The task of gleaning meaning from a given image produced in the 21^stcentury (CE) is challenging, to attempt the same feat with art now many centuries out of context is particularly difficult. In Ways of Seeing, John Berger emphasizes the role of the viewer in experiencing art: “Every image embodies a way of seeing…Yet, although every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing.”¹ Berger’s insight into the distance between artist/maker and viewer/audience highlights the risk of bringing modern lens and sensibilities to ancient art. Beyond art, this challenge has deep roots in the histories of scholarship regarding the religions of YHWH and Ahura Mazda. As noted in previous chapters, religio-historical “Truth” claims and assumptions that underlie the social contexts out of which arose “Western” academia continue to mark (and often muddy) interpretations of ancient texts and archaeological data. Berger writes,

[When] an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions about art. Assumptions concerning: Beauty/ Truth/ Genius/ Civilization/ Form/ Status/ Taste, etc. Many of these assumptions no longer accord with the world as it is…Out of true with the present, these assumptions obscure the past. They mystify rather than clarify. The past is never there waiting to be discovered, to be recognized for exactly what it is.²

The significance of a viewer’s perspective, biases, and experiences to process of interpreting an art object appears, from Berger’s comments, to be particularly one-sided. Regardless of the intention of the artist or design, it seems that not only “Beauty” but also “Meaning” can be said to be found “in the eye of the beholder.” This is not to discount the importance of the artists, designers, and patrons/clients to the process of creating art, but rather to emphasize the difficulty of understanding a variety of aspects concerning the complex relationship between intention, perception, and reception in the production of ancient art.

Berger’s comments echo Taves’ suggestion that “ways things can be set apart as special” connect aspects of “doing religion” with cross-culturally similar activities in a variety of non-religious domains. There exists a considerable variety of studies regarding the similarity between how things religious and art are produced and regarded.³ The study of Art, like Religious Studies, belongs to the category described by Taves’ as “raider disciplines.”⁴ Chapter Two (“An Approach: Theories and Methodology”) discussed the challenge of defining “Religion” and the benefit of Taves’ approach to avoiding the issue. In an effort to allow for potential intentions and perceptions of the ancient objects under examination in the present discussion, this chapter considers a broad variety of visual products that may be deemed “Art” further deemed religious. The difficulty of identifying or interpreting layers of intended and perceived meanings (or functions) in ancient art frequently results in a simplification of categories to which various objects might be assigned. Although a comprehensive exploration of potential approaches to categorizing these objects is beyond the scope of this dissertation, it is important to note that a wide variety of descriptions exist for visual art in the modern world. More work is needed to consider the usefulness of categories such as “Outsider Art,” “Folk Art,” “Propaganda,” “Advertisement,” “Pop Art,” “Decorative Arts,” “Handicraft,” or “Wearable Art,” to name a few, to the evaluation and interpretation of ancient artifacts.