SPEAKING PICTURES, WRITING WORDS: ON THE INTERPLAY OF COMMUNICATION IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

Abstract

Pictures and words are the primordial ways of communication used by human beings: indeed, one might even conjecture
which communication medium arose first. The present paper aims to analyse the deep relationship between pictures and words
in ancient Mesopotamia, showing how communication is in fact the result of cooperation between the two: in particular, how
pictures prevailed over and preceded words (also today we are used or we prefer to express our thoughts and emotions through
pictures). It seems that pictures confer a stronger and more effective power in communication: the materiality of pictures as
opposed to the immateriality of words discloses the possibility of asking questions of not only what pictures are, but how
they are. Indeed, material culture deeply affects both the mind and the body and this entanglement closely links the sensual
experience (perception, shaping, and use of things) to the emotional experience (reception of and reaction to things). In this
respect, pictures are special objects of the material world and they can do things to people or even make people to do things
that words cannot do.