religious affairs in Eanna, and a religious elite responsible for the built heritage of Uruk
at the time.
The architectural development of Eannaitself brings into question this first inter-
pretation and the supposed exclusivity of function and responsibility. The effort to
build the tripartite structures as well as their formal homogeneity served to designate
them the ‘temples’ of Eanna,and to suggest that the religious elite was their builder.
If this interpretation is correct, then the question arises how we evaluate the break,
functionally and concerning the power organization behind it, that occurred with the
formal layout of that so-called Square building, also a building of monumental
proportions. Did the deviant form hint at a divergent function of the Square building
as well as to another group of builders –or did it represent just a new formal expression
for the same function, and was it thus also a temple?
It is again later texts and pictures that might contain appropriate answers. The
Sumerian myth of ‘Lugalbanda and Enmerkar’ written down a millennium later
(Heimpel 1992 ) outlines the enthronement of the senior officer Lugalbanda as king of
Uruk by the priests of Inanna and thus suggests that a secular power was already present
in Uruk in a mythical past. Seal impressions found for the first time in layer Uruk IVb,
the layer in which the Square building was built, depict a new theme unknown before
(Boehmer 1999 ). According to these, a previously unknown male protagonist approved
for the first time on the political stage. This male protagonist is portrayed as the one
responsible for securing the wellbeing of the community, being actively involved in
armed conflicts, protecting the community and carrying out offerings, thus being
involved in religious duties too. For the first time the pictures on seals show, and for
the first time it became necessary to emphasize, the existence of a political authority
that was responsible for both worldly and religious concerns in Uruk.Eanna: a second view on its functions – and on a possible change of the political
order in UrukMy thesis to explain the changes and innovations that had occurred according to
textual, visual, and architectural evidence paraphrases the situation as follows.
According to the sociology of architecture and the political studies dealing with the
needs of political representation (cultic as well as secular), architecture is one of the
most powerful instruments of political propaganda for presenting the will and the
world view of the ruling powers (Heinz 2009 , 2006 , 2005 ).
The built order can accordingly be read as signs of the ruling order. Monumentality
and an accumulation of monumental buildings signal unlimited availability of
resources (including human resources) and thus unlimited power in the hands of
those responsible for the building and for spatial design, in this case that of Eanna.
Monumentality guarantees visibility and visibility makes the transmission of the
intended messages obvious.
Towards the end of Uruk IV, the development of a newly established secular power,
represented by the ‘omnipresent’ male protagonist, needed a symbol which it was
impossible to overlook, to present the new political authority and to represent a new
ruling order in Uruk. The Square building, according to this idea, was this sign – the
locus of a new function and the seat of a new functional elite, thus a public building,
whose tangible function still remains to be specified.
–– Public buildings, palaces and temples ––