Different Degrees of Empathy. On the Mobility of Images in Ancient Mesopotamia

Images and pictures from ancient Mesopotamia have been at the centre of several analyses and studies: in fact, their visual character has been emphasized, that is images from the ancient Mesopotamia were eventually used to reveal the real face of ancient Mesopotamia. Strongly based and imbued with preconceived ideas of the ancient Orient, the images coming from the first excavation in Iraq (from the North in the Assyrian region and the South in the land of Sumerians) were the very protagonists and worthy delegates of the Mesopotamian past: from the mid-19th century, Mesopotamia was no longer imagined and represented through allusive, allegoric, and alluring pictures, but it presented itself with its own apparatus of images and material culture.