Images in Context: The Interpretation of Weather God Imagery

“Image” and “Representation” are two concepts with which archaeologists constantly work. Thinking about them is much older than archaeology, of course. Their first coherent philosophical treatment might be seen in Plato’s Cave story², but also Ancient Mesopotamia yielded proof of man’s preoccupation with these concepts, in that they recognized the difference between ‘seeming and being’.³ The conveners of this ICAANE wrote in their description of themes for the meeting that “It is imperative to know why the images were created, how they were used and perceived… ”. These are difficult questions and their answers may differ for different areas and