars today (Singer 1999: 625). Schaeffer(1956: 168) contended that Niqmaddu II, acontemporary of Akhenaten in Egypt andShuppiluliuma in Hatti (central Anatolia),married a daughter of Akhenaten, implying,although not explicitly stating, that this

unusual event might be attributable toAkhenaten’s generally unorthodox reign.While the alabaster vessel image was thus

presented in the 1950s as an interdynasticmarriage scene, debate concerning the accu-racy and likelihood of this interpretation hassince developed. Schulman (1979) provided acounterpoint to the scene’s interpretation inhis article on Egyptian diplomatic marriages.He concludes that during periods of politicalstrength, such as the 18th Dynasty, Egypt’sattitude toward diplomatic marriages was‘one-sided’, receiving foreign princesses with-out reciprocating. He introduces the claimmade in the international letter sent to Egyptfrom Babylonia, Amarna Letter (EA) 4 notedabove, stating, ‘As a case in point, there is thereply of Amunhotpe III to Kadasman-Enlil I[king of Babylonia] when the latter sought abride from Egypt: “from old, the daughter of

an Egyptian king has not been given in mar-

riage to anyone”’ (Schulman 1979: 179, 187-91). The lack of any other textual evidencefor Egyptian brides sent abroad during theNew Kingdom further supports Schulman’sconclusion.4 He himself, however, does notdissent from Desroches-Noblecourt’s inter-pretation of the vase imagery, but rather side-steps the issue by seeing her as an Egyptiancourt lady, not an actual daughter of the king(Schulman 1979: 185 and n. 39).

A catalog entry for the alabaster fragmentswhen they were displayed in a major exhibi-tion of Syrian archaeology in the early 1980s,written by Marianne Eaton-Krauss, states thechange in opinion and introduces a new possi-bility that the lady—regardless of rank—is notan Egyptian at all. ‘An early theory was thatthe woman depicted was an Egyptian princess’(Weiss 1985, cat. no 156; Museum für Vor- undFrühgeschichte 1982, cat. no. 144). Citing thesame passage in EA 4 as Schulman, she con-tinues, ‘If the important king of Babylon wasrefused an Egyptian princess, it is very unlikely

that this right would be granted to a mere Syr-ian prince. Probably the wife of Niqmaddu wasSyrian… The most likely explanation is thatNiqmaddu ordered this vessel depicting him-self and his Syrian wife to be made in theEgyptian style.’ This explanation, however, fails to account

for Niqmaddu’s explicitly non-Egyptian depic-tion and the substitution of ibex heads for uraei on the portico cornice. A fragmentary ivoryplaque found at Megiddo from the end of thethirteenth or beginning of the twelfth centuryBC furnishes a useful comparison (Figures 8 and9; Loud 1939: pl. 63). A scene at the top depictsa man seated on the right while a standingyoung woman presents flowers to him. Theentire scene is executed in a homogeneouslyEgyptianizing manner, yet the inscriptionidentifies the man as ‘prince of Ashkelon’, asmall Levantine kingdom (Bryan 1996: 57-9).

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Figure8. Photograph of fragment of ivory showing

prince of Ashkelon, fromMegiddo (Loud

1939, pl. 62; courtesy of The Oriental

Institute Museum, The University of

Chicago).

Figure 9. Detail of ivory showing prince of Ashkelon, from

Megiddo (Loud 1939: pl. 63; courtesy of The Orien-

tal Institute Museum, The University of Chicago).

Figure 10. Photograph of fragment of alabaster vase

from Assur (VA8379); courtesy of the

Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche

Museen zu Berlin.



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Part of the ivory’s inscription,wr … (‘chief of’),

is located in the same position as the inscrip-tion of Niqmaddu on the alabaster vase,directly in front of the seated figure’s head.Another ivory, an uninscribed plaque from Tellel-Farah South (in the southern Levant),depicts a similar Egyptianizing scene of awoman pouring liquid before a seated figure(Bryan 1996: 62-64). A rather different situa-tion may obtain on a fragment of an alabastervessel excavated from the foundations of Adad-nirari I’s (1305–1274 BC) palace at Assur innorthern Mesopotamia (Figure 10; Bissing1940: 152-53, no. 5, VA 8379). In this case, thefragment shows two seated figures facing oneanother, the one on the right preserved fromthe waist down, the one on the left retainingonly the foot and leg up to the knee. The figureto the right wears a triple-flounced robe closelyresembling the flounced robes worn by Syrianwomen depicted in 18th Dynasty Egyptian pri-vate tombs at Thebes, for example that of Nebamun (TT 17; Smith 1965: 29). Thewoman probably faced her husband, the ves-

tiges of whose robe appear to show the typicalwrapped garment of Syrian men, also knownfrom Egyptian imagery.5 In other words, in theAssur vase fragment, the attire of both partici-pants seems to belong to the Syrian sphere.

There is no inscription surviving to provide fur-ther identification of the individuals. Even inthese few examples, we see a range of culturalmodes signaled from the entirely Syrian to theentirely Egyptian, so that we may accept a highdegree of conscious selection on the part of theproducers (whether the artist[s] or patron[s]). The 1980s exhibition of Syrian archaeology

also produced a French-language catalog, andChristiane Ziegler’s entry for the vase frag-ments from Ugarit assesses the issue of thewoman’s identity (Petit Palais 1983: cat. no.206). She notes, ‘On n’a pas manqué de s’in-terroger sur la signification de la scène.’ Sheasks, Did Niqmaddu marry a Syrian and dress

her up like an Egyptian, or did an Egyptian

king (possibly Akhenaten) consent to aunique privilege in giving one of his daughtersto the petty king of Ugarit? While she addsthat the latter hypothesis is appealing, becauseit illuminates details of the international rela-tions of the fourteenth century BC, the evi-dence supporting it, namely the headdress of the lady, is tenuous since court women wore itin addition to royal princesses. She thereforeconcludes that while we must acknowledgethe significant place the piece occupies regard-ing relations between Ugarit and Egypt, we arenot in a position to determine with any degreeof certainty whether this is an Egyptian artis-tic work or not. Implicit in this conclusion isthat if the piece were produced in Egypt, thenthe lady could be assumed Egyptian; if not,then Ziegler’s first hypothesis would be morelikely.

In spite of and in many ways because of theultimate uncertainty surrounding the identityof the lady, the alabaster vase fragments havebeen used both to support and refute the con-

tention that Egypt never gave away princessesand in turn to raise or lower the status of theUgaritic king. If the lady depicted is an Egypt-ian princess then this vessel may have beencommissioned specifically to commemoratethe marriage, the artist/patron actively seekingto associate Syrian and Egyptian elements. Insuch a reading, the statement in EA 4 refusingto give an Egyptian princess because of lack of precedent might represent a pointed diplo-matic affront to Babylonia by the Egyptianking rather than a simple matter of fact. Orone might also follow the suggestion of theexcavator, that Akhenaten’s highly uncon-ventional reign permitted such transgressionsof previously inviolable traditions. If, how-ever, one accepts the written statement in EA4 as the literal truth (having no other textualevidence contradicting it), then the imageryon the alabaster vase fragments might appear

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as a clumsy attempt by a lesser ruler at imitat-

ing an Egyptian scene of domestic intimacybetween the king and his wife. The selectivenature of Egyptian versus non-Egyptian icono-graphic elements including the rendering of Niqmaddu, however, suggests that this imagewas carefully constructed in association withthe Ugaritic king.

I would like to propose an alternative inter-pretation, one that walks a fine line betweenthe aforementioned theories. Rather thanpoint in absolute terms to either the foreignpolicy of the Egyptian kings or the ineptness of the Ugaritic artists, the imagery can be under-stood as containing an ambiguous element(the woman’s identity) within a clearly definedscene of royal representation (Niqmaddu II).

To better grasp the rationale behind suchintentional ambiguity, the alabaster vase frag-ments must be viewed within the larger con-text of the kingdom of Ugarit and its positionin the political relations of the Late BronzeAge. In the arenas of international and domes-tic rhetoric, ambiguity occupies a prominent

role as a means of maneuvering, and visualmedia provides an ideal venue for it since, inthe absence of an inscription, an image neverexplicitly commits to a single reading, while atthe same time it contains multivalent allu-sions. As Barthes (1977: 37-41) notes, ‘allimages are polysemous; they imply, underlyingtheir signifiers, a “floating chain” of signified,the reader able to choose some and ignore oth-ers…the text helps to identify purely and sim-ply the elements of the scene and the sceneitself…the denominative function corre-sponds exactly to an anchoring of all possible(denoted) meanings of the object by recourseto a nomenclature…the text directs the readerthrough the signified of the image, causing himto avoid some and receive others.’ The case of Niqmaddu and his inscription serves to high-light the floating identity of the lady who isnot mentioned in any inscription. The king-

dom of Ugarit actively participated in political

relations at the international, local, anddomestic level.6 Its rulers aspired to higher sta-tus with respect to both the great internationalpowers, such as Egypt and Hatti, and the smallkingdoms neighboring Ugarit like Amurru toits south. At the same time, an expression of kingship was being molded within Ugarit itself beginning in the late fourteenth century withthe reign of Niqmaddu II (Klengel 1992: 131-34). The alabaster vase fragments speak differ-ently to each of the different constituents,although perhaps most strongly to the localand domestic audiences. Thus I shy away fromtrying to determine a fixed meaning for thewoman’s identity, acknowledging instead itsfloating messages within a context of multiplepotential diplomatic exchanges.

Diplomatic Relations and InterdynasticMarriages

The fifteenth through thirteenth centuriesBCwitnessed a remarkable period of diplomatic

interactions among kingdoms of the easternMediterranean sometimes referred to as the‘extended Amarna Age’ (Artzi 1978: 34-36).

The period derives its name from the sig-nificant archive of international correspon-dence found at the site of Amarna (ancientAkhetaten, capital of Egypt under Akhen-aten) in Middle Egypt, which provides someof our best evidence for diplomatic interac-tions (Cohen and Westbrook 2000; Moran1992). While the Amarna letters cover only ashort period of time, from 20 to 30 years in the

mid- to late fourteenth century, similararchives found at the Hittite capital of Hat-tusha (present-day Boghazköy) extend thediplomatic period through the thirteenth cen-tury, and royal inscriptions of Tuthmose IIIsuggest a higher chronological horizon in thefifteenth century (Artzi 1978: 34-36). Thealabaster fragments under discussion date tothe restricted time-frame of the Amarna let-

Ambiguous Identi ties 87




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ters as evidenced by at least one letter from

Niqmaddu to the Egyptian king (EA 49). Thepolities involved include the set of self-classed‘great powers’ of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria,Mittani, and Hatti, as well as smaller king-doms such as Ugarit occupying the intersticies(Figure 1; Tadmor 1979: 3).

During the time in question, rulers and theirhouseholds participated in a complex politicalsystem based on reciprocal exchange and themetaphor of brotherhood. A select group of the highest ranking powers, known as ‘greatkings’, set the standard, which was emulated bythe lesser polities. It is, therefore, instructive toexamine the diplomatic relations of the greatkings in order to understand to what the Ugari-tic kings aspired. Letters sent between the greatkings, best represented by the archives found atAmarna and Hattusha, express a coherent con-cept of international kingship. Written in thelingua franca of the time, Babylonian Akka-dian, they describe a ‘supraregional’ sphere of royal interaction that bound the rulerstogether despite separate cultural loyalties. In

particular, they document relations as highlyformalized and based on reciprocal exchanges.Good relations were predicated on the contin-uous exchange of written salutations carriedfrom one court to another by messenger-diplo-mats.

Within the circle of interaction establishedby these exchanges, rulers called each otherbrother and operated within a community of brotherhood (Liverani 1990a; Cohen 1996:11-28; Cohen and Westbrook 2000). Thismetaphor of blood ties was given physical real-ity through interdynastic marriages. For exam-ple, a marriage alliance sealed the conclusion of peace negotiations between Hatti and Egypt inthe thirteenth century. In a letter to Ramses II,the Hittite queen Puduhepa writes, ‘the daugh-ter of the king of Hatti arrived in the land of Egypt, and two great countries became a singlecountry…and two great kings became a single

brotherhood (ah h u tu )’ (KUB III 24+59:

3-4, 7-8; translation by Liverani 1990a: 282). Inaddition to such marriages, a special kind of gift,called in Akkadian s ulma nu , helped tocement the bonds of friendship (Cochavi-Rainey 1999). The giving and receiving of these gifts, recorded in the letters as valuableprestige objects, identified the participants asbelonging to the highest level of rulership. Onthe reverse of a damaged tablet found at Hat-tusha is what is thought to be a draft or copy of a letter sent from a Hittite king (Hattushili IIIor Tudhaliya IV) to an Assyrian king thatclearly sets forth the protocol of gift giving: ‘Did[my brother] not send you appropriate gifts of greeting (s ulma nu )? But when I assumedkingship, you did not send a messenger to me. Itis the custom that when kings assume kingship,the [other] kings, his equals in rank, send himappropriate [gifts of greeting], clothing befittingkingship, and fine [oil] for his anointing. Butyou did not do this today.’ (KBo I 14, recto 3-10; translation by Beckman 1996: no. 24 B).S ulma nu , from the root S LM, ‘to make

well’, functioned as literal ‘well-wishing items’that materially embodied a permanent manifes-tation of friendly diplomatic relations (Zaccag-nini 1973: 202-3; Chicago Assyrian DictionaryS , vol. III 1992: 244-45). Luxury goods thathave been excavated in royal contexts aroundthe eastern Mediterranean may have func-tioned as such gifts (Feldman 1998; Lilyquist1999: 211-18). The letters themselves remainlaconic in their description of specific items,noting primarily the material and type of ob-

ject. On occasion, a more forthcoming accountfollows. For example, ‘one small container of aromatics of gold with one ibex in its center’(EA 14) that can be compared to an alabasterointment jar from the tomb of Tutankhamun or‘one dagger, the blade of which is of iron, itsguard of gold with designs, its haft of ebonywith calf figurines overlaid with gold’ (EA 22)also comparable to items from Tutankhamun’s

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tomb assemblage (Metropolitan Museum of

Art 1976: cat. nos. 16 and 20). Some of theexcavated objects of gold, ivory, alabaster andfaience were executed in a hybridized style thatwas derived from styles of the constituentregions, but combined in such a manner as notto belong to any one in particular. By means of such hybridization, these luxury goods that mayhave been exchanged as gifts perfectly ex-pressed a supra-regional community of rulerswho rhetorically professed their ties to oneanother through the metaphor of brotherhood(Feldman 2002: 17-24; 1998).

Such prestige objects have been found atUgarit, several in the royal palace where thealabaster vase lay. These include ivory inlays of a tabletop, a fragmentary ivory wing, the upperplaques of a pair of ivory furniture panels—allfrom the palace—and a gold bowl from a cacheburied on the acropolis (Feldman 1998).Although Ugarit never attained the rank of ‘great power’, sources indicate that its rulersactively aspired to increase their status througha number of diplomatic vehicles. Acceptance

and participation in the international networkof exchange was foremost among these. Theluxury goods found at the site, therefore, mayhave operated on the level of emulation anduncertain identification (Feldman 1998: ch.5). Their formal features of hybridism appearlike prestige objects of the highest rank,although their identification as greeting giftsremains indeterminate. Because the designa-tion of an object as a greeting gift depends onan ultimately ephemeral act, that is the trans-fer from one party to another, once at theirplace of rest, it becomes impossible to ascertainor verify how the object arrived at its finallocation. And because the international hier-archy was structured around such ephemeralacts, manipulation of the system could effectchanges in real or perceived status.

Within this hierarchical and formalizeddiplomatic system described by the letters,

princesses and their female attendants consti-

tuted a principal item of exchange (Artzi 1987;Meier 2000; Pintore 1978). The subject of interdynastic marriage occupies a large part of the discussion in the letters, in which foreignrulers negotiated for princesses in order toplace them in their harems. In the Amarna let-ters, the Mittanian king Tushratta recountedhow his daughter, given to the Egyptian king,served to strengthen their ties, ‘When I gavemy daughter…and your father saw her, herejoiced. Was there anything he did not rejoiceabout? He rejoiced very, very much!’ (EA 29:28-30; translation by Moran 1992). Similarly,Queen Puduhepa of Hatti, who was instrumen-tal in negotiating a marriage between Egyptand Hatti, wrote in one letter, ‘The daughter of Babylon and the daughter of Amurru, whom I,the Queen, took for myself—were they notindeed a source of praise for me before the peo-ple of Hatti? It was I who did it.’ (KUB 21.38,obv. 47-49 = CTH 176; translation by Beck-man 1996: no. 22E).

In such situations, foreign princesses func-

tioned in an analogous manner to the greetinggifts. Not only did marriage create kinshipbonds, but like the gifts, their physical pres-ence served as a lasting material embodimentof the reciprocated friendly feelings estab-lished between two kingdoms. This analogywith greeting gifts, in combination with theestablishment of familial relations, made for-eign princesses primary markers of high statusfor their new homeland. While the precedingdescription of diplomatic relations is drawnfrom the highest rank—that is, the greatkings—it is critical to recall that lesser politiesengaged in similar tactics. Among themselvesthey exchanged letters, daughters, and gifts. The lesser ranking kingdoms of Ugarit andAmurru conducted such reciprocal relations,including several interdynastic marriagesbetween the two states (Klengel 1992: 137,141-42). What is rare is reciprocity between





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ranks, that is for Ugarit as a lesser kingdom to

enter reciprocal relations with a great power.As a marker of rank, the presence of a foreignprincess would have served as a major mecha-nism in any attempt at status enhancement.Further, one might postulate that the emula-tion or appearance of status, as is suggested bythe presence of luxury objects at Ugarit, mighthelp to boost a state’s perceived prestige.

Ambiguity and Status in the Extended AmarnaPeriod

That the Ugaritic king should both want toincrease his status and believe that he coulddo so is suggested by the awareness of and def-erence to status among the members of theinternational network. The pervasive con-cern with, knowledge of, and acknowledg-ment of status recurs both implicitly andexplicitly in the letters, highlighting its cen-trality in diplomatic relations, as seen in thestatement on gift exchange protocol quotedabove (KBo I 14, recto 3-10). In one of the

more blatant statements, Puduhepa, corre-sponding with Ramses II , wrote, ‘If you shouldsay, “The King of Babylonia is not a GreatKing”, then my brother does not know therank of Babylonia’ (KUB 21.38, obv. 55-56 =CTH 176; translation by Beckman 1996: no.22E). The importance and self-consciousnessof status among these rulers demonstrates thehighly structured nature of the internationalnetwork and suggests an awareness of negoti-ating or manipulating the system.

As such, status is also recognized as relativeand changing. Kingdoms lose ranking as ‘great’or attain it through complex negotiations, mil-itary prowess and accepted participation in thereciprocal exchange system (Liverani 1990a:71). The state of Assyria gained status throughthe defeat of Mittani, but required careful nego-tiations with Egypt and Hatti before being fullyaccepted as a ‘brother’ (Artzi 1978: 1997). An

early letter sent by Ashur-uballit of Assyria to

the Egyptian king (EA 15) contains irregulari-ties of structure and misconstructions of theestablished modes of address that illustrate theinexperience of the Assyrian king. A secondletter (EA 16) carefully employs all the propertitles and salutations, demonstrating a newfamiliarity with international protocol andAssyria’s rising status. Although with the hind-sight of the later Assyrian empire it may seemunlikely to compare the position of Ugarit toAssyria, it is worth remembering that in thefifteenth and early fourteenth centuries, Assyriawas a vassal of Mittani, having less wealth,power and autonomy than Ugarit. The king-dom of Ahhiyawa, probably to be equated withsome or all of Mycenaean Greece, seems tohave fallen from the rank of great power, a sta-tus it apparently held in the early thirteenthcentury as indicated in texts from Hattushathat refer to the Ahhiyawan king as ‘mybrother’ and include him as a participant in theroyal gift exchange network (Güterbock 1983:135-36; Bryce 1989: 300; Liverani 1990a: 227).

The erasure of Ahhiyawa’s name from a latethirteenth century list of great kingdomsrecorded in a treaty between Tudhaliya IV of Hatti and Shaushgamuwa of Amurru suggests asubsequent decline in status (CTH 105; Beck-man 1996: no. 17: §11; Güterbock 1983: 135-36; Bryce 1989: 304-305). Status changes andnegotiations most often occurred on the peri-pheries and the interstices of the network, suchas the highly contested zone of western Syriathat lay between Egypt, Hatti, Mittani, andAssyria. The region of western Syria was geographi-

cally important because of its access to majortrade routes at the intersection of both thenorth-south and east-west routes linking theeastern Mediterranean maritime channelswith the inland caravan roads. Control overthe kingdoms comprising western Syria,including the wealthy mercantile center of

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Ugarit, constituted a primary concern for the

great powers. The kingdom immediately tothe south of Ugarit, Amurru, exemplifies theactive strategies these smaller kingdomsenacted in their own quests for political bet-terment (Singer 1991). Although Amurru ispoorly known archaeologically, textual evi-dence documents the maneuvers of its wilyrulers, Abdi-Ashirta and his son Aziru. Azirureveals himself as a master of manipulating thetwo great powers of Egypt and Hatti, claimingloyalty to Egypt while at the same time forginga treaty with the Hittite king Shuppiluliuma(Liverani 1983). Liverani (1983: 119-21) hasstressed the use of verbal ambiguity in Aziru’sletters to Egypt as a primary component in hispolitical ‘double game playing’ and has sug-gested that this ambiguity may account for thewidely divergent interpretations by modernscholars of Amurru’s early history (Singer1991: 143). Ugarit’s proximity to and intimaterelations with Amurru, in addition to evi-dence that Niqmaddu II corresponded withboth the Egyptian pharaoh and Shuppiluli-

uma, suggest that, at least during the reign of Niqmaddu II, Ugarit engaged in its own polit-ical maneuvers (Singer 1999: 624-36). Theformat and phrasing of Ugarit’s letters andtreaties with the two great powers revealrhetorical nuances that walk a line betweenthe suggestion of parity and the reality of imbalanced relations (Zaccagnini 1990: 60).For example, in the Amarna letters to Egypt,Ugaritic kings, including Niqmaddu II, adopta subservient stance in the first part of thesalutations (‘I fall at the feet of the king, theSun, my Lord’), but then wish the Egyptianking well using the formula generally reservedfor equals (Singer 1999: 626-27). Aside fromthe ‘great kings’, only Ugarit, the kingdom of Tunip, and an independent Hittite princewish the Egyptian king well (EA 44, 45, 49,and 59; Moran 1992: xxix and n. 83). Thesemanipulations could be achieved because of the element of ambiguous meaning that

served as a primary mechanism by which

change could be effected. Such active manip-ulation of the international network is seenelsewhere at Ugarit, as in the appearance of luxury objects executed in the internationalstyle that signaled membership into the ranksof the ‘great kings.’

A clue for understanding the imagery on thealabaster vessel can be found in the same letterin which the Egyptian king declared his coun-try’s unwillingness to relinquish princesses (EA4; Singer 1999: 625; for a recent discussion of EA 4 with a slightly different interpretation seeWestbrook 2000). The Egyptian king’s refusalto give a princess in marriage did not deter theBabylonian king in his quest. He responded,‘Someone’s grown daughters, beautiful women,must be available. Send me a beautiful womanas if she were your daughter. Who is going tosay, “She is no daughter of the king!”’ (EA 4;translation by Moran 1992). In other words, aslong as she fulfilled certain expectations of being an Egyptian princess, specifically thatshe be a beautiful maiden, why shouldn’t she

assume that identity when she is in a new con-text in Babylonia? Her identity was deemedmutable because it did not reside inherently inany of her features (apart from being a womanand being beautiful, that is a virgin—Troy1986: 78), but rather was ascribed to herthrough external attributes and the actualprocess of exchange. One might compare thisscenario with Brilliant’s (1991: 9) commentson identity and portraiture:

Here are the essential constituents of a per-

son’s identity: a recognized or recognizableappearance; a given name that refers to noone else; a social, interactive function thatcan be defined; in context, a pertinent char-acterization; and a consciousness of the dis-tinction between one’s own person andanother’s, and of the possible relationshipbetween them. Only physical appearance isnaturally visible, and even that is unstable.

The rest is conceptual and must be expressed





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symbolically.

Thus, identity is most clearly conveyedthrough visual signs, which are unstable andmight be manipulated. For a local and internalaudience, deceptions of foreign identity mightbe relatively easily concealed through thesymbolic coding of dress and ornament.

An intriguing echo of this scenario of changeable identities is found much later inHerodotus (Pintore 1978: 57). Book 3 beginswith an anecdote explaining why the Persianking Cambyses invaded Egypt at the end of thesixth century BC. According to Herodotus,

Cambyses, on the advice of a disgruntled Egyp-tian physician, sent a messenger to Egypt to askits king Amasis for his daughter in marriage.Amasis did not want to give his daughter tothe Persian king, but neither did he want toanger the ruler of such a powerful state, and so,Herodotus goes on to say, ‘this is what he did:

There was a daughter of the former king,Apries, …a girl tall and beautiful’. Amasisclothed this girl in finery and gold and sent herto Persia ‘as his own daughter.’ However,

unlike the situation proposed by the Babylon-ian king 800 years earlier, Cambyses was notparty to the switch, and upon meeting theyoung Egyptian woman found out the trick.She informed him ‘you do not grasp how youhave been put upon by King Amasis. Hedecked me out in all this apparel, as though Iwere his own daughter whom he was giving toyou’, thus propelling Cambyses to invadeEgypt (Herodotus, Book 3.1; Grene 1987).Even the phrasing used by Herodotus parallelsthat used by the earlier Babylonian king, ‘as if she were your daughter’. Of relevance to ourstudy of the alabaster vase image is the empha-sis in Herodotus’s account placed on thechanged apparel of the woman by whichmeans she assumed the appearance of an Egyp-tian princess. As the daughter of an earlierEgyptian king, Apries, she was already a royalwoman, but without blood ties to the currentruler her marriage would offer no political

benefit to Cambyses. Hence, her identity as an

Egyptian princess was unstable. In both theLate Bronze Age and Achaemenid instances,visual forms coded multivalent and ambiguousmessages regarding the identity of thesewomen.

It also appears fairly evident that what actu-ally happened to these women once theyentered a foreign king’s court might have littleto do with the rhetoric of marriage and allianceput forth in the correspondence. Their identityand status, as an external manifestation, couldbe redefined to suit the interests of the receiv-ing ruler. Several letters from the Mittanianking Tushratta to Amenhotep III address nego-tiations for a Mittanian princess—a daughterof Tushratta—to be sent to the Egyptian court(EA 19-22). EA 20, from Tushratta, quotesAmenhotep’s request for this woman, sayingthat his messenger ‘came to take my brother’swife to become the mistress of Egypt’, indicat-ing the expected high-status that the Mittan-ian princess would hold in the foreign court.

From these letters, we also hear about an ear-

lier marriage alliance between Amenhotep IIIand Tushratta’s sister, which was finalizedwhile Tushratta’s father ruled (EA 17). Thisexchange sent Gilu-Hepa to Egypt, an eventthat is documented in Egyptian sources inquite different terms from those expressed inthe international correspondence. Rather thancelebrating the event as an alliance with anequal king through the marriage of his daugh-ter, scarab inscriptions found in Egypt boast of the marvels that Amenhotep brought backfrom Mittani including Gilu-Hepa, identifiedonly as the ‘daughter of the chief of Mittani’,along with 317 harem women (Bryan 2000:80-82). Moreover, the royal titles used on thescarab inscriptions name Tiyi as the ‘greatroyal wife’. While stopping short of claimingGilu-Hepa as tribute or booty, the mere imply-ing of this would have bolstered the power of Amenhotep within his own state. This con-

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trasts with his presentation of the same event

to an external audience of royal peers as aninterdynastic marriage alliance, which wouldhave garnered prestige and status within theinternational community (Liverani 1990a:276-77).

Such recontextualizations provided oppor-tunities for the negotiation of status and,when uncovered by other parties, were oftenmet with resentment. While the Babylonianking writing in EA 4 made explicit hisintended opportunistic use of the exchangedwoman, in other instances contempt for suchactivity is evident. For example, possibly thesame Babylonian king, Kadashman-Enlil,complained that chariots he sent to Egypt hadbeen displayed along with the tribute of vas-sal states, thereby devaluing them and conse-quently lessening his status (EA 1, quoted byAmenhotep III; Liverani 1990a: 265; Liv-erani 1990b: 209-10). As with Gilu-Hepa, itappears that Amenhotep III was implicitlyclaiming to an internal Egyptian audiencethat these items were tribute from a vassal.

In the same letter, Amenhotep responds toconcerns of Kadashman-Enlil for the health of a Babylonian princess who was already settledin the Egyptian harem. Once again, we see thecorrelation between an exchanged woman’smutable identity and a potentially changedstatus. Kadashman-Enlil, implying that theprincess had died and a substitute had beeninstalled in her place, wrote to Amenhotepsaying, ‘Perhaps the [woman] my messengerssaw was the daughter of some poor man, or of some Kaskean, or the daughter of some Hani-galbatean, or perhaps someone from Ugarit.’Denying the accusation, Amenhotep replied,‘Did you, however, ever send a dignitary of yours who knows your sister, who could speakwith her and identify her?’ (EA 1; trans. byMoran 1992). In an ironic twist, the precisetrickery that the Babylonian king proposed inEA 4 in order to acquire an Egyptian ‘princess’

was bitterly resented when he suspected that

the Egyptian king had done the same thing(Liverani 1990a: 274-75). The problems of identification based primarily on apparel andcontext come to the surface in this exchange.

That such machinations took place on a fairlyfrequent basis seems confirmed by a close read-ing of the written evidence.

Discussion and Conclusion

An analysis of the representation on thealabaster vase fragments from the palace atUgarit raises a series of questions. First onewonders whether this lady shown in Egyptianattire really was Egyptian or not. If she was not,then one assumes she was presented as if shewere Egyptian. If, however, one accepts thatshe was Egyptian, a second set of questionsarises from the iconography of her headdressand the intimate scene in which she partici-pates: was she a royal princess, the daughter of the Egyptian pharaoh, or was she a member of the royal harem, a ‘royal ornament’? Despite

our attempts, the textual evidence does nothelp us solve the dilemma. While EA 4 reportspharaoh’s statement as an absolute denial of any possibility of sending a princess abroad, the‘ban’ does not necessarily extend to non-royal,palace-dependent women such as members of the harem. Moreover, the rebuttal by the Baby-lonian king that any Egyptian woman would beacceptable suggests that alternatives were avail-able and actively pursued, and that the systemwas not as inflexible as the ‘rules’ might lead usto believe. The iconography of the lady’s apparel also

frustrates attempts at identification. The head-dress is unusual, and even within the largerepertoire of Egyptian art it cannot be preciselyconnected with a specific social group beyonda general association with elite women. Yet itis an unambiguous marker of things Egyptian,as are the broad collar, tripartite wig and liba-





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tion vessel. In fact, I would argue that the

excessive attention given to interpreting themeaning of the headdress has obscured themore important aspect of the overall ‘Egyp-tianness’ of the elegant lady.7 Such Egyptian-ness is reinforced in the depiction of thecornice, column capitals, and hieroglyphicinscription. An inherent non-Egyptiannessemerges in the ibex frieze, which never occurson a cornice in Egyptian examples, the Syrianfeatures and hairstyle of the man, and thedirect reference to the ruler of Ugarit. Thecentral issue seems to be less whether she is oris not either Egyptian or a princess, but morethe fact that she has been left unidentified,suggesting that the provision of a specific iden-tity was either not possible or not desirable.

I have suggested in this paper that our inabil-ity to identify the ‘cultural origin’ of the lady inquestion may be due to an indeterminacy con-sciously deployed in the imagery itself. Theextended Amarna age represented a period inwhich metaphors of brotherhood and kinshipserved as ‘constitutive paradigms that affect

attitudes to and conduct of international nego-tiation’ (Cohen 1996: 11). Entry into the‘brotherhood’ was a crucial step not only in theacquisition of status, but more importantly thatwhich resulted from this status, the ability toparticipate in the top-level diplomatic negoti-ations of the region. In the mid-fourteenthcentury, Ugarit, in a not-too-dissimilar posi-tion to Assyria, stood just on the periphery of the ‘club’, and the deployment of imagery thatincluded ambiguous elements may have func-tioned as part of its maneuvers. While the sce-nario that I propose may not provide asatisfactory solution to some, it would be pre-sumptuous of us to underestimate the subtletyof nuance and manipulation that the ancientpatrons controlled in their artistic expression.We are not looking through a window onto anactual event, but through the proverbial filterof a carefully constructed realm of representa-

tion. Our own longing for tidy explanations

and literal interpretations should not blind usto the slippery nature of visual imagery. Whenit was deemed necessary to convey an unam-biguous message, as in the case of the explicitidentification of Niqmaddu, it was donethrough a combination of text and image. Yetthere are times when indeterminacy has itsbenefits, and political relations, even today,rely heavily on it.

It is not clear what audience actually wouldhave seen this vessel. As a small-scale portableitem kept in the royal palace, it is likely that itsaudience was highly controlled, and I suspectthat it was intended primarily for an internalUgaritic audience. Nevertheless, one wouldpredict quite different responses depending onthe origin (and agenda) of the viewer. Oneimagines that if the depicted lady were a Syrianwoman in Egyptian dress, an Egyptian viewerwould know the ‘deception’ as in the case of thedisappearing Babylonian princess who couldnot be identified in the Egyptian harem byBabylonian messengers (EA 1). However, the

vagueness of images mitigates any specificallynegative reaction, since an Egyptian viewerwho knew there was no Egyptian lady at theUgaritic court might feel pride in the evidentdesire of a ‘lesser’ polity to emulate the great-ness of Egypt. Would officials of other ‘great’powers who might see the vessel recognize anyduplicity on the part of Ugarit? Certainly thesecourts had their ‘spies’ and received informa-tion about third party dealings (Meier 1988:233; Cohen 2000), yet the lack of an explicitidentification for the woman would undermineany direct accusations of false pretenses. Forinternal or local audiences, imprecise elementsmay have been fairly easy to cloak.

We may never know with certainty whocommissioned this work; although, it appearsto have suited the interests of Niqmaddu indefining a representation of royal privilege, andI view him as the most likely candidate. One

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might also speculate, perhaps again without

ever finding proof, that had an Egyptianprincess been granted in marriage to Niqmadduby an Egyptian king, the fact would have beenwidely celebrated both by means of an inscrip-tion on this piece and in other documents. Sit-uating a representation of Niqmaddu in anEgyptian-looking scene complete with an inti-mate portrayal of an Egyptian-looking lady sig-naled the Ugaritic ruler’s cosmopolitanposition, without making an explicit claim towhat would have been a highly unusual inter-dynastic marriage. Visual ambiguity derives itspotency from the evidence that trappings(visual appearance) were primary markers of both identity and status. These outward, exter-nal attributes could be altered and manipu-lated, conveying imprecise messages that couldimply a range of meanings. The body of theking’s wife, moreover, served as a prime carrierof the symbols of rank and was the perfect loca-tion for implied meaning, she being intimatelyconnected to the king yet not the king.8 AsAlan Schulman remarked in a footnote to his

seminal article, ‘if Kadashman-Enlil was willingto pass off any woman as an Egyptian princess,who is to say that Niqmaddu was not unwillingto do the same?’ (Schulman 1979: n. 39).

Acknowledgements

The ideas in this article were first presented atthe symposium, ‘Courtly Ambiguities: Haremsand Gender in the Eastern Mediterranean’,held at the University of California, Berkeleyon 4 March 2000. Subsequent versions were

presented at the annual meetings of theAmerican Research Center in Egypt and theAmerican Schools of Oriental Research. I amgrateful to those who provided comments afterthese talks, to several individuals who lookedat drafts of the manuscript, in particular Gre-gory Levine and Leslie Peirce, and to theanonymous referees. For all their assistanceduring the period of my research, I would like

to express my thanks to Dr. Abd al-Razzaq

Moaz, Dr. Michel al-Maqdissi, and Dr. SultanMuhesin of the Antiquities Department of theMinistry of Culture, Syria and Dr. Yves Calvetand the other members of the Mission de RasShamra, France.

About the Author

Marian H. Feldman is an assistant professor inthe Department of Near Eastern Studies at theUniversity of California, Berkeley. She receivedher PhD in art history from Harvard University

in 1998. She has excavated in Turkey and Syriaand is currently writing a book on artistic inter-connections, prestige objects and gift exchangeduring the Late Bronze Age.

Abbreviations Used in Text/Notes

CTHE. Laroche

1971 Catalogue des Textes H itti tes . Études et Com-mentaires 75. Paris: Klincsieck.

EA

1992 El-Amarna—with reference to the number-ing of the texts (letters) in Moran 1992.

KboKeilschrift texte aus Boghazköy . Berlin: Wis-senschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der DeutschenOrient-Gesellschaft.

KUBKeilschrif t Urkunden aus Boghazköy . Berlin:Institut für Orientforschung.

RSRas Shamra—prefix for field numbers of tablets and other registered finds of the

French Archaeological Mission to RasShamra (Ugarit).VA Prefix for objects from Vo r d e r a s i a t i s c h e

Staatlichen Museen, Berlin

Notes

1. Compare the hairstyle with that of a victori-ous warrior on a carved ivory plaque from afurniture panel excavated in the palace at





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Ugarit (Damascus Museum RS 16.56; Schaef-

fer 1954: pl. X). For some Egyptian examples,see Smith (1965: fig. 41 [tomb of Nebamun],and fig. 162 [Syrian ships at dock]).

2. The concept of ‘ethnic’ groups has been thesubject of many studies in recent years (e.g. Jones 1997), and the problems surroundingthe use of the term have been highlighted.

3. The gazelle protome has been associated withforeign (that is, non-Egyptian) princesses;however, it also appears with the platformcrown worn by Sitamun on the larger chairfrom the tomb of Yuya and Tuya, where she is

clearly identified as the daughter of the king.It should be noted that there is no connectionbetween these gazelle heads (with theirslightly S-shaped horns belonging to the ante-lope family) and the ibex heads on the top of the cornice (with backward sweeping hornsand bearded chin of the goat family); for dis-cussion and illustrations of Nubian ibexes andDorcas gazelles, see Houlihan (1996: 58-59,61, 109-112).

4. Schulman (1979: 187) does present evidence

for Egyptian princesses marrying abroad dur-ing periods of Egyptian weakness, such as dur-ing the Hyksos period preceding the NewKingdom and in the Third Intermediateperiod following.

5. See same images assupra n. 1.6. The term ‘international’ is, strictly speaking,

anachronistic for the Bronze Age, since‘nations’ did not exist according to currentdefinitions (Anderson 1991; Gellner 1983;and Hobsbawm 1992). More properly, it mightbe called ‘intercultural’. Nevertheless, theubiquitous nature of the term ‘international’and its widespread association with interpolityexchange best convey the desired connotationof a supraregional system. Thus, it is retainedin this paper.

7. I purposely avoid the passive connotationsimplicit in the term Egyptianizing here inorder to emphasize the highly active inclu-sion of things Egyptian.

8. Compare with Troy’s (1986: 149-50) discus-

sion of the Egyptian queen as representingthe feminine aspect of a royal duality.

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