the high priestess of babylon (art chronicles i)
a journey to the high priestess of babylon (with art from crete, assyria, persia, babylon)
the following is a work of fiction
crete
belthazar, a babylonian merchant on a mission to procure what is rumored to be the most unique art in the world, is walking along the seaside in crete when he sees eleni creating this creature: a being he has never dreamed of before.
octopus (minoan) - 2nd millennium b.c.e.source
never before has belthazar seen either such a being or such a product. his mind dashes between figures as he works out what this artwork must be worth to his investors back in babylon: the art market in mesopotamia has become stale and dreary, some feel but hardly say, and investors are discretely eager to secure new product lines.
but the longer he looks at this being, the more difficult he finds the task: thinking about the pot as a thing to be marketed and sold.
this being is not still: this being is moving. never has he seen something like this before, and there is a whole row of these creatures, each one of them a little different, the arms moving differently, the eyes expressing some different emotion: not even the coloring of the skin is standardized, and each being is often flanked by other smaller beings of which belthazar has never dreamed.
and all of these beings are moving.
all of these beings are stirring him up inside.
minoan civilization conceptsource
partly original minoan wall painting - 2nd millennium b.c.e.source
octopus (minoan) - 2nd millennium b.c.e.source
the water
she does not react to him like women in babylon would: the women in crete seem free. they are everywhere at work creating art he has never seen before, conjuring beings from worlds he does not know. listening to her, he soon forgets his mission. all he wants to know: what are these beings, how do you create them, how do you know?
eleni, the creator of the beings, explains to him that these beings are real:
“they live beneath the water,” she says.
she shows him so many more of these creatures and he spends all day at her shop beside the water, observing her at work and staring into the sea. he finds that he does not want to return to mesopotamia: he only wants to sit here and watch the water move with her. all he wants is to think about how these beings are out there, moving, floating in every direction deep beneath the sea: the water obsesses him.
detail of a minoan procession — 2nd millennium b.c.e.source
he forgets about the fires he has spread across the world: he forgets about the need he has always felt to accumulate objects and subject others to his will.
somehow when he looks at these creatures, he sees himself, senses himself: moving, like them — of course he is moving! — but the movement of the water, the movement of these beings over such an enormous depth, has him thinking of a different type of movement, and he is unable to define what this is.
he thinks about soldiers marching perfectly on either side of his precisely ordered caravan, each of these men in sync with the other, each of them like a machine, and the more he thinks about this, the more disassociated he feels from his past:
this past does not seem like reality. these memories do not feel real.
only the movement of the sea, full of water that can never be contained by any one being and which itself contains so many moving beings, seems real anymore now.
“i am water,” he suddenly blurts to eleni one day, the realization stunning him.
“of course you are,” she says, but there’s something nervous in her voice.
he does not notice.
what he notices: even the bulls here seem like water:
every being is water, he thinks. i am water, she is water, everything is water.
minoan palace frescosource
minoan dolphin fresco reconstructed - 2nd millennium b.c.e.source
snake goddess figurine — minoan (2nd millennium b.c.e.)source
he sees how eleni is so at peace with her days, so calm and graceful, so in love with her art: he sees how little she cares for the dreams he occasionally offers her of riches and palaces and enormous temples.
he tells her about the hanging gardens: but she never wants to leave the seaside.
he tells her she could meet the high priestess of babylon, a lie: but she shrugs him off, says she loves the water.
he does not press her:
he knows now what he is offering her: something less real than the water.
eleni has heard about the firy world belthazar represents:
each day she becomes slightly less calm in his presence.
larnax, birds, seascape (minoan) - 2nd millennium b.c.e.source
detail of a bird (minoan) - 2nd millennium b.c.e.source
the accumulation of material
the journey to crete had taken months: belthazar’s caravan, flanked by soldiers dispatched by the king nebuchadnezzar ii, had journeyed overland to jurusalem which they conquered and utterly destroyed (the israelites had stopped paying tribute).
the destruction of jersualem (587 b.c.e.)source
after belthazar watched jerusalem burn, he purchased enormous quantities of material from the soldiers as they looted the city. these soldiers were desperate for the gold and silver belthazar carried on behalf of the great bank in babylon, which always sent him along with military campaigns for the purpose of procurement.
the materials belthazar purchased from the soldiers in jerusalem and then sent back to the great bank of babylon’s storehouses:
3,000 human beings
5,000 ceramics with art depicting lions, lambs, and cherubs
fifteen intricately carved sarcophaguses (the bodies disposed)
the ark of the covenant
depicted below: eleni’s jewelry
gold knot ring with lapis lazuli inlaidsource
the master of animals pendant — minoan (2nd millennium b.c.e.)source
the agenda of belthazar’s associates
now there are men badgering belthazar as he sits by the water.
they have been traveling for months, and they want more materials:
the jewelry on eleni’s neck, arms, and fingers
the flesh on eleni’s body and the most private parts of her being
the meaningless works of art which could be sold for enormous amounts of money in mesopotamia because they are novel for now
what these men see when they look at eleni is novelty.
novelty is what they crave, and they access novelty by accumulating new material.
the king of babylon is always seeking artists from distant lands to manipulate materials in his domain: he is always seeking novel materials from every corner of the earth to bring back into his storehouses and combine with other material.
eleni can create great wall paintings for the king of babylon.
eleni can satisfy the desires of these men, but belthazar lets her look at sea creatures.
the men have been in crete for three weeks now, and belthazar only looks at the water.
he has stopped paying attention to material.
he is only looking at the water.
he says, “the creatures are moving,” and he points at a row of pots.
he has gone mad, and they kill him.
belthazar’s business partners then take eleni and sell her to the king of assyria.
there is a solar eclipse in assyria: assyria needs substitute queens and kings to sacrifice to the gods so as to avert imperial collapse and the scattering forever of all assyria’s materials. the offering of eleni’s beauty will ensure the accumulation continues.
the king of assyria and the ginis watching over him
king of assyriasource
the king of assyria lives in constant fear that the babylonian king will come and take his materials from him. his life is organized around one objective: the accumulation of more material with which he can fend off the babylonian king’s materials. he understands that power resides in the accumulation of material, that meaning comes from material, and each day when he wakes up in the morning he sits down with his generals to discuss which group of people they will next enslave.
during one of these meetings eleni arrives, dressed for the sacrifice.
the king of assyria is temporarily deposed; eleni is crowned queen, a childhood friend from minoa beside her as king, and they are led to the top of the temple for sacrifice.
the king of assyria feels so at peace as he watches them go.
he thinks about the winged ginis flying above him. he knows that the ginis watch over him; he knows that the ginis will always help him accumulate materials. the assyrians, he believes, were chosen specially by the ginis to subdue the entire world and to bring all the materials of the entire universe into one central point.
winged gini — assyrian (9th century b.c.e.)
“One of the most serious omens was a solar eclipse, which predicted grave danger for the ruler of the area of the world in which it appeared. Ancient Mesopotamian astronomers had developed the knowledge to accurately predict eclipses with a high degree of precision. Once an eclipse was predicted and the area in which it would appear had been identified, the court and the priests took action. If the eclipse took place over Assyria, for instance, the Assyrian king would be in danger, and for the king to be in danger put the entire power structure of the kingdom at risk. So a substitute would be put in his place—literally, a substitute king, or šar pûhi (shar PU-khee) in Akkadian, the language of the Assyrian court and its official documents.”
the solar eclipse and the substitute king, sarah graff
assyrian bullsource
the offering of eleni
they take eleni to the top of a temple. she stands powerlessly beneath the gaze of a dozen winged ginis, stone and inert, who will preside over her sacrifice.
the temporarily deposed king of assyria stands proudly atop the temple. he can see all his materials from this point: all the people gathered to behold this solemn moment beneath the terror of an eclipse.
eleni is thinking about the water to which she knows she will now return.
she knows she will emerge again from that water, but the knowledge does nothing to mitigate her pain: as they raise the knife to her neck, she sees in the distance a great carvan: she knows this carvan is carrying the ceramics she created.
she tries to tell herself that none of this is real, that only the water is real.
but they’ve taken that from her too. only the blade is real now.
the goddess ishtarsource
the siege of nineveh
nineveh, capital of assyrian empire, destroyed 612 b.c.e.
the great capital of assyria is utterly destroyed.
the babylonians have come and they have taken the king’s materials.
the babylonians are taking all the king’s materials with them to babylon.
the winged ginis are scattered into stone pieces across the ruins of the temple, and the bulls which once watched over the king are toppled to the ground around his carcass.
eleni is with the babylonians: they have saved her. the siege threw the sacrifice into chaos; the people around the temple immediately rebelled — only to be killed, raped, and enslaved by the babylonians as ferocious soldiers poured into the city.
as these soldiers became immersed in material, they lost control of their bodies: their minds were saturated with the beauty of the objects around them, and they were hysterical. they rampaged across the city, burning and destroying, spreading fire. they sunk down into unbridled sensuality: they did not see feelings when they killed and raped, kidnapped and enslaved.
there is a man among the babylonians who remembers eleni.
“she is worth something,” he says to one of the merchants. “she can paint.”
above: striding lion (babylonian 1st millennium b.c.e.)source
the king of babylon
the king of babylon is satisfied that he has finally destroyed the assyrians.
the king of babylon has a sense for aesthetics and he is very proud of this. he has gentle soul: he appreciates fine art. he does not conquer simply to enrich himself. he conquers so as to enrich the cultural heritage of babylon.
and when eleni arrives in his court, he is overwhelmed by a sense of meaning:
he can use her to continue creating works of beauty to endure for all eternity.
the creation of beauty: this is the purpose of accumulating material. and that is something the king of assyria never understood like he does.
the king of babylon solemnly proclaims:
we are making a better world: we serve the end of beauty
ishtar is our goddess: we do not serve the meaningless ends of the ginis
we in babylon see beneath the surface of things
imediately eleni is housed with the other enslaved people in the temple compound.
the king of babylon sits down at a table full of investors and generals to discuss their plans. every day when he wakes up he is thinking of new materials to collect, manipulate, and display: his mind is full of projects and visions to this end.
above: the hanging gardens of babylonsource
below: babylonsource
above: the ishtar gate of babylonsource
the nature of eleni’s labor
eleni is enslaved.
she knows she will never have control over her labor again.
never again will she be allowed to create according to the will of her own soul.
never again will she see herself reflected back in her own created work.
creation serves a new purpose now: creation serves the agenda of kings, investors, and temple officials. the great bank of babylon lists eleni on its balance sheets, and she is a topic of constant conversation when the board of art sits down for its meetings.
never again will eleni create those moving beings.
those beings will all be destroyed by fire.
crete is gone; minoa is gone; her shop is gone.
she will never see the sea again.
every day she is in agony, thinking about her shop, remembering those days by the sea.
remembering how happy she felt when she created something from her feelings.
she tries to remind herself that those creatures are still there.
the water is still there.
but every day when she wakes up, she is told what she will create, and not once does anyone speak to her as if she were anything other than a machine.
eleni’s body is an asset: they will keep her healthy as long as she is worth something.
eleni lives this way for years.
she watches as babylon steadily accumulates and manipulates material.
beneath the surface
the high priestess of babylonsource
one night, the high priestess of babylon comes to eleni in a dream.
eleni is standing inside the innermost sanctuary of the ziggurat.
she can feel the presence of ishtar in this room. she can feel the light of the moon.
every night the high priestess of babylon whispers something new to eleni.
all that will be left of this 2500 years from now is the octopus you made
the octopus is worth more than anything these men have ever created, any of the empires they have founded and destroyed
the nature of material: to rot into nothingness
the nature of feeling: reality
the nature of art: to endure
the nature of empire: to be forgotten
3500 years after the creation of your octopus, that being will still be moving in someone’s mind, and babylon will not even be a memory: babylon will not exist.
the octopus is all that is real
there is no babylon
the rise of persia
achaemenid persian soldiers 500 b.c.source
the great king cyrus has emerged from the east:
cyrus is creating the largest empire which the earth has ever seen.
cyrus is bringing all the materials of the world together into one massive network.
cyrus is building roads, designing postal systems, taking the hands of gods in every city under his rule, amassing craftspeople from all across the earth in his great capital of pasargadae.
babylon is under his control.
he does not destroy babylon: he takes the hands of ishtar.
“i am a new kind of ruler,” cyrus proclaims, and every day he plots new conquests.
the towers of babylonsource
the construction of the world
illustration of an ancient persian palacesource
eleni is in the great king’s court.
he treats her like a princess and affords her every material luxury.
there is one thing he does not grant her: the freedom to create.
illustration of a winged persian bullsource
“i am so happy to have you here,” the great king tells eleni warmly.
“we are creating a new world,” he adds, “a world unlike any that has come before. the assyrians believed in enslavement and destruction. the babylonians only wanted to build towers in one place reaching to the heavens. but the great empire of persia will bring all the world together: we will all become immeasurably rich.”
cyrus says he loves and respects all cultures.
he kisses eleni on the forehead, and every day he plots new conquests.
the persian empire at its zenith: crete absorbedsource
dedicated to the unnamed artist who created this octopus in the 2nd millennium b.c.e.
_-_Heraklion_AM_-_01.jpg){kind=link}
#/media/File:The_art_Bible,_comprising_the_Old_and_new_Testaments_-_with_numerous_illustrations_(1896)_(14783032815).jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
