Cultural Exchange and Religion in Bronze Age Empires
Trade and Cultural Exchange
Indus and Mesopotamian Signature Seals
Stamps and seals have been used as official signatures since the dawn of city life. In Mesopotamia, carved stone
cylinder seals that were rolled into soft clay cuneiform tablets were used at the Sumerian city of Uruk as early as
5,500 years ago. More than 2,000 stamp seals have also been found at sites like Harappa and Mohenjo-daro in the
Indus Valley civilization. These seals appear to have pictographic writing, however, archaeologist have not yet
deciphered the text to discover what they say.
Harappan Seals (about 2100 BCE):
Seal 1 – hairy person holding two tigers by the throat
Seal 2 – horned, tailed, cloven-footed person fighting a horned tiger under a tree
Seal 3 – two single-horned heads twist around a fig tree
Seal 4 – humans somersaulting over a bull with horns
Seal 5 – humped bull
Seal 6 – a man sits wearing a buffalo-horn headdress, jewelry, knees angled to either side and soles of his feet pressed together
with arms extended. Wild animals surround him.
Mesopotamian Seals (rolled out to show full pictures)
Seal 7 – Sumerian seal, 2600 BCE. Two heroes struggle with animals. Left shows hairy man (Gilgamesh?) fighting two horned
bulls. Right shows a ½ bull ½ man (Enkidu?) fighting lions.
Seal 8, Akkadian, 2200BCE. Bull-man and hairy hero holding a bull by the mane and tail. A stylized mountain and tree are in
the middle.
1. Most seals contain horned figures. What do you think the horn symbolized to these societies? Why does it
appear in so many seals? What can you infer about the religion and values of these societies?
2. What about the hairy men in 1, 7, and 8? What does hairiness seem to symbolize? What can you infer about
religious and social values from these images?
3. Consider the central figure of seal 6. What do you think his posture and the animals around him says about
his position and function? If he is a human, what sort of human? If a god, what sort of god?
4. What can you infer about lines of cultural contact and influence, based on the dates of these seals?
Kingship Along the Nile: Two Temple Reliefs
These two reliefs (raised carvings on flat backgrounds) depict kings and gods in bronze-age Africa. The top, from
about 1400 BCE, is an Egyptian relief. It shows, from right to left, Horus the falcon-god, Pharaoh Seti I, and the
goddess Isis. The work below is from Nubia in Sub-Saharan Africa in present day Sudan. It dates from about 300
BCE. It portrays a Nubian king of Kush and Apedemak, the lion-god of war. In 800 BCE the Nubians created the
independent kingdom of Kush and conquered Egypt in 730 BCE, ruling it for about 100 years. Interestingly,
Nubian women were highly influential at the royal court, the king tracing his ancestry via his mother’s line. This
pattern of an important role given to women continues in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa today. We cannot yet
decipher the writing above each figure, so the meaning of the scene can only be guessed at.
1. Examine the scene from Nubia and compare it with the Egyptian. What looks like it has been influenced
by a cultural exchange?
2. What aspects of the Nubian relief look purely Nubian?
3. Why do you think that the chief diety of Nubia is a lion, rather than a falcon or jackal as in Egypt?
4. What do these two sculptures allow us to infer about the nature of royal power in Kush?
Religion
The Vedic Religion and its Transformation into Hinduism in India
The Rig Veda
In about 1500 BCE, tribes of Central Asian pastoralists called Aryans moved into India and started ruling the area
around the Indus River. The Aryans were illiterate warriors, but their beliefs are preserved in their chants and
songs. These chants are memorized and sung by a class of priests known still today as Brahmins. These songs
form a book called the Vedas and are written in a language called Sanskrit. This era of Indian history, from about
1500 to 600 BCE, is known as the Vedic Age. The earliest of these Vedic books is the Rig Veda, a compilation of
1,017 songs. In the excerpt below, Indra the Aryan god of war and weather, conquers Vritra, the dragon of
drought. By conquering drought, Indra frees the world and releases the monsoon rains that water the fields of the
Aryans, who were now settling down and farming. In the next excerpt, a hymn is sung to Purusha, the universal
spirit and source of all life, who was thought to be a god with countless eyes, hands, and feet.”
Victory over Vritra
“I will declare the manly deeds of Indra, the thunder-wielder. He slew the dragon, then disclosed the waters, and
cleft the channels of the mountain waters. He slew the dragon lying on the mountain, his heavenly bolt of thunder
fashioned by Twashtar (the divine artisan.)…Indra grasped the thunder for his weapon, and smote to death this
firstborn of the dragons…Then, giving life to sun and dawn and heaven, Indra found no one standing against
him.”
1. What sort of god is Indra? What does your answer suggest about the society that worship him as its chief
deity?
2. Are there any other ancient gods you know of that seem similar to Indra? Which? What does that similarity
suggest about the heritage of both of these groups of people?
To Purusha
“A thousand heads had Purusha, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. He covered earth on every side, and spread
ten fingers’ breadth beyond. This Purusha is all that yet has been and all that is to be…He formed the creatures of
the air, and animals both wild and tame…What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and
feet? The Brahmin was his mouth, of both his arms was the Kshatriyas. His thighs became the Vaisya, from his
feet the Sudra was produced. The Moon was created from his mind, and from his eye the Sun had birth.”
3. What evidence is there in the hymn to Purusha for the emergence of what would become the Hindu caste
system?
4. How is that system explained and justified?
The Upanishads
The priestly class known as the Brahmin was very powerful in early India. However, a new set of spiritual books
called the Upanishads developed after 500 BCE in the river valley of the Ganges, in northeast India. These texts
take the form of dialogues between students and teachers. These people wanted to go beyond the earlier books of
the Vedas and continue the search for ultimate wisdom. Many writers were members of a lower (but still high)
class of Indians called Kshatriyas, or warriors. These dialogues indicate the dissatisfaction that the other classes in
India felt for the empty rituals and reciting of the Rig Veda done by the Brahmin priests. They didn’t reject the Rig
Veda but they took the ideas of an Ultimate Reality or Being and began the belief in India of Brahman, the one god
of Hinduism from which all other gods stem. Anyone, regardless of class, could attain unity with Brahman, the
one Universal Soul and True Self. Humans are not outside of the divine; instead, the Upanishads say that we are all
a part of it. If any person wants to throw off the cycle of reincarnation (rebirth) then they have to find the divine
True Self, or atman, within themselves.
The Chandogya Upanishad
“There lived once Svetaketu…to him his father said, ‘Svetaketu, go to school…’ Svetaketu returned to his father
when he was twenty-four, having then studied all the Vedas – conceited, considering himself well-read. His
father said to him, ‘Svetaketu, as you are so conceited, have you ever asked for that instruction by which we hear
what cannot be heard, by which we perceive what cannot be perceived, by which we know what cannot be
known?’…’Please, Sir, inform me still more,’ said the son….’Place this salt in water, and then wait on me in the
morning,’ the father replied. The son did as he was commanded. The father said to him, ‘Bring me the salt, which
you placed in the water last night.’ The son having looked for it, found it not, for, of course, it was melted. The
father said, ‘Taste it from the surface of the water. How is it?’ The son replied, ‘It is salt.’ ‘Taste it from the middle.
How is it?’ ‘It is salt.’ ‘Taste it from the bottom. How is it?’ The son replied, ‘It is salt.’ The father said, ‘Here also,
in this body…you do not perceive the True, my son, but there indeed it is. That which is the subtle essence (soul,
or atman), in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and you, Svetakertu, are it.’”
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
“And as a goldsmith, taking a piece of gold, turns it into another, newer and more beautiful shape, so does this
Self, after having thrown off this body and dispelled all ignorance, make unto himself another, newer and more
beautiful shape.
And here they say that a person consists of desires…to whatever object a man’s own mind is attached, to that he
goes strenuously together with his deed; and having obtained the consequences of whatever deed he does here on
Earth, he returns again from that world…to this world of action. But as to the man who does not desires, who is
freed from desires, his vital spirits do not depart elsewhere – being Brahman, he goes to Brahman.”
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What does the father mean when he says, “You, Svetaketu, are it”?
Why does the father use salt dissolved in water to teach his son about Brahman?
Why are souls reincarnated, according to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad?
How does one end this cycle of rebirth?