Birth of Narrative Art

Pottery painting was a major art form in the ancient Near East as early as the seventh millennium B.C. For thousands of years, the designs painted on ceramic pots were largely limited to geometric or animal patterns, though these decorations were often very elaborate and striking. Then, in the third millennium B.C., Mesopotamians and Elamites began producing a new form of pottery painting: narrative scenes, or painted tableaux that tell stories in images.

How did this happen, seemingly all of a sudden? Is it possible to say why the adoption of narrative scenes—so familiar to us today in art, advertisements and even comic books—first appeared where and when they did? Can we really witness the birth of a major art form that occurred 5,000 years ago?

The answer is yes. The specific precipitating event was the development of writing in southern Mesopotamia toward the end of the fourth millennium B.C. By borrowing strategies used in writing, painters vastly increased their capacity to communicate information.