THE PELICAN HISTORY OF ART
EDITED BY NIKOLAUS PEVSNER Z7
THE ART AND ARCHITECTURE OP THE ANCIENT ORIEJ^T HENKI PBANKFOKT
HENRI FRANKFORT
THE ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE ANCIENT ORIENT
REFERENCE Not to be lent out
PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN BOOKS
Penguin Books Ltdt Harmondsworth, Middlesex Penguin Books Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A, Penguin Books Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Pettguin Books (Canada) Ltd, Montreal, Canada Penguin Books (5.^.) Pty Ltd, Cape Tottm, South Africa
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Text printed by Richard Clay & Company Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Plates printed by the Shetival Press Ltd, London Made and printed in Great Britain
CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES ix
LIST OF PLATES xiii
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THF LISTS OF FIGURES AND PLATES XXI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS XXiv
INTRODUCTION XXV
Part One Mesopotamia
1. THE EMERGENCE OF SUMERIAN ART: Till PROTOLITERATE PERIOD
(circa 3500-3000 B.C .) I
Introduction i
Architecture 2
Applied Sculpture and Relief 9
Sculpture in the Round 12
Commemorative Relief 14
Cylinder Seals 14
2. THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD (ClRCA 3OOO- 234O B.C.) t8
Introduction 18
Architecture 20
Sculpture in the Round 23
Engraving and Relief 31
Glyptic Art 36
3. THE AKKADIAN PERIOD (234O-2180 B.C.) 4I
4. THE NEO-SUMERIAN PERIOD (2125-2025 B.C.) AND TKF PERIOD OF
ISIN, LARSA, AND BABYLON (2025-I594 B.C.) 47
Lagash 47
The Third Dynasty of Ur 50
The Isin-Larsa Period 54
Hammurabi of Babylon S9
V
CONTENTS
5. THE ART OP THE KASSITE DYNASTY (ciRCA l600-II00 B.C.) 62
6. THE BEGINNINGS OF ASSYRIAN ART (ciRCA I35O-IOOO B.C.) 65
7. THE LATE ASSYRIAN PERIOD (ciRCA IOOO-6l2 B.C.) 73
Arcliitecturc 73
Sculpture in the Round 81
Relief and Painting 84
Applied Arts loi
8. THE NEO-BABYLONIAN PERIOD (ciRCA 612-539 B.C.) IO6
Part Two
The Peripheral Regions
9. ASIA MINOR AND THE HITTITES III
Introduction in
Anatolia up to the Middle of the Second Millennium b.c. i 1 1
The Hittitc Empire {circa 1400-1200 B.c.) 117
Arcliitccturc 117
Sculpture 121
TO. THE LEVANT IN THE SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C. I33
Introduction 133
Egyptian Predominance (2000-1800 b.c.) and Babylonian Penetration
(1800-1700 b.c.) 136
The Mitannian Era {circa 1450-1360 b.c.) 140
The Hittite and Ramessid Era (1360-1150 b.c.) 153
IT. ARAMAEANS AND PHOENICIANS IN SYRIA*. NORTH SYRIAN ART (85O-
650 B.C.) 164
Introduction 164
Architecture 167
Sculpture 175
Phoenician and Syrian Art 188
Ivories 191
Metal-work 195
VI
CONTENTS
|
THE ART OF ANCIENT PERSIA |
202 |
|
Introduction |
202 |
|
The Luristan Bronzes |
207 |
|
Achacmcnian Art |
213 |
|
Introduction |
21^ |
|
Architecture |
2IS |
|
Sculpture |
225 |
|
NOTES |
235 |
|
BIBLIOGRAPHY |
269 |
The Plates
INDEX 273
hOLDINC; MAP OF ANCIl NT NEAR EAST
Vll
LIST OF FIGURES
I Three prehistoric bowls, from Samarra
{Jttl Nr East. Stud, in, 1944, 47-72) i
2 Temple in stratum XIII, Tepe Gawra
(Toblcf, Plate 12) 3
3 Temple VII, Abu Shahrein (Sumer 111,
1947. Figure 3) 4
4 The ‘Wliitc Temple’ on its ziggurat,
Warka (U.V.B, viu, 1936, 13) 5
5 Sin Temple II, Khafaje (Dclougaz and
Lloyd, Plate 2B) 7
6 Sin Temple V, Khafaje (Delougaz and
Lloyd, Plate 5a) 8
7 Seal impressions of the Protoliterate period (U.V.B. V, 1933, Plates 23a; 24a, g; 26b,
c, d) ; (d from Susa) 16
8 Brocade style seal, from Khafaje. Height
c. 3 cm: li in. t8
9 Development of a steatite vase, from Khafaje. See Plate 11, Height r. 5 cm : 2 in.
(Brit. Mus. Qrt. xi, Plate 32) 19
10 Sin Temple Vlll, Khafaje (Dclougaz and
Lloyd, Plate 10) 20
11 Section through a tomb, Ur (Woolley i,
Plate 24) 2T
12 Early Dynastic seal impression. Height c.
4 cm: li in. Berlin 23
13 Macehead. Height c. 10 cm: 4 in. Depart-
ment of Oriental and Classical Antiquities, National Museum, Copenhagen 32
14 Seal impressions of the second Early Dy- nastic Period, from Fara (Heinrich i.
Plates 47a; 65c; 49f; 46f; 51I) 37
15 Two seal impressions of the second Early Dynastic period from (a) Tell Agrab and
(b) Khafaje 38
16 Seal impressions of tlie third Early Dy-
nastic period (a) Berlin, from Fara, and (b) Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam 39
17 Akkadian seal impressions, (a) from Tell
Asmar, (b) Biblioth^que Nationale, Paris 45
1 8 Goddess pouring water from sky, from the
Stele of Umammu of Ur (cf. Plate 53) 51
19 Plan of the Gimilsin Temple and the
palaceof the rulers of Eshnunna by the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur (Frankfort, Lloyd, and Jacobsen, Plate i) 5^
20 The Assur temple £, Assur (Hdb. der Arch.
h 691) 55
21 Plan and section of a private house at Ur
(Antiq.Jnl, vn. Plates 41-2) 56
22 Terra-cotta figure of a guardian Uon from tlie temple at Tell llarmal. Height c. 63
cm: 25 in. <7
23 Plan of the temple of Karaindash, Warka
(Ildh. der Arch. 700) 63
24 Middle Assyrian seal impressions (a, b,
Andrae 2, Figures 49, 50; c, Frankfort i. Figure 59) 68
25 Plan of the Ishtar tcn^ple of I’ukulti-Ni-
niirta 1 (Andrae 2, Figure 47) 69
26 Reconstruction of the Ishtar temple of
I'uknlti-Ninurta I (Andrae 2, Figure 48) 69
27 Assur temple of Tukulti-Ninurta I (An- drae 2, Figure 42) 70
28 The northern part of the city of Assur, re-
constructed by Walter Andrae (Andrae 2, Figure 24) 71
29 Plan of Khorsabad (Loud 2, Plate 69) 74
30 Plan of Sargon’s palace, Khorsabad, after
Place 75
31 Main entrance to Sargon’s throne room,
after Place 76
32 Reconstruction of Ziggurat of Khorsabad
by Victor Place and Albert Thomas 79
33 Panel of gLized bricks flanking entrance to
palace temples, Kliorsabad, after Place and Thomas 80
34 Plan of Palace F, Khorsabad (Loud 2,
Plate 75) 82
35 Column base, from Khorsabad (Piich-
stcin, Figure 40) 82
36 Plan of the private apartments in die Assy-
rian palace, A ’ slan Tash (Thurcau-Dangin a.o.. Figure 10) 83
37 North-west wall of Sargor 's throne room
at Khorsabad, reconstructed by Cnarlcs Altman (Loud 2, Plate 88) 84
38 Weadier-god and dragon, relief from the
temple of Ninurta, Nimrud 88
39 Assyrian inlay of ivory, from Nimrud
(Perrot et Chipiez, II, Figure 391) 102
40 Door-sill of marble decorated in relief
with a carpet design, from Khorsabad (Perrot et Chipiez, II, Figure 96) 103
IX
LIST OF FIGURES
41 Embroidered tunic of Assurnasirpal, on a
relief, from Nimrud (Perrot et Chipicz, II, Figure 444) 104
42 Plan of E-mali temple, Babylon (Kolde-
wey 2, Figure 38) 107
43 Gates and palaces in the second city at His-
sarlik (Troy), after Dorpfeld 112
44 Pin, car pendants, and bracelet from tlic second city at Hissarlik (Troy). (After Schlicmann and Hubert Schmidt). Heights: (a) f. 7 cm: 3 in.; (b) r. 3 cm:
in.; (c) r. 8 cm: 3J in.; (d) c. 1 cm: i in. 114
45 Design on engraved vase, from Maikop
(cf. Plate 124) 115
46 Shoulder design on a vase, from Maikop 115
47 Temple I, Boghazkeuy (Bittel 2, Figure
!i) 119
48 Temple III, Boghazkeuy (Bittel 2, Figure
46) T20
49 Sphinx, from Yerkapu (cf Plate 126) 122
50 Head of Lion from the Lion gate, Boghaz-
keuy (cf Plate I 28a). (After Akurgal, Figure 26) 123
51 Plan of Yasilikaya (Bittel, Nauniann,
Otto, Plate 39) 125
52 Demon, at Yasilikaya (Akurgal, Figure 31) 126
53 Sword god, at Yasilikaya (cf Plate 13 1 a)
(Akurgal, Figure 30) 126
34 King adoring bull, at Ala^a HCiyiik (Gar- stang. Figure 8) T27
55 Lion hunt, at Ala^a Hiiyuk 128
56 Rock sculpture, at Imarnkulii. Height c.
180 cm; 71 in. (Gclb, Plate 27) 129
57 Ivory plaque, found at Megiddo. I leight
c. TO cm; 4 in. (after Loud 3, Plates 10, ii) 130
58 Metal belt, from Boghazkeuy (Mitdi. X.
Or. gcs.) 131
59 Stele, from Jcbelet cl Beida. Height f. 300
cm: 120 in. (after Oppenheim) 136
60 Gold dagger and sheath, from Byblos
(Dussaud I, Figure 5) 138
6t Dagger hilt, from Saqqara (Montet 2, Figure 171) 139
Cm Plan of the palace of Yarimlim, Tell At- chana {Autiq.Jnl xxviii, Plate 1) 139
63 Mitannian seal impression 141
64 Mitannian pottery, from Tell Atchana and Tell Billa {Antiq. Jnl xviir. Plates ii, 16,
18, 19; Mus.Jnl, XIII, Plate 61) 142
65 Fragment of a wall painting, from Nuzi
(Starr, Plates 128-9) 144
66 Painted cup, from Tell Brak. Height c. 12
cm: 5 in. (Iraq IX, Plate 40) 144
67 Plan of the palace of Niqmcpa, Tell At- chana (Antiq. Jtil xix, Plate 3) 146
68 Development of gold bowl, from Ras
Shainra. Diameter r. 17 cm; 7 in. (Schaef- fer 3, Plate 8) 149
69 Engraved bronze foil, from Tyre (Dus- saud, Figure 64) 151
70 Ivory gaming board, from Enkomi.
Height c. 5 cm; 2 in. (Drawing Helene J. Kantor) 152
71 Ivory comb, from Megiddo. Height c. 6 cm: zi in. (Drawing Helene J. Kantor) 1 57
72 Two sides of carved ivory rod, from Megiddo. Height c. 19 cm: yj in. (Loud 3,
Plate 22) 158
73 Chariot battle, on ivory inlay from Me- giddo. Height f. 5 cm: 2 in. (Loud 3,
Plate 32) 158
74 Feast, on ivory inlay from Megiddo.
Height f. 5 cm: 2 in. (Loud 3. Plate 32) 158
75 Victorious homecoming and feasts, on an ivory inlay from Megiddo. Height c. 6
cm: 2j in. (Loud j, Plate 4) 159
76 Ahiram*s sarcophagus, from Byblos. Height without cover 80 cm: 32 in. (Syria
XI, Figure 180) 160
77 Cover of Ahiram’s sarcophagus (Syria xi,
Figure 181) 160
78 Temple of level lA, Tell Atchana (Antiq.
Jnl XXX, Figure 5) 163
79 Temple of level ib. Tell Atchana (Antiq.
Jnl XXX, Figure 6) 163
80 Plan of the Upper Palace, Zin^irli (Lus-
chan, Plate 22) 168
81 The use of stone, mud-brick, and wood
(Luschan, Figure 63) 169
82 Plan of the Acropolis of Zin^irli (Lusdian) 170
83 Southern gate of citadel, Zin^rli (Lus- chan, 209) I 71
84 Plan of the palace of Kaparu, Tell Halaf
(Oppenheim, 82) 172
85 Reconstruction of section through Scor- pion Gate, Tell Halaf (Naumaim ii. Figure
42) 173
86 Reconstruction of section through the por-
tico of die palace of Kaparu at Tell Halaf (Naumann, Figure 31) T73
87 Three guardian lions from gates at Zin-
drli (Syria ii, Figure 60) 182
88 Reliefs, from Cardiemi^ (Syria ii. Figures
26, 30) 182
89 Reliefs from Sakjegeuzi (Syria n. Figure
112) 183
X
LIST OF FIGURES
90 Courtiers, from Zin^irli (Syria n, Figure
82) 184
91 Tomb stone, from Marasli (Akurgal,
Figure 18) 185
92 Development of decoration on ivory
box, from Nimrud. Height 7 cm : 2i in, (Jr<i</n, Figure 3) 191
93 Frieze of palm-trees, ivory inlays, from
Arslan Tash. Height loi cm: 4 in. (Thu- reau Dangin a.o.. Figure 47) 192
94 Gold bracelet, from Cyprus (Perrot ct
Chipiez m. Figure 603) 196
95 Cypriote capital of a pilaster (Dussaud,
j, 323) 196
96 Bronze bowl, from Olympia. Diameter
f. 20 cm: 8 in. (Perrot ct Chipiez, Figure 550) 198
97 Bowl from the Bemardini tomb at Pales- trina 200
98 Bronze bowl, from Curium in Cyprus
(Perrot ct Chipiez, Figure 552) 201
99 Three prehistoric vases from Susa (after
Pettier) 203
100 Prehistoric cup, from Perscpolis. Height
r. T9 cm: 7i in, (after LangsdorfF and McCown, Plates 4, 10) 203
101 Silvcrdisk,Sakkiz treasure (Courtesy, Dr
and Mmc Ghirshman) 206
102 Two bronze buckets, from Luristan
(Contenau 2, iv, 2172-3) 208
103 'Jlircc pinheads (Syria xxvi, Figures 2, 6,
7) 209
104 Two horsebits (a, «) and four cheek-
pieces (c-h) from Luristan (Schaeffer r. Figure 266, Nos. 9. 10, n) 210
105 Pole top, from Luristan (.ifier Godard) 21 1
106 I'wo war axes, from Luristan (Srliaefier
I, Figure 266, Nos. 2, 3) 2T1
107 Two halberd blades, from Luristan
(ScliaclFcr i. Figure 265, Nos. 9, 10) 2ij
108 The terrace of Mcshed-i-Sulaiinan (Syria
xxvii, p. 208) 2 TO
109 Plan of Pasargadac (after Ilcrzfcld, Plate
42) 217
110 Plan of Perscpolis (Courtesy, Dr Erich F.
Schmidt) 219
TIT Colimin of wood covered witli painted plaster, from the treasury of Perscpolis (Courtesy, Dr Erich F. Schmidt) 221
1 12 Column with human-headed bull capital,
from the Tripylon (cf. Plate 185) 222
113 Capital from Neandria (after Puchstcin) 224
1 14 Capital from Naukratis (after Poulsen) 224
115 Column of tlie Naxians (after Hcrzfcld) 225
116 Winged genius on doorjamb at Pasar- gadac (after Kcr-Portcr) 226
117 Sword scabbard of bearer of the royal
arms (cf. Plate 1844) 229
Xl
LIST OF PLATES
1 The ‘White Temple' on the archaic Ziggurat at
Warka (U.V.B. vin, 1936, Plate 40B)
2 (a) Half engaged columns covered with cone
mosses at Warka (U.V.B. ni, 1932, Plate i)
(b) Panels of cone mosaics at Warka (U.V.B. vn, 1935, Plate 17A)
3 (a) and (b) Alabaster vase, from Warka. Height
c. 91 cm: 36 in. (Heinrich 2, Plate 3)
(c) Gypsum trough, probably from Warka. Height c. 20 cm: 8 in. (Courtesy, Trustees of the British Museum)
4 (a) Ram-shaped support, from Warka, Height
c. 10 cm: 4 in. (Heinrich 2, Plate 6)
(b) Head of a ewe, from Warka. 1 Icight r. 10 cm: 4 in. (Heinrich 2, Plates 7A, 8b)
5 (a) Ewer of yellow limestone, from Warka.
Height f. 20 cm: 8 in. (Heinrich 2, Plates 22-
3)
(b) Stone bowl decorated with bulls and cars of corn. Height r. 5 cm: 2 in. Iraq Museum (Courtesy, Director General of Antiquities, Baghdad)
6 (a) and (b) Cup with sculptured figures, from
Tell Agrab. Height c. 1 5 cm : 6 in. (Courtesy, Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
(c) Base of cup, with sculptured figures, from Tell Agrab. Height c, 20 cm : 8 in. In the Iraq Museum, Baghdad (Courtesy, Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
7 Female head in gypsum, from Warka. Height c,
20 cm: 8 in. (U.V.B. xi, 1940, Plate i)
8 (a) Cylinder-seal impression (Nics-Keiser, Plate
76b)
(b) Cylinder-seal impression (l.M. 10759)
(Courtesy, Director General of Antiquities, Baghdad)
(c) Cylinder seal (Delaporte i, A-41)
(d) Cylinder-seal impression, from Tell Billa (Courtesy, Professor £. A. Speiser)
9 (a) Granite stele, from Warka. Height c. 76
cm: 30 in. (U.V.B. v, 1933, Plates 12-13)
(b) Statuette, from Khafaje. Height c. 10 cm:
4 in. (Frankfort 2, Plate i)
(c) Monster, in crystalline limestone. Height c,
9 cm: 3k in. Guennol Collection, Brooklyn Museum (Courtesy, Mr and Mrs A. B. Martin)
xiii
10 Monster, in crystalline limestone. Height c, 9
cm: 3k in. Guennol Collection, Brooklyn Museum (Courtesy, Mr and Mn A. B Martin)
11 (a) Steatite vase, from Bismaya. Height r. it
cm: 4k in. (Courtesy, Director, Oriental In- stitute, University of Chicago)
(b) Steatite vase, from Khafaje. Height r. 10 cm : 4 in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
12 The Temple Oval at Khafaje, reconstruction by
Hamilton D. Darby (Deloiigaz, Frontis-
pia?)
13 Group of statues, from the Abu Temple at Tell
Asinar. Scale 1:6 (Frankfort 3, Figure 13)
14 Upper part of gypsum statue, from Tell Asmar.
Height 17 cm: 7 in. (Frankfort 3, Plate to)
15 Head of the god Abu. Height c. 15 cm: 6 in.
(Frankfort 4, Plate 3)
16 Gypsum statuette, from Tell A.smar. Height c,
29 cm: 12 in. (Frankfort 4, Plate 19)
17 (a) and (b) Statue of priest, from Tell Asmar.
Height r. 40 cm: 16 in. (Frankfort 4, Plate 22)
18 (a) and (b) Head of a woman, from TeU Agrab.
Height 12 cm: 5 in. (Frankfort 2, Plates
43-4)
19 (a) and (b) Seated man, from Tell Agrab. Height
13 cm: 5 111. (Frankfort a. Plates 35’-6)
20 (a) Copper model of chariot, from Tell Agrab.
Height f, 7 cm: 3 in. (Frankfort 2, Plate 58)
(b) Copper offering stand, from Khafaje. Height
41 cm: 16 in. (Frankfort 2, Plate 05)
(c) Coppcc oficruig stand, from Tell Agrab. Height r. 10 cm: 4 in. (Frankfort 2, Plate 54)
21 Statue of a priest, from Khafaje. Height r. 23
cm: 9 in. (Frankfort 2, Frontispiece)
22 (a) and (b) Priest’s head, from Khafaje. Height
r. 5 cm: 2i in. (Frankfni - 4, Plate 54)
(c) Statue, from Khafaje. Height c. 21 cm: 8 in. (Frankfort 4, Plate 79)
23 Statue of Ibihil, from Mari, in the Louvre.
Height r. 53 cm: 21 in. (Courtesy Andr6 Parrot)
24 (a) Statue from Mari. Height c. 30 cm: 12 in.
Aleppo Museum (Courtesy Andr6 Parrot) (b) Statue, from Khafaje. Height r. 41 cm: 16 in. (FranHort 4, Plate 72)
LIST OF PLATES
25 (a) and (b) Head« from Tell Agrab, Height 8 cm :
3 in. (Frankfort 2, Plate 42)
26 (a) Arm-rest of throne, from Khafaje. Height c,
7 cm: 2) in. (Frankfort 2, Plate 50)
(b) Statuette of bearded cow of serpentine, from Khafaje. Height 11 cm: 4 in. (Frankfort 2, Plate 47)
27 (a) Copper relief, from Al 'Ubaid. Height r. 106
cm: 42 in. (Hall and Woolley, Plate 6)
(b) Harp, from Ur. Height r. 122 cm: 48 in. (Woolley I, Plate 114)
28 Offering stand, from Ur. Height r. 50 cm: 20 in.
(Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
29 (a) Rein ring with gold onager, from Ur.
Height r. 15 cm: 6 in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
(b) Copper head of a goat, from Nippur. Height r. 18 cm: 7 in. (Courtesy, Director, University Museum, Philadelphia)
(c) Copper rush light, from Kish. Height c. 46 cm: 18 in. (Courtesy, Director, Natural History Museum, Chicago)
30 Jewellery of Queen Shubad, from Ur. Scale
(Courtesy, Director, University Museum, Philadelphia)
31 Part of a harp, from Ur. Scale c. 2:5. (Courtesy,
Director, University Museum, Philadelphia)
32 Silver vase of Entcmcna, from Telloh. Height c.
35 cm: 14 in. Louvre, on copper foot (De Sarzec, Pkte 43)
33 (a) Stele, from Khafaje with a fragment, from
Ur. Height r. 33 cm: 13 in. (Frankfort 4, Plate 107, and Woolley i, Plate 181)
(b) Stele, from Telloh. Height r. 40 cm: 16 in. (De Sarzec, Plate 2 bis)
34 Obverse and side of Eannatum's stele of victory,
from Telloh. Height r. 182 cm: 72 in. (De Sarzec, Plate 48 bis)
35 Reverse of Eannatum's stele of victory, from
Telloh. Height r. 182 cm: 72 in. (De Sarzec, Plate 4H)
36 Obverse of inlaid panel, from Ur. Height c. 20
cm: 8 in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
37 Reverse of inlaid panel, from Ur. Height r. 20
cm: 8 in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
38 Inlay on soundbox of a harp, from Ur (cf. Plate
28) (Courtesy, Director, University Mu- seum, Philadelphia)
39 Three Early Dynastic seal impressions. Enlarged.
(Iraq Museum 2514, E.D. n; Khafaje, E.D. 11; Collection De Clercq 41, E.D. ni)
40 (a) to (c) Three Early Dynastic seal impressions.
Enlarged. (Ur 57; Koninklyk Penningkabi- nct. The Hague No. 3 ; Ur 298; all E.D. m)
41 Gypsum head, from Bismaya. Height r. 9 cm:
3} in. (Frankfort 2, Plate 68)
42 Bronze head of an Akkadian ruler, from Kuyun-
jik. Height c, 30 cm: 12 in. (Courtesy, Director General of Antiquities, Baghdad)
43 Bronze head of an Akkadian ruler, from Ku-
yunjik. Height c, 30 cm: 12 in. (Courtesy, Director General of Antiquities, Baghdad)
44 Stele of victory of Naram&in. Height c. 198 cm:
78 in. Louvre (Archives Photographiques)
45 (a) to (d) Akkadian seal impressions, (a) Frag-
ment showing hero throttling lion (BM 91478 ; Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
(b) Priest libating before weather-gods (Picr- pont Morgan Library No. 220; Courtesy, Dr Edith Porada)
(c) Seal with blank panel for inscription, from Tell Asmar (TA 33/113)
(d) Seal of servant of Sargon of Akkad. En- larged (Collection De Clercq No. 46)
46 Gudea holding the plan of a building. Height r.
73 cm: 29 in. (Zervos)
47 Statue of Gudea. Height r. 73 cm: 29 in (Cour-
tesy, Trustees, British Museum)
48 Head of Gudea. Height c, 22 cm: 9 in. (Cour-
tesy, Director, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
49 Statuette of Gudea. Height r. 40 cm: 16 in.
(Collection Adolphe Stoclet, Brussels)
50 (a) Head of a man. Height r. $ cm: 2 in.
(Contenau i, Plate 29)
(b) Head of a woman. Height r. 7 cm : 3 in. (Dc Sarzec, Plate 24 bis)
(c) Human-headed bull. Height c. 10 cm: 4 in. (Contenau 2, Figure 489)
51 (a) Copper foundation figure. Height c, 20 cm:
8 in. (Dc Sarzec, Plates 28, 3)
(b) Steatite pitcher of Gudea. Height c. 22 cm:
9 in. (Louvre Archives Photographiques)
(c) Steatite cover of a lamp. Width c, 7 cm : 3 in. (Louvre Archives Photographiques)
52 (a) and (b) The Ziggurat at Ur (Woolley i,
Plate 41)
53 Restored stele of Umammu, from Ur. Height r.
304 cm: 120 in. (Courtesy, Director, Uni- versity Museum, Philadelphia)
54 (a) Seal impression of King Ibisin of Ur on a
tablet. Enlarged. (Courtesy, Director, Uni- versity Museum, Philadelphia)
(b) Marble head of a woman, from Ur. Height r. 7 cm: 3 in. (Courtesy, Director, Univer- sity Museum, Philadelphia)
xiv
LIST OF
(c) Tcrra-cotto head of a god, from Tclloh (Courtesy, Andrd Parrot)
55 The Temple of Ishtar-Kititum, at Ishthali. Re-
construction by Harold D. Hill. (Courtesy, Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
56 Terra-cotta relief of Lilith. Height r. 50 cm : 20
in. (Collection, Colonel Norman Colville)
57 Statuette of the goddess Ningal, from Ur.
Height f. 50 cm: 20 in. (Courtesy, Director, University Museum, Philadelphia)
58 Small terra-cotta reliefs, (a) The demon Hum-
baba. Height f. 7 cm; 3 in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
(») God killing fiery Cyclops, from Khafaje. Height f . n cm: 4! in. (Courtesy, Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
(c) Nintu, the Lady of births. Height r. to cm;
4 in. (Courtesy, Director General of Anti- quities, Baghdad)
Sf) Terra-cotta reliefs, from Khafaje and Uhchali (Courtesy, Director, Oriental Institute, Uni- versity of Chicago)
(a) Mastiff and puppies. Height c, 10 cm : 4 in.
(b) Harpist. Height r. 22 cm: 5 in.
(c) Man riding Zebu. Height c. 7 cm : 3 in.
60 Puzur-Ishtar of Mari. Height c. 175 cm; 69
in. (Courtesy, Director, Archaeological Museum, Istanbul)
61 (a) Ishtup-ilum of Mari. Height r. 63 cm : 25 in.
(Courtesy, Andrd Parrot)
(b) Offering bearer, from Mari. Height c. 22 cm: 9 in. (Courtesy, Andr6 Parrot)
(c) Idu-ilum of Mari. 1 Icight r. 30 cm : 12 in. (Courtesy, Andre Parrot)
62 (a) and (b) Goddess holding flowing vase, from
Mari. Height r. 152 cm: 60 in. (Courtesv, Andrd Parrot)
63 Head of a king, possibly Hammurabi. Height r.
IS cm: 6 in. Louvre. (Archives Photo- graphiques)
64 Bronze statue of a man kneeling in adoration.
Height c. 20 cm: 8 in. Louvre. (Archives Photographiques)
65 Top of stele with the law code of Hammurabi,
showing die king before the sun god. Height c. 71 cm: 28 in. Louvre
66 Bronze figure of four-faced god, from Ishchali.
Height r. 17 cm: 7 in. (Frankfort 2, Plates
77-9)
67 (a) Fragment of stone bowl, from Ishchali.
Height r. II cm: 4l in. (Courtesy, Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
PLATES
(b) Vase in the shape of a mastiff, of Sumuilu of Larsa. Height c. 8 cm: 3} in. (Louvre Ar- chives Photographiques)
68 (a) Top of a ceremonial staff in the shape of a
ram’s head, from Ur. Height c. 7 cm: 3 in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
(b) Jewellery of the priestess Abbabshti, agate set in gold, from Warka. Height of central bead c. 7 cm: 3 in. (U.V.B. vin, 1936, Plate 39b)
(c) Stone vase, from Susa. Height r. 6 cm: 2I in. Louvre (Archives Photographiques)
69 Fragments of wall paintings from Zimrilim's
palace at Mari. Height of largest fragment r. 81 cm: 32 in. (Courtesy, Andr^ Parrot)
70 Sculpture of the Kassitc period
(a) Part of outside wall of temple of Karaindash at Warka. Height of brickwork r. 198 cm: 78 in. (Photo, Marburg)
(b) Terra-cotta head of a man, from Aqar Quf. Height f. 7 cm; 3 in. (Courtesy, Director GtMicral of Antiquities, Baghdad)
(c) Terra-cotta head of lioness. Height r. 5 cm:
2 m. (Courtesy, Dircc tor General of Anti- quities, Baghdad)
71 Boundars stone of Marduk-nadin-akhe. Height
f. 53 cm: 2T in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
72 Cult relief showing god of fertility, from Assur.
Height r. 122 cm • 48 in. (Photo, Marburg)
73 (a) Top of granite obelisk. Height f. 63 cm: 25
in. (Courtesy. Trustees, British Museum)
(b) Altar of Tukulti-Ninurta I, from Assur. Height r. 53 cm; 21 in. (Photo, Marburg)
74 (a) and (b) Two fragments of wall paintings
from die palace of Tukulti-Ninurta 1. Heights (a) r. 8j cm: 32 m. (b) c. 55 cm; 22 in. (Andrac i, Plates 2, 3)
75 Three Middle Assyrian seal impressions. En-
larged
(a) Lion, winged horse, and foal (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
(b) Hunter and game (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
(c) Winged demon pursuing ostrich (Pierpont Morgan Library No. 606; Courtesy, Dr Edidi Porada)
76 Middle Assyrian seal impressions
(a) Leaping deer and tree (Pierpont Morgan Library No. 601, Courtesy, Dr Edith Porada)
(b) Bulls, birds, and trees (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
LIST OF PLATES
(c) Lion centaur and lion. (Berlin, Courtesy, Dr A. Moortgat)
(d) Winged genius, gazelles, and fox. Enlarged (Courtesy, Director General of Antiquities, Baghdad)
77 (a) Winged bull guarding entrance to throne
room, from Khorsabad. Height c, 457 cm: 180 in. (Loud 1, Figure 56)
(b) Gate A of Citadel, Khorsabad (Loud 2, Plate 7)
78 View over Dur Sharrukin (Khorsabad) from the
Ziggurat of Sargon's palace. Reconstruction by Charles Altman. (Loud 2, Plate 2)
79 The Citadel of Dur Sharrukin (Khorsabad). Re-
construction by Charles Altman. (Loud 2, Plate i)
80 Head of amber statuette of Plate 81 (Courtesy,
Director, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
81 Amber statuette of an Assyrian king. Height r.
24 cm: 9i in. (Courtesy, Director, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
82 Statue of Assurnasirpai II, from Nimrud.
Height c. 91 cm: 36 in. (Photo, Mansell)
83 Winged genius, from Citadel gate, Khorsabad.
Height c, 365 cm : 144 in. (Loud 2, Plate 46A)
84 Assurnasirpai II at war, from Nimrud. Height r.
99 cm: 39 in. (Photo, Mansell)
85 Fugitives crossing river, from Nimrud. Height
c. 99 cm: 39 in. (Photo, Mansell)
86 City attacked with battering ram, from Nim-
rud. Height r. 99 cm : 39 in. (Photo, Mansell)
87 Assurnasirpai II killing lions, from Nimrud.
Height c, 99 cm: 39 in. (Photo, Mansell)
88 Assurnasirpai II receiving homage, from Nim-
rud. Height c. 99 cm: 39 in. (Photo, Mansell)
89 Assurnasirpai II, from Nimrud. Height c. 233
cm: 92 in. (Photo, Mansell)
90 Griffin-demons and sacred tree, from Nimrud.
Height c. 109 cm: 43 in. (Photo, Mansell)
91 Assyrians at the source of the Tigris, from Bala-
wat. Height c. 27 cm: ii in. (King i, Plate
59)
92 (a) Assyrians receiving tribute, from Balawat.
Height r. 27 cm: II in. (King i, Plate 64) (b) Tribute from Tyre; Assyrians on the march, from Balawat. Height c. 27 cm : 1 1 in. (King 1, Plate 13)
93 Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, from Nimrud.
Height r. 205 cm: 81 in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
94 (a) Religious ceremony, time of Tiglathpilcsar
III. Height c. 80 cm: 31^ in. (Collection, Duke of Bedford, Woburn Abbey)
(b) Booty from a city token by Tiglathpilcsar III. Height c. loi cm : 40 in. (Photo, Mansell)
95 Wall painting in the throne room of Sargon
at Khorsabad. Height r. 1340 cm: 528 in. (Loud 2, Plate 89)
96 Sargon and Courtier, from Khorsabad. Height
c. 304 cm: 120 in. (Loud i. Figure 38)
97 Men bringing offerings, from Khorsabad.
Height c. 304 cm: 120 in. (Louvre Archives Photographiques)
98 Hunting scene, from Khorsabad. Height r. 106
cm: 42 in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
99 Sennacherib's war in die marshes, from Ku-
yunjik (Nineveh) (Layard, Monuments of Nineveh i, Plate 25)
100 War in the marshes, detail from preceding scene.
Height f. 152 cm: 60 in. {Assyrian Sculp- tures in the British Museum^ 1938, Plate l)
101 Sennacherib at the capitulation of Lachish,
from Kuyunjik. Height r. 137 cm: 54 in. (Photo, Mansell)
102 (a) Sennacherib at war, from Kuyunjik. (Gadd,
Plate 13)
(b) Assurbanipal's Arab war, from Kuyunjik. Height r. 149 cm: 59 in. (Photo, Mansell)
103 Capture of Susa by Assurnasirpai, from Kuyun-
jik. Height r. 149 cm: 59 in. (Photo, Mansell)
104 and 105 Tile Defeat of die Elamites, from
Kuyunjik. Height r. 132 cm: 52 in. (Photo, ManseU)
106 Elamites in flight, from Kuyunjik. Height c.
205 cm: 81 in. (Photo, Man^l)
107 The sack of die city of Hamaan, from Kuyun-
jik. Height f. 91 cm : 36 in. (Photo, Mansell)
108 (a) Lions in royal park, from Kuyunjik. Height
r. 99 cm; 39 in. (Photo, Mansell)
(b) Lion released and killed, from Kuyunjik. Height r. 68 cm: 27 in. (Photo, Mansell)
109 Assurbanipal killing lion, from Kuyunjik.
Height c. 53 cm: 21 in. (Photo, Mansell)
I TO Lion springing at Assurbanipal, from Kuyun- jik. Height f. 157 cm: 62 in. (Photo, Mansell)
111 (a) Dying lioness, from Kuyunjik. Height c.
60 cm: 24 in. (Photo, Mans^)
(b) Dying lion, from Kuyunjik. Height e, 53 cm: 21 in. (Photo, Mansell)
1 12 Wild asses hunted with mastiffr, from Kuyun-
jik. Heightr. 53 cm: 21 in. (Photo, ManseU)
113 A herd of gazelles, from Kuyunjik. Height
c. 53 cm: 21 in. (Photo, ManseU)
xvi
LIST OF PLATES
114 Assurbaiiipal and Queen taking refreshment in
garden, from Kuyunjik. Height c. 53 cm: 21 in. (Photo, Mansell)
1 15 Bronze weight in the shape of a lion, from
Khorsabad. Height c, 30 cm: 12 in. (Photo, Giraudon)
116 Stele of Esarhaddon, from Zinvirli. Height u
304 cm: 120 in. (Photo, Vordcrasiatischc Abteilung, Berlin Museum)
117 Bronze stand or lamp, in Erlangen. Height c.
25 cm: 10 in. (Miinck Jhk, Frontispiece)
1 18 (a) Bronze cup in the shape of an antelope’s
head. Height r. 14 cm: 5iin. (Courtesy, De- partment of Oriental and Classical Antiqui- ties, National Museum, Copenhagen)
(b) The demon Pazuzu. Height r. 15 cm: 6 in. (Contenau r, Plate 20)
(c) Glazed faience vase, from Assur. Height c, 25 cm: 10 in. (Andrae i, Plate 22)
1 19 (a) to (c) Three Assyrian cylinder scab (Frank-
fort I, Plates 35a, k; 33c)
120 Boundary stone of Mardukpahddina. (714 b.c.)
(Photo, Vordcrasiatischc Abteilung, Berlin Museum)
121 Buikling inscription of Nabupaliddina (870
B.c.)
122 The Ishtar Gate at Babylon. Reconstruction by
Robert Koldcwcy (Koldewcy i, Plate 10)
123 (a) to (d) Four ‘standards’ from Ala^a Huyiik.
Heights: b: r. 22 cm: 9 in.; c: c. 33 cm: 13 in.; d: r. 53 cm: 21 in. (Courtesy, Hamit Kopy and Ogiiz Arik)
124 (a) to (d) Vase and bull figures from Chieftain’s
tomb, Maikop, Kuban (after Trans, Imp. Archacol. Comm., 1897)
125 (a) The Royal Gate at Boghazkcuy, from widi-
in (Photo, Adrian Grant)
(b) Orthostats and Sphinx Gate at Ala^a Huyiik (Garstang, Plate 29)
126 Face of sphinx from Yerkapu (cf. Figure 49)
(Photo, Vordcrasiatischc Abteilung, Berlin Museum)
127 Outer jamb of Royal Gate at Bogliazkcuy.
Height r. 213 cm: 84 in. (cf. Plate 130A) (Photo, Vordcrasiadsche Abteilung, Berlin Museum)
128 (a) The Lion Gate at Boghazkcuy. Height of
lion r. 21 3 cm : 84 in. (Photo, Adrian Grant) (b) The Sphinx Gate at Ala9a Hiiyiik. Height of sphinx c. 213 cm: 84 in. (Photo, Adrian Grant)
X29 (a) Bronze figure of a god. Height r. 15 cm: 6 in. (Louvre Archives Photographiques)
(h) Bronze rein-ring. Height r. 25 cm: 10 in.
(Louvre Archives Photographiques)
(c) Bronze figure of a god. Height c. 12 cm: 5 in. (Photo, Vordcrasiatischc Abteilung, Bcrlui Museum)
130 (a) Figure of god on Royal Gate at Boghaz-
kcuy (cf. Plate 127). Height f. 213 cm: 84 in. (Bittcl I, Plate 3)
(b) The king in tlic protection of a god, rt Yasilikaya. Height c. 1 82 cm : 72 in. (Photo, Vordenisiatischc Abteilung, Berlin Mu- seum)
(c) Central group of gods at Yasihkaya. Height c. 213 cm; 84 in. (Photo Vordcr- asiatische Abteilung, Berlin Museum)
131 (a) The sword god at Yasilikaya (cf. Figure
S2). Height f. 304 cm: 120 in. (Photo, At Irian Grant)
(b) P.irt of the procession of gods at Yasilikaya (Photo, Adrian Grant)
132 (a) Deer, from Ala^a Huyiik (cf. Plate 125B)
Height f. 9r cm: 36 in. (Courtesy, Director Ctcncral of Antiquities, Ankara)
(b) Sword eater and acrobats, from Ala^a Hu>uk (Courtesy, Director General of Ai^fiquitics, Ankara)
133 (a) Lion, from Malatya. Height r. 152 cm: 60
in. (Courtesy, Director General of Anti- quit’cs, Ankara)
(b) King libating before the gods, from Malatya. Height .. 81 cm: 32 in. (Delaportc 2, Pk.tc 24)
134 (a) and (b) Head of a clay figure, widi eyes of
shell, from Jericho. Height c. 22 cm: 9 in. {Aim. Archacol. Anthrop. Liv. xxii, Plate 53)
135 Copper figures from Tell Jedeideh. Heights c.
1 9 cm : 7l in ; and r. 1 3 cm : 5 i in. (Courtesy, Robert}. Braid wood)
136 Gypsum head, Irom Tell Brak. Height c. 17
cm: 7 in. (Courtesy, M. E. L. Mallowan)
137 (a) and (j) and 138 Head of YarimUm of Ala-
lakh. H-'ight c. 16 cm: 61 in. (Courtesy, Sir Leonard Woolley)
139 Faience knob in the shruc of a boar’s head,
from Nuzi. Height .if disk c. ^ : cm: 5 in. (Courtesy, Director General of Anti- quities, Baghdad)
140 Glazed pottery figure of a lion, from Nuzi.
Height c. 22 cm: 9 in* (Starr, Plate 3)
141 Stele widi weather-god, from Ras Shamra.
Height (. 144 cm: 57 in. (Schaeffer 3, Plate
23)
142 Bronze figurine, from Mishrife.Heightf. I7cni:
7 in. (Louvre Archives Photographiques)
B
XVU
LIST OF PLATES
143 Bronze figurine, from Ras Shamra. Height c.
25 cm: 10 in. (Schaeffer 2, Plate 29)
1 44 (a) and ( d) Bronze figurine, from Beirut. Height
c, 16 cm: 6i in. (Louvre Archives Photo- graphiques)
145 Gold dish, from Ras Shamra. Diameter c. 19
cm: 8 in. (Schaeffer 3, Plate 1)
146 (a) to (d) Four seal impressions. (Frankfort i.
Plates 40c, m; 44n; 45!)
(e) Copper axe head, inlaid with gold; iron blade; from Ras Shamra. Length c. 20 cm:
8 in. (Schaeffer, Syria xix, Plate 39)
147 Granite stele, from Bcisan. Height r. 92 cm: 37
in. (Rowe, Frontispiece)
148 Ivory inlays, from Megiddo:
(a) Grifhn. Height c. 3 cm: li in. (Loud 3,
Plate 9)
(b) Bcs. Height r. 10 cm : 4 in. (Loud 3, Plate 8)
(c) Sphinx. Height c. 10 cm: 4 in. (Loud 3,
Plate 7)
149 (a) Ivory inlay, from Byblos. Height c, 3 cm:
1} in. (Montet i, Plate 142)
(b) Mirror handle, from Enkomi. c. 12 cm : 5 in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
150 Ivory lid of a box, from Minet cl Bcida.
Height r. 1 5 cm: 6 in. (Schaeffer 2, Frontis- piece)
1 51 (a) and (b) Ivory objects, from Megiddo.
Heights c. 22 cm: 9 in; and f. 12 cm: 5 in. (Loud 3, Plates 39, 43)
(c) and (d) Basalt Lions, from Alalakh, Height f. T2i cm: 48 in. (Antiq.Jnl xxx, Plates 3, 4)
152 (a) Bronze figure covered with gold foil, from
Megiddo. (Courtesy, f)ircctor. Oriental Institute, University of Cliir.igo)
(b) Weight of red jasper, in the shape of a lion mauling a bull, from Tell cl Amarna. Height r. 6 cm: 2} in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
153 (a) Faience chariot, from Ras Shamra (Louvre
Archives Photographiques)
(b) and (u) Faience Cups, from Cyprus (Cour- tesy, Trustees, Britisli Museum)
(c) Faience Cup, from Ras Shamra (Louvre Archives Photographiques)
1.54 (a) Plan of palace and temple at Tell Tayanat (Courtesy, Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
(b) Column base, from Tell Tayanat (Courtesy, Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
155 Entrance to Palace at Sakjcgeuzi (Garstang, Plate 47)
xviii
1 56 Column base of temple. Tell T ay anat (Courtesy
Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
157 (a) Column-figure from the palace of Kaparu,
Tell Halaf. Height r. 274 cm: 108 in. (Oppenheim, Plate 13 a)
(b) Bird on column, from Tell Halaf. Height f. 182 cm: 72 in. (Oppenheim, Plate 14)
158 (a) Scorpion-man, from Tell Halaf. Height r.
162 cm: 64 in. (Oppenheim, Plate 42A)
(b) Scorpion-man, from Tell Halaf. Height c, 91 cm: 36 in. (Oppenheim, Plate 41 a)
(c) Funerary statue, from Tell Halaf. Height r. 182 cm: 72 in. (Oppenheim, Plate 43)
159 (a) Supporters of winged sun disk, from Tell
Halaf. Height r. 91 cm: 36 in. (Oppenheim, Plate 8b)
(b) Six-winged genius, from Tell Halaf. Height c. 60 cm: 24 in. (Oppenheim, Plate
32A)
(c) Two figures dispatching a third. Height c. 60 cm: 24 in. (Oppenheim, Plate 36A)
160 (a) Weather-god, from Zmvirli. Height r. 132
cm : 52 in.
(b) Acrobats, from Zin(;irli. Height r. 113 cm: 45 in.
(c) Warrior, from Zin^irli. Height r. 142 cm: 56 in.
161 Two reliefs (not originally adjoined), from
Carchcmish ((Courtesy, Director General of Antiquities, Ankara)
162 Stele of Barrekub, from Ziin;irli. Height r. 114
cm: 45 in. (Photo, Vordcrasiatischc Abtci- lung, Berlin Museum)
163 Statue of a king, from Zin^irli. Height r. 365
cm: 144 in. (Courtesy, Director, Archaeo- logical Museum, Istanbul)
164 Rock relief showing Urpallu king of Tyana
before the god Sandas (Meyer ed., Plate
15)
165 (a) to (e) Reliefs from Karatepe (Courtesy,
H. Th. Bossert, U. Bahadir Alkim, Halet f "ambcl)
166 (a) Ivory mirror handle, from Nimrud. Height
c. 12 cm: 5 in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
(b) Ivory handle of a fan, from Nimrud. Height c, 14 cm : $i in. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
167 (a) Ivory spliinx, part of a piece of furniture.
Height c. 12 cm: 5 in. (Courtesy, Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) (b) and (c) Fragments of round ivory boxes
LIST OF PLATES
(d) (b) and (p) Heads of women, in ivory (b) to (p) from Nimrud (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
168 (a) to (d) Ivory inlays, from Arslan Tash
Heights A c 1 1 cm 4^10 ,b c 8cm 3im , c c 17 cm 7 in (Ihureau-Dangm a o , Plates 19, 26, 33)
169 (a) and (n) Ivory inlays from Atslan Tish
Heights A I 6 cm 2| in , d c 12 cm 5 in (Thureau-Dangm .10)
170 (a) Ivory inlw showing winged griffins and
plants, partly gilt and inlaid with lapis lazuli and odicr coloured stones, from Nimrud Height c 12 cm* s m (Photo, Mansell)
(b) *Astartc at the Window*, ivory ml ly from Khorsabad Height r 10 cm 4 in (loud 2, Plate 51)
(c) Winged sphinx, ivors ml i) , from Khorsa- bad Height ( 9 cm 111 (Loud 2, Plate
12)
1 71 Bronze bowl, from Nimrud Diameter r 21
cm Sj 111 (Courtesy, Tiustccs, Diitish Muse uni)
172 (a) and (b) Two bronze bowls, fiom Nimrud
Diameter a t 10 cm o^in , b r 21 cm 8} m (Courtesy, Trustees, British Mu- seum)
173 (a) ind (b) Two bronze bowls, from Nimrud
Diameter a r 22 cm g m , b sec Plate 172B) (Courtesy, Irustces, British Mu- seum)
1 74 (a) Ccntaurcss in bronze, p irt of a throne f 1 om
fopra Kale, near Van Height r 20 8 m (Courtesy, Irustces, British Museum)
(b) Bronze stand, from Curium in Cypris Height r ncm 4! in (Courtesy, Trusnes, British Museum)
(c) Bronze figure of a god, fro Susa Height c 17 cm 7 in (Photo, Criraudon)
175 Bronze statue of Queen Napirasu, from Susa
Height r 129 cm 51111 (Photo, Giraudon)
176 (a) to (i ) Bronze orniinents, fiom Luristan
(a) Head of 1 pm Height c 17 cm 6J in (C^dard, Plate 38)
(b) Head of a pm Height c 12 cm 5 m. (Godard, Plate 36)
(c) Pole top Height c 30 cm 12111 (Encyclo-- pMte photoffraphique de Part i, 33A)
177 (a) to (c) Iwo bronze pole-tops, from Lun-
stan and a silver daggcr-hilt
(a) Height c 13 cm si m (C^dard, Phtc 53)
(b) Height r. 20 cm 8 in. (Godard, Plate 55)
XIX
(c) The r E Lawrence dagger hilt. Height c 15 cm 6i m. (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
178 (a) Rock relief of Darius I, at Behistun (Kmg, Plate 3)
(b) Staircase leiding to Iripylon at Pcrsepolis (Courtesy , Dr Erich F Schmidt )
I7ii (a) Detail of stairway of the Tripylon at Perse- polis (Courtcs\ , Dr Erich F Schmidt)
(b) Relief at the soudiern end of tlie stairway to the Audience Hnll ot 1 )arius and Xerxes at Persepolis (Courtesy, Dr Erich F. Schmidt)
180 (a) Relief on southern doorway of the Hall of One Hundred Columns at Persepolis (Courtesy, Dr Erich F Schmidt)
(n) Cate of Xerxes at Persepolis (Courtesy, Dr FtilIiF Schmidt;
(c) r lumn from Persepolis (Courtesy, Direc- tor, Oriental Insututc, University of Chicago)
I Si The Audience Hill of Darius ind Xerxes with ICS cistern stairway and the palace of Darius in the background (Courtesy, Dr Erich F SJiniidt)
182 Proccssuin ofM'^dcs md Persians (cf Plitc 18 1)
(Courtesy, Dr Erich F Schmidt)
183 Procession of tribute bcircrs (cf Plate 181)
(Courtesy, 1 >r Eri Ji F Schmidt)
184 (a) Darius with Xerxes, giving audience, from
the Treasury at I'crsepolis Height c. 243 cm ij6in (Courtesy, Dr Erich F Schmidt) (b) Bactrian leading (aim I (cf Plate 183) (Courtesy, Dr Erich F Schmidt)
185 Face of bull-man, from a capital of Persepolis
(Courtesy, Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
186 Reconstruction, by Charles Chipiez, of the
Hill of One Hundred Columns (Perrot ct Chipicz V, Plate 8)
187 Aeliacmcmian royal tomb, at Naqsh-i-Rustam
(Courtesy, Dr Erich F Schmidt)
188 (a) Bronze support in th( shape of three lions
Height f 22 cm gir ^Schmid Figure 45) (b) Relief m polychrome glazed bricks, from Susa. Flcight c. 142 cm: $6 m. (Louvre Archives Photographiques)
189 (a) Figurmc, from the Oxus treasure Height
c 15 cm 6 in (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum ;
(b) Gold jug, from the Oxus treasure Height c 13 cm 5 in (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
opi. Tile eipnbtttkm of tfak in the caption and the list of plates is mconect. It is from Utosr^ and ii|,inqprodiicad by courteous pehnissioa of the Bnosk Schos^ of Archaeology in Iraq.
LIST OF PLATES
(c) Figurine. Height r. 12 cm: 5 in. (Upham Pope ccl., Plate io8a)
190 (a) Gold bracelet from the Oxus treasure (Courtesy, Trustees, British Museum)
(b) and (c) Achacmcnian cylinder seal (B.M. 89337). Enlarged. (Photo, Otto Fein)
191 Silver Rhyton, from Armenia. Height c. 25
cm: 10 in. (Dalton, Plate 22)
192 Handle of a jar, in the shape of a silver ibex
inlaid wiA gold, upon a satyr’s head (Up- ham Pope cd., Plate ii2b)
XX
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE LIST OF FIGURES AND PLATES
Akurgal Andrac i Andrae 2
Ann. Archaeol. Anthro. Liv.
Antiq.Jnl
Bittcl I
Bittcl 2
Bittcl, Naumann, Otto Brit. Mus. Qrt.
Coiitcnau i Contenau 2
Dalton Dclaportc i
Dclaportc 2 Delougaz
Dclougaz and Lloyd
Dc Sarzec Dussaud 1 Dussaud 2 Frankfort 1
Frankfort 2 Frankfort 3 Frankfort 4
Frankfort, Lloyd, and Jacobsen
Gadd
Garstang
Gelb
Godard
Hall 8c Woolley Hdh. der Arch.
Heinrich 1 Heinrich 2
Herzfeld Jnl Nr East. Stud.
King 1
£. Akurgal. Spdthethitische Bildkunst (Ankara, 1949)
W. Andrac. Coloured Ceramics from Assur (London, 1925)
W. Andrae. Das Wiedererstchende Assur (Leipzig, 1938)
Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, Liverpool, xxn Antiquaries Journal
K.Bittel. Bogazkdy, Die Kleiufunde der CrahungcHy ipcO-i? (Leipzig, 1937) K. Bittcl. Die Ruinen von Bogazkdy (Bcrlm, 1937)
K. Bittel, R. Naumann, H. Otto. Yazilikaya (I cipzig, 1941 )
British Museum Quarterly
G. Contenau. Antiquith Orientalc:^. Muscc du Louvre (Paris)
G. Contenau. Manuel d* archeologic orientaledepuis les origines jusqu^ Vdpoqut d' Alexandre (Paris, 1927, 1931, 1947)
0. M. Dalton. The Treasure of the Oxus (London, 1905)
L. Dclaportc. Catalogue des Cylindres orientaux, Mus6c du Louvre (Paris, 1920, 1923)
L. Dclaportc. Malatya (Paris, 1940)
P, Delougaz. The Temple oval at Khafaje (Chicago, 1940)
P. Delougaz, S. Lloyd. Pre^Sargonid Temples in the Diyala Reqion (Cliicago, 1942)
E. dc Sarzec, L. Heuzey. Dkouvertes en ChaJdde (Pans, 1884-1912}
R. Dussaud. L*art phenicien du deuxieme mtlldtuitc av.J.-^C. (Paris, 1949} R. Dussaud. Les civilizations prihclUniques (Paris, 1914)
H. Frankfort. Cylinder Seals: A Documentary Essay on the Art and Religion of the Ancient Near East (London, 1939)
H. Frankfort. More Sculptures from the Diyala Region (Chicago, 1943)
H. Frankfort. Oriental Institute Discoveries in Iraq, 1033-4 (Chicago, 1939) H. Frankfort. Sculpture of Third Millennium from Tell Asmar and Khafaje (Chicago, 1939)
H. Frankfort, S. Lloyd, Th. Jacobsen. TheGimilsitn Temple and Palace of the Rulers of Tell Asmar (Chicago, 1940)
C. J. Gadd. Stones of Assyria (London, 1936)
J. Garstang. The Hittite Empire (London, 1929)
1. J. Gclb. Hittite Hieroglyphic Inscriptions (Chicago, 1939)
A. Godard. Les Bronzes du Louristan (Paris, 1931)
H. R. Hall and C. L. Woolley. Ur Excavations 1 (London, 1927) Handbuch der Archaeologie i (Miinchen, 1939)
E. Heinrich. Fara (Berlin, 1931)
£. Heinrich. Kleinjunde ausdenarchaischen Tcmpclschichtenin Uruk (Leipzig, 1936)
£. Herzfeld. Iran in the Ancient East (Oxford, 1941)
Journal of Near Eastern Studies
L. W. King. The Bronze Reliefs from the Tomb of Shalmaneser III (London,
1915)
XXI
ABBREVIATIONS
King 2
Koldewey i Koldcwey 2
LangsdorfF and McCown
Layard
Loud I
Loud 2
Loud 3
Laschan
Meier cd.
Montet I Montet 2
Muttch.JhL
Mus.Jttl
Naumann
Nics-Keiscr
Oppcnheim Perrot et Chipicz Puchstcin Rowe Schaeffer i Schaeffer 2 Schaeffer 3 Schmidt Smith
Starr
Thureau-Dangiii a.o.
Toblcr
Trans, Imp. Archacol. Comm. Upham Pope cd.
U.V.B.
Woolley I Woolley 2 Zervos
Zschr. f. Assyriol.
L. W. King and R. C. Thompson. The Sculpture and Inscriptions ••.of Behistun (London, 1907)
R. Koldewey. Das Ischtar-Torin Babylon (Leipzig, 1908)
R. Koldewey. Das wieder erstehende Babylon (Leipzig, 1925)
A. Langsdorff and D. £. McCown. TalUiSakun A (Chicago, 1942)
A. H. Layarc. The Monuments of Nineveh I (London, 1849)
G. Loud. Khorsabad I (Chicago, 193^)
G. Loud. Khorsabad II (Chicago, 1938)
G. Loud. The Megiddo Ivories (Chicago, 1939)
F. von Luschan. Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli (Berlin, 1893-1911)
£. Meier. Reich und Kultur der Chethiter (Berlin, 1914)
P. Montet. Byblos Vtlgypte (Paris, 1928)
P. Montet. Les reliques de Vart Syrien dans Vigypte du Nouvel Etnpire (Paris,
1937)
Munchener Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst VIII Museum Journal
R. Naumann. Tel Halaf II (Berlin, 1950)
J. B. Nics and C. E. Kciscr. Historical, Religious, and Economic Texts (New Haven, 1920)
M. von Oppenheim. Tell Ilalaf (London)
G. Perrot and Ch. Chipiez. Histoire deVartdansV antiquity (?zns,i^^2,ctc.) O. Puchstein. Die lonische Saule
A. Rowe. The Topography and History of Beth Shan (Philadelphia, 1930) C. F. A. Schaeffer, Stratigraphic Comparer (Oxford, 1948)
C. F. A. Schaeffer. Ugaritica I (Paris, 1939)
C. F. A. Schaeffer. Ugaritica II (Paris, 1949)
Eric F. Schmidt. Persepolis I (Chicago, 1953)
S. Smith. Assyrian Sculpture in the British Museum, from Shalmaneser III to Sennacherib (London, 1938)
R. F. S. Starr. Nuzi (Cambridge, Mass., 1937, 1939)
F.Tliureau-Dangin, A. Barrois,J. Dossin, etM. Dunand. Arslan Task (Paris,
J931)
A. J. Toblcr. Excavations at Tepc Cawra II (Philadelphia, 1950) Transactions of the Imperial Archaeological Commission iSgy A. Upliam Pope. A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present (London and New York, 1938)
. . . vorlauflger Bericht iiber die von der Deutschen Forschungsgemein- schaft in Uruk-Warka untemommenen Ausgrabungen. Abhandlungen dcr Preussischen Akademie dcr Wissensdiaften, Jahrgang . . . phil. Hist. Klasse No. ...
C. L. Woolley. Ur Excavations II (London and Philadelphia, 1939)
C. L. Woolley. Ur Excavations V (London and Philadelphia, 1939)
C. Zervos. Uart de la Mesopotamie (Paris .1935)
Zcitschrift fur Assyriologie
xxii
Henri Frankfort died on is July 1954. His sudden ill- ness and his death made it impossible for him to see this volume through the press. However, so exacting had been his scholar-^ * ship and so intense his enthusiasm that no alterations of any im- portance can have been necessary. What had to be done was done as an act of friendship by Miss Rachel Levy, to whom I wish to express my gratitude.
Professor Frankfort, whom I first met when he was still at the Oriental Institute in Chicago, had beat working on this book from 1947 to 19SJ. Co-operation on its latei phases was sim- pler, as he was then Director of the Warburg Institute of the University of London. The fact that he, an orientalist, had been chosen as head of this Institute, which is devoted to post-gi aduate research in the history of art, shows at once what was most ex- ceptional in his attitude to his subject. He did not approach ii as an antiquarian, although fully equipped to do so and although his experience ranged from field work to philosophy. His great- est love was the work of art for its own sake, and he regarded it as his task — as indeed the present book fully proves - to present oriental art as art, and not as archaeological evidence. It is not Jor me here to express my warm feeling and my admiration for him. May this voluut? oj' the Pelican History oj Art be accepted as a monument to him as a man and a scholar.
THE EDI TC H
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is gratcFul to colleagues and heads oF insti- tutions who have generously put photographs at his disposal or permitted him to reproduce illustrations. Their courtesy has been acknowledged in the Lists oF Plates and Figures. He is under an obligation to the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation which enabled him to revisit the Near East by the grant oF a Fellow- ship. The book has profited greatly by the criticisms and suggestions oF Dr Helene J. Kantor ; by Miss G. Rachel Levy’s revision oF the text ; and by the willing- ness oF the publishers to have many oF the text Figures drawn especially. This was done by Mr Donald JBell- Scott.
xxiv
INTRODUCTION
Strictly speaking, a history of the art of the ancient Near East has never been written. Twenty-five years ago it would have been impossible to make the attempt, for most of the monuments illustrated in this volume have only been discovered since then. But even to-day a basic difficulty remains. There is nothing resembling the continuity of tradition which has preserved our familiarity with the art of classical antiquity. We may be attracted by the pecuhar beauty of some Near Eastern works, and repelled by others; in either case they remain enigmatic, unless we acquire some insight into the spiritual climate and die geographical and historical conditions in which they were created. In other words, it is the archaeologist who must build the scaffold from which we can view these ancient monuments as works of art. Once this is done, we see in their proper light not only the individual works, but ancient Near Eastern art as a whole.
The art of the ancient Near East occupies a peculiar position, in that it brought into being many of the artistic categories wliich we take for granted. When, in Egypt or Mesopotamia, men built monumental temples or erected statues, or steles, they dis- covered modes of expression without precedent. These* innovations m the field of art constitute but one aspect of a chaiige by wliich prehistoric cultures were transformed into the first great civilizations.
For untold centuries the ancient Near East, like the rest of Asia, Europe, and North Africa, sustained a sparse population of farmers. They dwelt in smi!l villages or home- steads wliich were self-supporting, self-contained, and practically unchanging. The crafts of agriculture and stockbreeding, spinning and weaving, flint knapping and pot-making were known, and art consisted in the adornment of man's person, or of his tools and chattels. But between 3500 and 3000 n.c. two societies of an entirely different order emerged within this vast continuum of prehistoric village cultures. The Mesopotamians congregated in cities, the Egyptians united under the rule of a single divine king. Writ- ing was invented, copper was employed for implements instead of stone, and trade with foreign countries assumed unprecedented proportions. It was then that monumental architecture and sculpture made their appearance.
The change took place almost simultaneously in Mesopotamia and Egypt, Meso- potamia starting a little earlier. It is certain that the two countries were in contact, and that Egypt was stimulated by the Mesopotamian example. Yet there is no question of slavish imitation. In fact it is characteristic of diis prc-classical world that it possessed, at all times, two distinct centres. Egypt and Mespotamia were the focal points of civiliza- tion from about 3000 until 500 b.c., when Greece took the lead. But from the very first the two centres showed different, and often contrasting, mentalities.
The other countries of the ancient Near East - Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Persia - lack cultural continuity. Their art shows a succession of more or less promising starts which lead nowhere. It may be that some of these peoples were not gifted in the plastic
XXV
INTRODUCTION
arts, for there is a striking discrepancy between their artistic and their literary achieve- ments. If we think of the poetic splendours of the Old Testament, or even of the poetry in the Ras Shamra texts, we shall look in vain for a single Syrian or Palestinian work of art that reaches comparable levels. But we must also remember that these countries were politically unstable. Small independent principalities were frequently established, only to succumb again to the armies of Egypt or Assyria, or to be overrun by barbarian hordes. In epochs of prosperity feverish attempts were made to equal the magnificence of Thebes or Babylon, so tliat the prestige of some local potentate might be enhanced. But under such conditions neither originality nor artistic maturity can be expected, and even the best of the various local schools arc manifestly derivative. Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Persia must, therefore, be treated as peripheral regions where art reflected - within narrow limits - the contemporary achievements of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Yet their adaptations and combinations of borrowed themes show sufficient original- ity to be of interest, so much more since the peripheral regions served as transmitters of the Near Eastern repertoire to Greece. I could have made this relationship of the ancient Near East with Greece, and hence with Western art as a whole, my main tlicme. For while it is true that we are estranged from ancient Near Eastern thought by tlie sway which Greek philosophy and biblical ethics hold over our own, tlicre has never been a corresponding break in artistic continuity. It would, in fact, be tedious to stress in this book every first appearance of an architectural device, a sculptural form, a decorative theme which has subsequently become part of the repertoire of Western art. But there are two reasons against placing this aspect of tlic ancient Near Eastern achievement in the foreground. It would, in the first place, have required a very full treatment of the minor arts. And, in the second place, it would have reduced tlie history of ancient Near Eastern art to a mere prelude to that of classical antiquity, whereas ancient Near Eastern art deserves, on the contrary, to be studied for its own sake. And even if some of the works wliich will be illustrated here inadequately realize tlicir obvious purpose, they pos- sess the merits of experiments and discoveries and arc significant in their consequences.
The structure of the ancient Near East determines the lines along which exposition must proceed. This volume will first follow the development of Mesopotamian art, and then discuss the peripheral schools to wliich it gave rise at various times. A separate volume will be dedicated to Egypt.
The general reader may find that the interpretation of individual works, and tlie his- torical connexions between distinct schools and regions, are sometimes substantiated with more detail than he requires. But conclusions drawn from discoveries so recently made cannot hope to command general assent unless they arc well founded. A more apodcictic style would, moreover, have given a false impression of finality.
XXVI
PART ONE
MESOPOTAMIA
CHAPTER 1
THE EMERGENCE OF SUMERIAN ART: THE PROTOLITERATE PERIOD*
<CIRCA 3500-3000 B.C.>
Introduction
Mesopotamia is ill defined. To the west it fades into the emptiness of Arabia; in the north it can barely be separated from the fertile plains of nortli Syria, with which it is, indeed, comiccted by a main artery of caravan traffic aiding the Euphrates. Eastwards a wide range of foothills leading up to the Persian and Armenian highlands is imder the influence of the people of the plains, but never wholly under their control.
The great transition from relative barbarism to civilization took place in the extreme south of Mesopotamia, in the region called Sumer or Shumer by its early inhabitants.-* The earliest settlers had descended from south-west Persia, when a progressive change in the climate was slowly turning the highlands into deserts and the pools and reed swamps of the plain into marshes which were, here and there, mhabitable. The earliest settlers are called the Al ‘Ubaid people,^ after the place where their remains were first discovered and the period of dicir predominance the Al ‘Ubaid Period.^ They were established in the plain, as is generally thought, by 4000 b.c., a'ul may have arrived earlier. Fardier to the north, where diluvial soil had provided dry land, immigrants from Persia had arrived at an even earlier age. Their distinctive pot^ery, fo*ind at Samarra on die Tigris, at Baghouz near Abu Kemal on the Euphrates, at Nineveh, at Hassuna, and a number of other sites in the north, is superior to that of the Al ‘Ubaid people, and may serve here as representative of prehistoric art in Mesopotamia (Figure i).* Its decoration consists chiefly of narrow zones closely packed with ‘geometric’ designs, but on the in- side of plates or open bowls appear more ambitious compositions, which show a ten- dency to whirl-like movement. Notice the streaming hair of the women, and also the
ABC
Figure 1. Three prehistoric bowls, from Samarra
I
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
scorpions, offigure ia; tlie fishes and birds (which hold fishes in their beaks) of figure lit; and the swastika at the centre of figure ib, which joins in this pressure on the circle in one direction. Figure ic shows how the predilection for whirl-like designs transformed the Maltese cross, a common and suitable centre design for bowls, into a toy-wheel of goats, by the simple device of prolonging one side of each triangle and making it into a neck of a goat’s head with backward-sweeping horns. A little tail (inappropriately shaped) was added to tlie opposite end of each triangle. This ‘animation’ of an abstract design is less common than the gradual transformation, in the course of copying, of a natural representation into an abstract pattern, which is best illustrated in the early pot- tery of Susa or Persepolis (Figure 99 and pp. 202 ff), but both phenomena do occur, and it is as one-sided to explain all representations as later additions to an abstract reper- toire as to deny, with some theorists, that the inherent rhythm of abstract designs has ever been spontaneously employed for decoration. It must be added that in Mesopotamia, as elsewhere, the finely decorated pottery of prehistoric times has no successor; it seems that tlie improvement of technique enabled stone and metal vessels to take the place formerly occupied by fine decorated pottery, and that from the Protoliterate Period onward plain pots of baked clay were used as kitchen- waic only.
The preliistoric clay figurines of men and animals do not difier in character from simi- lar artless objects found throughout Asia and Europe. A history’ of art may ignore them, since they cannot be considered the ancestors of Sumerian sculpture. But Sumerian arcliitecture has antecedents in the preliistoric age.
Architecture
The natural conditions of the plain did not favour the development of architecture. It lacked timber and stone. For shelters, sheep-pens, huts, and the like, the tall reeds of the marshes could be used. Larger and more permanent structures had to be built from the one material that was everywhere available, and that in unlimited quantities - the alluvial mud of the plain. Mud-bricks liad been invented in Persia before the Al ‘Ubaid people descended into the flat country : they were oblong, dried in the sun, and set in mud mor- tar when walls were constructed.
At Abu Shalirein, ancient Eridu, the successive phases of a temple have been re- covered, which show development from a primitive to an advanced stage of archi- tectural design.^ The earliest layers contain a shrine measuring only about twelve by fifteen feet and of the simplest shape. But it contained two features which were never to be abandoned : a niche in one wall marked the place of the god’s appearance, and perhaps already at this stage of his statue or emblem; and an offering table of mud-brick was con- structed a little in front of the niche. In the course of subsequent rebuildings the temple was enlarged and improved; the thin walls were strcngdiencd with buttresses, and al- tliough these were purely practical in origin, they were soon used to add some variety to the exterior of the building. Mud-brick is unattractive in colour and texture, but but- tresses regularly spaced can produce contrasts in light and shadow which rhythmically articulate the monotonous expanse of wall. Within the Al ‘Ubaid Period the transforma-
2
THE PROTOIITERATE PERIOD
tion of a utilitarian device to an art-form was completed, and down to the Hellenistic Age Mesopotamian temples continued to be distinguished from secular buildings by buttresses and recessed walls. The early stages of this development were not confined to the south. At Tepe Gawra, in the north, a temple shows walls buttressed inside and outside (Figure 2);^ the doorway opens between stepped recesses wliich effectively emphasize an entrance in a f^sidc. Yet the position of the buttresses is obviously 1 elated to the problem of roofing the enclosed space. They occur where beams or rafters rest upon the w alls, and although spaced more or less regularly, they have not become pure decoration.®
Fi^^urc 2. Temple m stratum XIII, Tepe (lawra
The temple of Tepe Ciawra appears rather tentative and experimental when wc com- pare it witli the last temple built at Abu Shahrein (Eridu) during the Al ‘Ubaid Period. This has left the earlier buildings far bcliind in its clear and purposeful plan’ (Figure 3). The central space - the cella or actual slirine - is clearly set off from the su'.''sidiary rooms located in the comer bastions. The buttresses have become a regular feature of the outer walls. An altar, placed against one of the short walk, is faced by an offering-table. The building is entered through one of its long walls by means of stairs leading up to the plat- form on which it is placed. All these features remain distinctive of Mesopotamian temples in subsequent periods.
Since writing was unknown at the time, we caiuiot know wliat god was worshipped in this shrine. But there is at least a Ukelihood tliat it was Ea, who was the chief deity of Eridu in historical times. This god was manifest in the sweet waters (‘he has built lus
3
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
Figure 3. Temple VII, Abu Shahrem
chamber in the deep’). And since water is beneficial, since, moreover, it ‘avoids rather than surmounts obstacles, goes round, and yet gets to its goal’;^® Ea was worshipped as die god of wisdom, of helpful magic and medicine; a friend to man. Now, at Eridu the offering-table and the floor of the shrine were at one stage found to be covered with a thick layer of fishbones. This suggests that even in the Al ‘Ubaid Period the god was revered of whom it was said:
When Ea rose, the fishes rose and adored him.
He stood, a marvel unto the deep . . .
To the sea it seemed that awe was upon him;
To the Great River terror seemed to hover around him While the south wind stirred the depth of the Euphrates.^*
The lay-out of the shrine would not disclose whether or not it was dedicated to Ea. The same type of structure served all the gods, and there is no doubt that this type was evolved from that found at Tepe Gawra and Eridu. The subsequent development begins with the transformation of the prehistoric peasant society to one of a more complex order, a change to which we have referred in the Introduction. The new epoch is called the Protohteratc Period, because the invention of writing was one of its most momen- tous innovations. Another was the founding of cities and, with it, the formation of the political entity characteristic of Mesopotamia - namely, the city-state. The social life of
4
THE PEOTOUTBRATE PERIOD
a community which remained agricultural in essence was henceforth concentrated in the towns.
However, Sumerian society was not secular, and the towns were dominated by one or more shrines (Plates 12 and 55). Their structure, their very appearance, revealed a basic belief (explicitly stated in Sumerian poetry and in the Babylonian Epic of Creation) that man was created to serve the gods. The city was a means to this end ; each township was owned by a deity in whose service the community enjoyed prosperity.
At Warka, the biblical Erech, this conception found a grandiose expression. A temple of the Protoliterate Period, preserved by an extraordinary chance, “ and probably dedi- cated to the god Anu, repeats in its plan (Figure 4) die main features of the shrine at Eridu (Figure 3), but the process of clarification has proceeded farther. The comer bas- tions are gone and the plan has become a simple oblong decorated with a uniform system of buttresses and recesses. The principal change, however, appears in the elevation. The platform found at Eridu is here replaced by an artificial mountain, irregular in outline, and rising forty feet above the featureless plain, a landmark dominating the coimtry- side for miles around (Plate i). Its comers were orientated to the points of the compass.
O "O 40 60 FPET
I I III I I
Kgtire 4. The “White Temple’ on its Ziggurat, Watka
5
c
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
Access was by a stair built against die north-eastern face and leading to die summit.^’ There, on a terrace without parapet, where sun and wind ruled unchallenged above the vast expanse of fields and marshes, stood the small whitewashed shrine.^^ Its outer wall shows multiple recesses, strengthened with short round timbers, between the buttresses.^
A step at the south-western side leading to the top of the plinth marked the entrance. One passed through a vesubule which was one of a series of small rooms placed along the long sides of the building, and reached the cella at its centre. In one comer stood a platform or altar. It was four feet high, and a flight of small narrow steps led up to it. In front of it, at a little distance, an offering-table of brick was constructed, and a low semi- circular hearth had been built up against it. The interior of the shrine was decorated with recesses, and the sloping sides of the artificial mound also show shallow recesses between buttresses of brick.
The huge communal labour which went into the building of this sanctuary did not serve a purely architectural purpose. It was an attempt to bridge the chasm which separ- ates humanity from the gods. The Mesopotamian deeply felt the enormity of the pre- sumption that man should offer residence to a deity, and die gigantic effort spent on the erection of a temple tower may well have strengthened his confidence that contact with the superhuman powers would be achieved. In any case, the temple tower (or Zig- gurat) was sacred. The names by which some of them were known in later times have been preserved, and they indicate that they were intended not merely to resemble, but to be, * mountains’. The Ziggurat of the storm god Enlil was, for instance, called * House of the Mountain, Mountam of the Storm, Bond between Heaven and Earth’. But in Mesopotamia * mountain’ was a religious concept of many-sided significance. It stood for die whole earth, and within it, therefore, were concentrated the mysterious powers of life which bring forth vegetation in spring and autumn, and carry water to dry river- beds. The rains, too, come from the mountains, and the Great Mother, source of all life, is named Ninhursag, Lady of the Mountain. The mountain, then, was the habitual set- ting in which the superhuman became manifest, and the Sumerians, in erecting their Ziggurats with an immense common effort, created the conditions under which com- mumcation with the divine became possible.
The shrine on the top of the Ziggurat was called Shakhuru, which means ‘waiting- room’ or ‘room one passes through’.^^ In the temples on ground level this name was given to the antecella, the room before the Holy of Holies (Figure 19, left bottom), where the faithful awaited the opening of the cella and the epiphany of the god. It seems, therefore, that the temple on top of the Ziggurat was thought to be a hall, where the manifestation of the god was likewise awaited. We do not know whether the Anu Zig- gurat at Warka possessed a second temple on ground level, as was the usual arrangement in later times.
However this may be, and although not all sanctuaries included a temple rower or Ziggurat, all were given a token elevation above the soil. A temple at Al ‘Uqair which was contemporary with, and of precisely the same dimensions as the temple on the Anu Ziggurat at Warka, stood on a platform but fifteen feet high.^^ It was irregular in ground plm, like the Ziggurat at Warka, but it rose in two distinct stages. In this respect it
6
THE PROTOLITERATE PERIOD
resembled the Ziggurats of later times, which were staged towers with the shrine placed upon superimposed blocks of masonry, eacli smaller than the one below. Herodotus, when he visited Babylon, saw a temple tower with seven stages, each painted a different colour. Since these later Ziggurats resemble the platform of Al ‘Uqair in possessing dis- tinct stages, and that of Warka in being of great height, we may conclude tliat elevation and staging became conventional characteristics, but that they had at first been optional, and that the two Protolitcrate shrines at Warka and Al ‘Uqair did not differ in essentials. The significance of the Ziggurat was symbolical, and the symbolism could be expressed in more than one way. Tlie same idea, which was unequivocally expressed in a high artificial mountain, could also be rendered by a mere platform a few feet high. One
Figure 5. Sin Temple U, Khafaje
might call the platform an abbreviation of the Ziggurat, if that wording did not suggest that the Ziggurat was the earlier form. That, however, is by no means certain; in fact, it is more probable that the platform of the earliest temples at Eridu, of the Al ‘Ubaid Period, already represented the sacred ‘mountain’. We may perhaps assume that it was only the unprecedented man-power wliich the foundation of cities put at the disposal of the leaders of the community which enabled the men of Warka to give to the fimda- mental notion of their sacred architecture such concrete expression.*’
The shrme we have just described was not the only one biult at Warka in Protoliterate times. The sacred precincts of the goddess Inanna, the ‘Lady of Heaven’, called Ishtar by the Semitic-speaking inhabitants of Mesopotamia, was situated close by the Ziggurat of Anu. The ruins of Eanna, the precinct of the Great Mother, are too fragmentary to teach us much beyond certain details of architectural decoration to which we shall re- turn (Plate 2),^ But at another site, Khafaje, we find modifications of the original plan, as known at Al ‘Uqair and Warka (Figure 4). This plan, open to all sides, was ill suited
7
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
for a shrine situated among houses, but its adaptation in fact changed its character. At first (Figure 5) the temple was given an entrance at one side only, and the openings of figure 4 became mere niches in the outside walls. At the opposite side of the shrine a suite of small rooms had corresponded exactly with those near the entrance vestibule. At Khafaje (Figure 5) this second suite of rooms has been replaced by a single narrow space accommodating a stair to the flat roof and a store-room underneath the stair.^^ But in addition to these internal changes some organization of the area adjacent to the entrance had become necessary. A number of activities connected with the religious service were carried out on the open spaces of the Anu Ziggurat at Warka. Tethering- rings built into the ramp leading to the top^ indicate that sacrificial animals were tem- porarily tied there. But where a temple was constructed among houses, space had to be
Figure 6. Sin Temple V» Khafaje
found for such purposes within the built-up area. We observe at Khafaje that an irregular plot of ground, such as happened to be available, was walled in to serve as a forecourt (Figure 5 ). In figure 6, a later stage of the same building, three successive courts were walled off, each accommodating against its southern wall storerooms, offices, and other quarters required by the temple staff. Bread-ovens were placed in the second court, while the innermost courtnow contained the staircase to the roof which had formerly occupied the south-western space beyond the cella. That space (marked i in figure 6) was blocked up and disused, probably to prevent a continuous coming and going through the sanctuary - for during summer the early hours of the day and the evening and night are passed on die roofs. The purely pracdcal change in the plan of the temple - the development of forecourts, the blocking of entrances, the disuse of the space beyond the cella - had die effect of changing the character of the shrine. From an isolated building open on all sides (Figure 4) it became a complex structure, in which the cella was no longer die central feature, but an innermost sanctuary.
8
THE PROTOLITERATE PERIOD
As it happens, we cannot follow this development at Warka, but another feature of Protoliteratc architecture is well represented there, while it survives in small fragments only on other sites : its mural decoration. At Warka we can study an amazing and highly original attempt on the part of these early builders to disguise the ugliness of the materid which they were forced to use. We have already seen how they used recesses and white- wash, expedients which remained popular down to Hellenistic times. They are fully compatible with the austere, massive, rectangular forms which imparted monumentahty to the public buildings of Mesopotamia. But the architects of Protoliteratc times experi- mented with two additional methods of decoration: a plastic enrichment of the walls, and patterned colouring. The first expedient, which really docs violence to the character of brick architecture, was revived only on one or two later occasions.*^ Polychromy, on the other hand, became common towards the end of the second millennium b.c., when the Assyrians had learned the art of glazing on a large scale and used coloured (and some- times moulded) glazed bricks to produce figured panels or to cover whole wall surfaces.
The methods of the Protoliteratc builders, however, were different from this. They covered walls, and even the columns of a colonnade (columns measuring nine feet in diameter) and the semi-engaged columns of adjoining walls (Plate 2a) >vith a coloured and patterned weather-proof skin. This consisted of tens of diousands of small clay cones, about four inches long, separately made, baked, and dipped in colour, so that some had black, some red, and others buff tops. These cones were inserted side by side in a diick mud plaster in such a way that zigzags, lozenges, triangles, and other designs appeared in black and red on a buff ground. After a while the technique was simplified (Plate as); the cones were only used in flat rectangular panels which were framed by edgings of small baked bricks. In this way a great deal of labour was saved, but the weird, exuberant richness of the earUer mosaics could not be achieved. It is even possible that the most accomplished examples of the earliest method have been entirely lost (many more cones have been found loose in the soil tlian were retained in their original positions), and that these included representational designs as they existed in the later phase when baked brick edgings framed the panels. At that time there were also plaques of baked clay in the form of rosettes and of goats and heifers. These plaques were entirely covered with circular reed impressions, as if to suggest that they consisted of separate cones,*^ and it therefore seems likely that prototypes composed of such separately inserted cones had once existed. Their subject - rows of animals - recurs in the contemporary temple at Al ‘Uqair, not in the form of cone-mosaics but of wall paintings. The geometrical motifs of plate 2 arc also repeated at Al ‘Uqair in paintings. They adorn die walls and th-^ front of the altar. The meaning of the friezes of animals and rosettes will become clear when we con- sider the works of sculpture found in these temples.
Applied Sculpture and Relief
Sumerian art, although bom in the newly founded cities, expressed man’s unshakeable attachment to nature. The gods were manifest in sky and earth and water, in moon and sun, in storm and lightning. The pubUc festivals celebrated the main events of the
9
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
Burmer's year, the most important religious occasion being the New Year festival, hdd at the critical turn of the seasons, when, after winter, or after the much more terrible summer, nature’s vitality was at its lowest ebb and all depended on the turn of the weather. Diuing the sterile season the god who personified generative force, and who is best known as Tammuz, had vanished or died; and the Great Mother, who was wor- shipped at Warka and throughout the land, had suffered a bereavement in which the people shared. They found expression in public wailings and in the rites of mourning and atonement which opened the New Year celebrations. In the course of the festival, which lasted several days, the god was discovered, liberated from the land of death and resurrected. Then the sacred marriage of the divine couple ensured nature’s fertility and man’s prosperity for the coming year.
It is this festival which is depicted on an alabaster vase (Plate 3, a and b), over three feet high, which was found in temple ruins of the Protoliterate Period at Warka. The main scene appears in the uppermost band, and the lower registers seem at first sight to be mere decoration. Its elements are, however, appropriate to their setting.^ The lowest band consists of plants and animals in which the goddess is manifest and which sustain man: eats of barley alternate with date-palms, and sheep with rams. The next frieze shows men bringing gifts, naked, as was common then and tliroughout Early Dynastic times when man approached the gods. The many small differences between individual figures destroy, on closer scrutiny, the impression of a merely ornamental fneze, and one notices diat even here the figures are rendered with such vigour and directness that they seem vibrant with the excitement of the occasion, and dierefore intimately cotmected with the main scene. Of this a few fragments are unfortunately missing, above and be- fore the figure of the goddess, and we do not know, therefore, whether she wore the homed crown which distinguished the gods on later monuments. She is receiving a basket of fruit, like those carried in the frieze below. Behind her stand two reed bundles bound in a peculiar fashion; they identify her, for such a bundle is the pictographic prototype of the character with which her name was written in historical times. The presenter of gifts who appeared behind the naked priest is lost; this was probably the bearded person of a king, or leader, known from seal engravings of this period (Figure 9). He offers her, as a suitable wedding gift, a richly decorated and tasselled girdle, of which one end is well preserved (cf. Plate iib).
Behind the goddess other gifts are piled up - mostly in pain. There are two vases, shaped like the one whose decoration is here described and which we know, from firag- ments found, to have been one of a pair. We see, moreover, two vases, in the shape of a goat and a lion respectively, and recognizable as vessels by the rimmed opening on the animals’ backs.^ In front of these gifts is a problematical object, either an ideogram or, more likely, a piece of temple furniture. It consists of the large figure of a ram supporting a two-st^ed Z^gurat or temple platform, shown by reed bundles to be a shrine of the goddess. Upon it stand a man and a woman.”
In this fiieze the goddess is not, or is hardly, larger in size than her worshippers, as she would be in an Egyptian rendering of such a scene. Her appearance in the frieze does not interrupt the continuous design which encircles the vase. But the main subject, fiir fi:om
10
THE PROTOLITERATE PERIOD
being submerged in a decorative scheme, merely crowns a design which in all its con- stituent parts reflects with a peculiar intensity the profound significance of the ritual which it depicts. By its subject and style it allows us to perceive the spiritual climate in which the art of this period came into being.
Vividness and vigour mark all the works of this great creative age; and the carving of figures shows, moreover, certain distinctive features. The stocky, muscular men with their emphatic but not entirely balanced stride recur on contemporary seals (Plate 8d). The animals of the lowest frieze are matched by those carved on the side of a stone trough (Plate 3 c), an object which probably served to water the temple flock. Their pen, plaited of reeds, resembles the present-day dwellings of the Marsh-Arabs.^ But it is crowned, not only by the uncut flowering ends of the reeds, but also by the bundles which proclaim it sacred to the goddess. Lambs leap forth from the pai to meet the re- turning flock. On the sides of the trough are flower rosettes which represent the vege- table Idngdom of the goddess.^^
We have seen that rosettes and herbivorous animals in terra-cotta were used as archi- tectural decoration in the temple. There were also friezes of rams carved in stone, with holes drilled into their backs so that they could be attached to the wall by means of copper wire.^ The spectator sees their bodies in profile, but they turn their heads towards him, as does the ram in plate 4A. This particular figure has dowel-holes in tlie base and a silver rod rising from its back. It served as support of an offering-stand or incense- burner. We do not know the purpose of the figure to wluch belonged the splendid sand- stone head of plate 43, with die beautiful rendering of the ears, the bold curves of fore- head and face, and die soft prehensile hps.^^
During the latter part of the ProtoUteratc Period both the subjects and the style of carving changed. The thin, finely modulated relief was displaced by coarser, flat reUef with incised instead of modelled detail or it was combined with a rehef so heavy that parts of it appear to be modelled in the round. At the same time new fantastic subjects disturbed that serenity of natural life wliich was the exclusive concern of the earUer works. The bowl of plate 55 exemplifies only the change in style. Its subject is the well- established combination of herbivorous animals and plants^ - here a bull with an ear of barley, four times repeated round the vase — which evokes the goddess or the god. But the heads of the bulls project from the vase, they are almost worked in the round, and this device recurs on a number of sculptured stone vases. The bodies of the animals are no longer rendered by modelling, but incised lines arc used to bring out the details. They arc inexpressive and conventional. For instance, the twice-scalloped h*ne on the bull’s diigh is mechanically repeated in reliefs throughout this period. It recurs on the ewer of yellow sandstone of plate 5A; here, however, the advantages of the bold new relief, the striking contrasts of light and shadows, arc apparent. But the gain is more than offset by the coarsening of the relief, shown at its worst m the clumsy rendering of the lions’ fore-paws.®^
That the rich and showy effects of the new type of relief expressed the taste of the later part of the ProtoUteratc Period is shown by a group of vases of dark stone, decorated widi inlays of shcU, red jasper, and mother of pearl.” The same colour scheme and Ac
II
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
same type of geometric decoration arc found in pottery. The vessels arc covered with a red wash, but on the shoulder the natural colour of the clay is left visible to form the buff background for panels of geometric design executed in red and black. This three- colour scheme is identical with that of the cone mosaics and of the paintings in the temple of Al ‘Uqair.
We have said that the stone vases reveal a change of subject as well as a change of style. The ewer of plate 5 a introduces the theme of combat which remained a popular subject in Mesopotamian art in all later periods. We do not know what the attack of the lions on die bulls signifies ; in later times all kinds of fantastic creatures take part in the struggle. We do know that the Mesopotamians took a grim view of the world, and saw it as a battle-ground of opposing powers. It is unlikely that the ewer merely depicts the trivial occurrence of the depredations of beasts of prey among the herds; for an Elamite seal of this period shows two equivalent groups: a bull dominating two lions and a lion dominating two bulls (Figure 7c). A lion-shaped vase appears among the gifts of the goddess in plate 3, A and b to whom cattle were sacred. Ishtar, in later times, was a god- dess of war as well as of love. The terrifying nature of die divine was at all times present to the mind of the Mesopotamians, as we know from their literature. It is probable, therefore, diat the struggle between lion and bull stands for a conflict between divine forces, and one may surmise that the lion represents die destructive aspect of the Great Mother, an aspect which was recognized but believed to be held in check as a rule. It is generally restrained by two creatures, of whom one, a bull-man, has not yet been found on Protoliterate monuments. The other figure, a naked hero, occurs commonly at this period (Plate 6). Above he is shown holding two lions with his hands, having tucked the tails of another pair of Hons under his arms. He is hardly a mere mortal, in spite of all the homely detail of his rope girdle and mountaineer’s shoes widi upturned toes (Plate 6c).^ Nor is the victim of the lions an ordinary animal. He is a bearded bull, a mytho- logical creature of unexplained cliaractcr.^^ His head, beard, and forefeet form the nar- row side of the object in plate 6c, and the attacking lions rest their front paws on his back. The object itself, like that depicted above, is the elaborately carved support of a vessel used to pbee offerings before the gods. In plate 6, A and b the cup is visible. In plate 6c only the lower tier of a carved support is preserved. The cup was placed on the upper tier among further carvings which arc also lost. The change from flat modelling to high relief has here reached its extreme. The removal of all background (Plate 6c) and the freeing of die figures (Plate 6, a and b) without destroying their peculiar flatness illustrate a characteristic of such an experimental phase as the Protoliterate Period in Mesopotamia (and the First Dynasty in Egypt), namely a confusion of the various cate- gories of artistic expression, the potentialities and limitations of each category being only gradually recognized.
Sculpture in the Round
We have met sculpture in the round used as architectural decoration in plate 4. No such use can be imagined for die three works which must now be discussed. Plate 7 shows a woman’s head, or rather face, for the stone is flat at the back, with drill holes for attach-
J2
THE PROTOLITERATE PERIOD
ment to a statue presumably of wood. The head must have been very nearly lifb-size (the face is eight inches high) and was found at Warka. By analogy with later usage one assumes that the eyebrows were inlaid with lapis lazuli and the eyes with shell eyeballs and lapis lazuli or obsidian pupils. The flat ridges that mark the hair and the deeply-cut parting were originally overlaid with a sheet of gold or copper which was fasten^ with small metal studs, in holes drilled into the stone in inconspicuous places; one is visible on the right below and behind the ear. The hair was no doubt rendered by fine engraving in the metal, so that the present unsatisfactory contrast between the subtly modelled face and the large flat ridges of the hair docs not express the artist's intention. In fact the extra- ordinary sensitivity with which the face is modelled - the smooth forehead, die soft cheeks, the noble mouth - was almost certainly offset by a colourful setting, a statue of other materials in which only the exposed flesh of the face was rendered by the luminous marble.
We do not know who this figure can have represented or even whether a goddess or a mortal appeared in such exalted beauty. Nor is there another work to match it.
To the latter half of the Protoliterate Period belongs a small statuette (four inches high) from Khafaje (Plate 9b). It shows a woman with a bare torso and hair hanging loosely down the back, with hands folded in the attitude assumed before the gods. It lacks the restraint of die head of plate 7, but shares its exactness in the rendering of the physique of the model. Tliis tendency towards naturalism, which merely enriches the plastic forms of the head, appears in the little figurine as a kind of irrepressible vulgar vitahty. The woman stands with her bare feet four-square on the ground and the head is poised quite naturally. This freedom of pi>sc and the realistic modelling of the breasts and the posterior were never found in later times. The eyebrow-’ arc not joined (as always later), but arc heavy, the checks are fleshy; the large nose, damaged at the tip, looks more excessively hooked than was intended. Like Egyptian works of the corre- sponding stage of development, the Mesopotamian sculptuic acre described lacks the later discipline of style, but achieves an effect which could not even be attempted once an established convention had defined' artistic aims more closely.
The third work of sculpture in the roimd which mrvives is likewise small but of a different order (Plates 9c and ioV“ It represents a daemonic being, and stands at the head of a long line of monsters wliich appear in all the great periods of Mesopotamian art and convincingly express the terror widi which man reahzcd his helplessness in a hostile universe. The monster of plates 9c and 10 denies one even the comfort of recog- nition : viewed as anthropomorphic the body appears bestial, but if one views it as a lioness it has a ghastly air of mis-shapen humanity. There is, however, no unceitainty about the cruelty of tlic mouth on the point of baring its fangs while the clutched claws imbend.
It is paradoxical that this vision of terror has been carefully embellished with pellets of lapis lazuli inlaid at the tail and in the mane. It shares this feature with amulets of the period,*^ and it may well be that our figure, too, had an apotropaic function. The lines of the muscles at tlie shoulder-blades suggest the symbol of the mother goddess,^ and once again we suspect that her destructive aspect has here found expression in art.
13
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
Commemorative Relief
The stele of plate 9A should, as far as we can judge, be considered a secular work. It is a boulder, now chipped and damaged at die edges, and must have been brought to Warka from abroad, since it is black granite. It is smoothed on one side and shows two scenes carved in the flat relief of the latter half of the Protoliterate Period. It resembles the figurine of a woman from Khafaje in the naturalness and vivacity of the poses; note, for instance, how the archer, in taking aim, draws in his head between liis shoulders. The hunter appears in the dress and with the distinctive coiffure which characterize leaders, perhaps kings, on Protoliterate monuments, and which remained in use for princes until the times of Sargon of Akkad (Plates 34, 35, 42, and 43). The hunter is shown destroying lions with spear and arrows. If we reaHze that with this monument the commemorative stele makes its first appearance in the history of art, the events which it commemorates seem hardly adequate to explain the innovation. There again we must acknowledge some uncertainty as to their meaning. Two and a half millennia later Assurbanipal dis- played his courage and skill in killing lions (Plates 108-9), but one does not expect this emphasis on the sportsmanship of a ruler in the very period when cities were being founded and when communal life seems to have been stronger than at any other age. Is it possible that the battle widi wild beasts was a phase in die reclamation of marsh and wasteland indispensable to the development of the city-state, so diat the valour of this leader deserved to be commemorated by a public monument? If so, it is odd that neither the ‘king* nor the occasion is specified, although writing was known at the time and was extensively used in the administration of the temples. This anonymity would seem to nullify the effect of the monument, and appears even odder if we remember that in Egypt the first steles, as well as other historical rehefs, arc inscribed with the name of the ruler who erected them and often also with the name of his defeated enemies or of the locality/^ The same anonymity attaches to another historical record of the Protohteratc Period. It shows a ‘ king * leaning on his spear upon die battle-field among bound captives and enemy dead. This scene was engraved upon a cylinder less than two inches in height and employed as a seal; in fact, several impressions of clay sealings were used for the partial reconstruction of the design in figure 7A.
Cylinder Seals
The scene of figure 7A would seem unsuitable to a seal design, because a seal does not offer scope for epic treatment. Its appearance among glyptic designs once again empha- sizes the fact that in the formative phase of a new movement in art the distinctions be- tween the categories are still vague.
The Mesopotamian seal has a peculiar shape (Plate 8c), a small cylinder engraved on the outside, and thus impressing its distinctive design when rolled over the clay of a tablet or of the sealing of a package of merchandise. The awkward problem of inventing designs for such seals seems to have been congenial to the Mesopotamians and to have
14
THE PROTOLITERATE PERIOD
challenged their ingenuity. Elsewhere, for instance in Greece, the seal-cutters are often believed to have been inspired by extant works of painting or sculpture, but Meso- potamian mural paintings and other large-scale decoration, on the contrary, often seem to depend on the compositions of die seal engravers. It is for this reason that we must consider the seals in some detail, quite apart from the fact that they display the inventive- ness and the originality of the Mesopotamian designers most strikingly.
It is clear ‘that the design on a cylinder seal can be seen in its entirety only when one turns it in one's fingers. For instance, the cylinder in plate iic shows a ‘king' feeding the herd of the temple. He is depicted with an ear of barley in each hand facing six head of catde, in two rows of three, and he is followed by a servant carrying a further supply of barlcy.^2 Of all this only a fraction appears in our plate. Seal designs can be made avail- able for study only by illustrating, not the seals, but their impressions. Figure 7 and plate 8 illustrate the variety of ProtoUterate seals.
We find, in the first place, narrative scenes like the feeding of the temple herd which we have just described, or a ceremony near a temple (Plate 8d). But this type of design has great disadvantages, for the surfaces covered by the impression will, in practice, hardly ever coincide precisely with the circumference of a seal. A sealing on a bale of goods will be narrow and take only part of the impression; a clay tablet may be wider and take more than a single revolution of the cylinder. In the first case i>nly part of the narrative will appear; in the second case there will be repetition of fragments on one or both sides of the scene. The latter case is illustrated in plate 8d; the temple should appear only once, and that in die middle of the impression, with die three large figures approaching from the right and the boat from the left.
The disadvantages of a narrative scene may be overcome, if dj*: importance of the subject is so reduced that incomplete or redundant fragments do not matter. The animal frieze is an example of diis. But to be really satisfactory the cylinder design must possess an imier harmony capable of asserting itself even widiin mere fragments. An attempt to achieve diis is shown in figure 712, where the groups of animals attacked by beasts of prey face in different directions, so that there is a play of antithetical corre- spondences which effectively unites the whole composition. As a rule this result is best acliieved by closely interwoven heraldic groups such as figure 7, b, c, and d, and plate 8b. The two ibexes of plate 8 a, to analyse just one design, cover the whole circumference of the seal,^ but their repetition merely enlarges a harmonious whole widiout disturbing its beauty. Both facing and averted the animals make a splendid symmetrical pattern, and the hiatus that would otherwise occur on either side is filled, once b' an eagle with spread wings, and once by a pair of copulating vipers and a flower. In plate 8b the even spacing and continuity of the design are obtained by the intertwining of the necks and t^s of the monstrous quadrupeds, and only the space above required a filling motif, which was supplied by foe lion-headed eagle.
The seal last described again illustrates that decline in quahty which distinguishes foe second half of foe Protoliterate Period from its earlier phase. It may be due to foe great demand for seals caused by a rapidly expanding economy ; tablets now increase in num- bers and arc found even abroad. In foe seal of plate 8b a bow drill has been used to
15
FART one: MESOPOTAMIA
Figure 7 Seal impressions of the Protohtcrate period
hollow out the mam mass of the figure. In earher times this procedure had left no trace. But m plate 8b the roimd holes which had served to block out the subject were not properly obhterated by subsequent work with the graver. The designs executed with this implement alone became careless scratchmgs, and sometimes drill-holes and make up some sort of pattern which can neither be called decorative nor recognized as a subject. A new type of thm, tall cyhnder, with purely geometric arrangements, was mtroduced in the course of the period, but soon became mvolved m the general dechne m seal cuttmg. The seals of the latter half of the period have only an archaeological in- terest and need not, therefore, detam us here.
The earher seals, on the otlier hand, are carefully incised gems. If a single scene is re- presented, It IS drawn clearly and vividly, and in the balanc^ friezes the greatest inven- tiveness IS shown.** The subjects are very varied. The ‘kmg on die battlefield’ (Figure 7a) and the scene of a herdsman defending a calvmg cow against a lion,** are, we pre- sume, secular subjects. But the majority of the designs reflect the same religious pre- occupations as the other works of the period. One seal shows in an abridged form the upper register of the vase of plate 3, a and b.* tn another (Plate 8d) the girdle which is presented to the goddess on that vase is carried by the third of the diree men approaching
16
THE PROTOLITERATE PERIOD
the temple; the other naked man carries a bead necklace. Between these priests walks a man who looks like a suppliant conducted by the two priests to the Mother Goddess. On the opposite side of the temple another man appears to move towards her shrine with outstretched arms wliile two others punt and steer towards it a boat decorated with flowers. The extraordinary vivacity of these lithe figures makes one almost forget that their actions remain completely enigmatic to us.
Even designs which are mainly decorative use religious motifs. The serpent-necked lions of plate 8b and the copulating vipers of plate 8a are known as manifestations of the chthonic aspect of the god of natural vitality, who is manifest in all life breaking forth from the earth. The eagle, lion-headed or otherwise (Plate 8, a and b), represents the god as bringer of the fertilizing rain. It is the bird Imdugud which represents the dark clouds of the storm.^ The ibexes and the rosette, like any combination of herbivorous animals and plants, point to the Great Mother.
The seal engravings, many times more numerous than .ill the other works of art that have come down to us, disclose most fully the richness and vigour of this first great phase of Mesopotamian culture. Like the larger works in stone, they show vigour and sensitivity, and a great eagerness to explore the possibilities of expression. The true measure of the achievement of the Protoliteratc Period can be taken only when we see it against the foil of the prehistoric age which preceded it and which produced only in its arcliitecturc a prototype of the splendour that was to follow.
17
CHAPTER 2
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
<CIRCA 3000-2340 B.C.>
Introduction
The beginning of the Early Dynastic Period is marked by a strong artistic revival within an unbroken cultural continuity. The ProtoUterate Period did not end in decline; it had, on the contrary, seen a dense settlement of the country, with much reclamation of land and founding of new cities; its contacts with foreign countries had also increased, and its products have been found as far apart as Persia, Egypt, and Troy. Nevertheless the deterioration of the arts had been marked.
Figure 8. Brocade style seal, from Khafaje
The first phase of the Early Dynastic Period (there are three phases) ‘ opened with a renewal of glyptic art (Figure 8). No attempt was made to enrich the subject-matter. A single or double file of goats or oxen was the usual motif. This was designed in a few lines, and the remainder of the surface was ornamented with fishes, stars, crosses, lozenges, and the like. In other words, any additional importance which a subject might impart is suppressed in favour of pure decoration. It is the even spacing, the intricate interlocking of forms which is an innovation. This style is called die ‘Brocade Style’, because the regular recurrence of small space-filling motifs and the even density of pat- tern are characteristic of woven or embroidered stuffs, where no thread can be allowed to pass over a long distance behind the cloth. On the seals this style was adopted because it produced the imbroken frieze in which impressions of any length could give the effect of completion. The principle had been known during the Protoliterate Period but lost in its final decline. It now became the basis of new experiments.
In the stone vases die new approach is equally marked. To describe it we must follow it into the next subdivision, die Second Early Dynasdc Period, since the precise stage reached at the end of the Hrst cannot be determined. The vases are made of green steadte, a material rarely used before this time. They are covered with a closely drawn
18
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
. figure 9. Development of a steatite vase, from Khafajc (cf. plate iib)
network of figures in flat relief, obviously related to the Brocade Style of the seals. None of the early examples is complete. One from Bismaya (Plate iia) shows a figure with plaited hair, approaching from the left and bearing a branch, to meet a group of musi- cians: two men play on harps or lutes, tlicn follows a drummer, carrying his instrument under his left arm while strumming with the knuckles and fingers of his right hand. After him comes a trumpeter. These figures all wear featliers in their hair, and their kilts were inlaid with pieces of white limestone, of which one has been preserved. The lowest row of figures, wliich we have described, derives some order from the fact that it follows the base of the vessel. Above it figures of men appear in wild confusion. They are shown running to the right where a large figure is blocked out and was once inlaid. The feet and the front edge of its long kilt are preserved. It may have represented a god or a king. The few intervals between the figures are engraved with plant designs.^
The vase of plate iib and figure 9 shows a more orderly arrangement. It contains a pair of humped bulls, of the Indian Zebu breed, which is not native to Mesopotamia. But the vase was not imported. The snakes with drill holes wliich were once filled with coloured inlays of paste or stone recur at Khafaje^ and elsewhere.^ Other elemr.irs of the decoration likewise recur on Mesopotamian vessels of steatite. The meaning of the design remains obscure. It seems certain that it is in some way concerned with the great natural forces which the Mesopotamians worshipped. It consists of four groups, forming a continuous frieze of even density, as on the cylinder seals. A long-nosed, long-haired Sumerian figure is seated upon two humped bulls; above are a snake, the crescent moon, and a six- leaved rosette, the last possibly emblematic of the planet Venus, a manifestation of Inanna-lshtar. From the hands o^ ♦’his personage flow two streams of water. Plants which appear in front of one bull and at the rim of the vase may well be thought to spring from this life-giving stream. In anotlier group the same (or a similar 'I personage appears stand- ing between, or upon, two panthers. The rosette recurs; this time the hands grasp snakes. They possibly symbolize the fertiUty of the earth, balancing the fertilizing power of water in the other group. But this is a mere hypothesis, as is the suggestion that the rosette in both groups may identify the chief figure with Inanna. When we follow the design of the right we meet the scorpion of the Agrab vase, and then a fresh group : a lion and an eagle devouring a bull. The space left between this scene and the first is occupied by a date-palm flanked by small cunning bears who lick their paws after eating the sweet fruits.
A word must now be said about the chronology of these interesting vases. None of them was found among remains of the First Early Dynastic Period, but the feathers
19
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
worn by the men of plate iiA recur on an inscribed limestone relief, known as die *Per- sonnage aux Plumes’ from Telloh which can be assigned to this period on palaeographic grounds.^ It is difficult to know how close in time die other vases stand to die earliest of the group. Several of them may belong to the Second Early Dynastic Period.* In the Third the decoration has lost its figures altogether, and the steatite vessels themselves seem to be exclusively of a squat cylindrical type. They sometimes show buildings of watde or matting,^ and sometimes only the patterns to which matting gives rise.*
Like the seals and the stone vases, the pottery of the First Early Dynastic Period shows a dose patterning of the surface. For the first time vessels are entirely covered with a fine network of incised ornament, and the polychrome pottery of the earlier age survives in the ‘scarlet ware’, which is technically inferior (the red wash is not fast), but shows not only the shoulder but most of the vessel densely ornamented with designs; these are sometimes geometrical, sometimes representational. In all the applied arts the beginning of the new period is characterized by innovations of a similar nature. Contemporary works of firee-standing sculpture have not yet been discovered.
Architecture
In architecture the new age is characterized by the introduction of a somewhat inappro- priate building-material, the plano-convex brick, fiat on one side and curved on the other, where finger-marks are often left by the hand tlut pressed the mud into the brick- mould.* Foundations were constructed of rough untrimmed blocks of stone where these could easily be obtained, at Mari^® and at Al ‘Ubaid.“ At Ur such blocks were used to
Figure zo. Sin Temple Vm, Khsfaje
20
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
Figure II. Section through a tomb, Ur
build corbelled vaults over tomb chambers erected underground (Figure ii). In domes- tic and sacred architecture the vault played no part, so far as we know. The arch, con- structed of plano-convex bricks, was used over doorways in houscs.^^
In their plans the buildings show continuity with the preceding age. The same temple at Khaf^e which illustrated how die original plan of a shiinc — self-contained and open on all sides - was modified when used in a built-up area (pp. 7 to 8 above) develops further during the Early Dynastic Period. We observe (Figure 10) that the court has now become an established feature of the building. A monumental entrance,*^ flanked by two towers, gives access to it. In the past one or two steps had led up to the plinth on wliich the shrine was placed (Figure 6). Now an impressive stairway approaches the entrance (Figure 10).
On the middle Euphrates Early Dynastic arcliitccturc showed some peculiarities not found elsewhere. The temple of Ishtar, at Mari,*^ had an oblong shrine with a ‘bent axis* approach, as in the south, and was founded on layers of untrinimed stones, Hke the temple at Al ‘Ubaid. But die walls were built of bricks which arc flat, Tiot plano-convex. Moreover, the colonnades of the Pro toll teratc temple of Waika liavc a successor here, al- diough the columns are reduced to more reasonable proportions, about three and a half feet in diameter. There arc five of them, forming a cloister on two sides of a court. In the south, columns arc found only once in Early Dynastic times, at Kish, where they arc five and a half feet in diameter and support the roof of a long hall, and the portico roof over a parapet, in a secular building.^*
The temples we have described retained to the end the irregular form, due to its gradual extension within the town where adjoining properties limited the builders. When a temple was newly planned in an open space, a regular square or oval form was adopted. The square or oblong plan always remained in use; the oval (Plate 12) is dis- tinctive of the Early Dynastic Period.*^ It is well to remember that no merely utili- tarian considerations determined the work. Before the foundations of the temple oval were laid, the whole area, which had been occupied by private houses, was excavated down to virgin soil, more than twenty feet below ground level. This huge excavation was next filled with clean desert sand which must have been brought from some dis- tance. On top of the clean - or, to use the ritual term, pure - soil the foundations were built. They followed the outline of the building, but were packed in clay up to a height of about three and a half feet, so that the whole oval actually stood on a platform of that height, although only its upper part appeared above the ground. Stone steps led up to D 21
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
the gate in the outer wall, which was fianked by two towers (Plate 12). On the left, when one entered the forecourt, there was a separate building, resembling in plan a large private house, but it contained a little shrine, and it probably housed the offices of the temple administration. These were situated round an open court reached by a passage at the foot of the outer enclosed wall of the oval.
From the forecourt of the temple a few steps led to the deep, well-protected gate of the inner enclosure. The inner court was spacious; it contained a well and circular basins of baked brick lined with bitumen. These probably served for ritual ablutions. At the foot of the platform upon which the temple stood there was an altar where animal sacri- fices were offered. The platform was about twelve feet high; this can be calculated by the steps which arc preserved. The temple which originally stood upon it is entirely lost. What appears in our reconstruction shows the standard type in its simplest form, which was well preserved at Tell Asmar. The shrine has been given an arched doorway, such arches having been found in a private house of the period at Tell Asmar.^^
The rooms round the court of the temple oval were not used for the cult, or, at least, served it indirectly. Some were workshops of stone-cutters or copper-workers, others bakeries, stores for agricultural implements, and so on. The great temple complex wliich appears in plate 12 as the centre of the settlement cannot be properly understood by re- ferring to religious practice alone. It requires some knowledge of the peculiar relation- ship which was believed to exist between society and the superhuman powers on which it depended. The gods were powers manifest in nature and worshipped throughout the land. But there was no political entity comprising the nation. The effective political unit was the city-state, and each of the gods owned one or more of the cities. Their earthly rulers were stewards of the divine overlord, and their people were dedicated to liis ser- vice and looked to liim for protection against their enemies and against such natural calamities as floods and drought, marsh fires and storms which threatened civilized life in Mesopotamia and were all regarded as manifestations of specific divinities. The god who owned the city was its advocate in the assembly of the gods. The doctrine of the divine ovcrlordships had far-reacliing consequences in the political and economic spheres. It resulted in a planned society best described as theocratic socialism. All the citizens, liigh and low, laboured in the service of the god and fulfilled allotted tasks. All tilled his fields and maintained the dykes and canals required for irrigation. Resources and labour were effectively pooled - seed corn, draught animals, ploughs, and other implements were supplied by tlic temple. Craftsmen kept this equipment in order and regularly presented a quota of their produce to the temple. So did fishermen and gar- deners, and indeed all other artisans. They were organized in guilds under foremen. The harvest of the gods’ fields and orchards, gardens and cane-brakes, was likewise stored in the temple and regularly distributed to the community in the form of periodical and special (festival) rations. The rooms round the inner court of the temple oval at Khafaje were stores and workshops required for such purposes.
At the time when texts became numerous enough to throw light on the working of this system - that is, towards the end of the Early Dynastic Period - it was already in dis- solution. The leaders who still called themselves 'stewards of the god’ were in practice
22
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
established as dynasts in the cities. But the temples played a dominant part in the national economy until the end of the third millenmum, and it is this function which explains such architectural complexes as were discovered at Khafajc, TcU Asmar, Tell Agrab, and, of a later age, at Ishchali (Plate 55), Ur and elsewhere.
Inside the shrine the statue of the god stood in front of a niche at one end of the long narrow cella which one entered through one of the long walls (the ‘ bent axis approach’). The space nearest to the statue might be marked as separate from the area of the congre- gation by piers against the side wall and tliis device ultimately developed into the broad ceUa with a central door (c^g. Figure 19). In front of the niche supporting the statue was a brick platform which served as an altar. A little farther away there was often a brick offering-table, but other kinds of supports were also available. There were tall pottery stands in which flowers, branches, and clusters of fruit were placed. Carved stone or
Figure 12. Early Dynasuc seal impression
bronze figures (Plates 13, 20B, and 28) supported small bo vis or vases filled widi un- guents or incense (Figure 12) . Rush lights (Plate 29c) and larger offering stands (Plate 45B) , perhaps representing a two-staged temple platform or Zip^gurat, were also in usc.^® Along the walls, on low brick benches or on the ground, stood statues of the devotees.
Sculpture in xiir Round
All Mesopotamian statuary was intended for temples; the human form was translated into stone for the express purpose of confronting die god.^^ Tlie statue was an active force; it was believed to possess a life of its own. Gudea, ruler of Lagash in a later period (Plates 46-9), erected a statue which was called Tt offers prayers’.^ Another was entitled ‘To my king (the city god Ningirsu) whose temple I have built; let life be my reward*.*^ Here the statue is, as it were, charged with a message; first it names the rec ipient of the petition, then the request itself. And about 2,000 years after Gudea, a kmg of Assyria wrote, *I installed my royal statue ... to appeal for life for myself before the gods in whom I have faith while a text of Gudea, giving instruction to the statue, begins: ‘Statue, say to my l^g “ The ‘king’, in this text, was again the city-god, and the statue was to report to him perennially the great deeds which Gudea had performed in his service. The statues of priests and notables served the same purpose.
The cult-statue, the figure of the deity which was placed on the altar before the niche at the narrow end of the shrine, was alive with a vitality of a higher order; for the god
23
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
himself was immanent in the figure. But very few cult-statues have come down to us, since they were mostly made of precious materials or decked with gold and other valu- aUcs. But it so happens that we possess two examples of the Second Early Dynastic Period.^ They belong to a group of ten figures which seem to have formed the com-- plete sculptural furniture of a sanctuary at Tell Asmar (Plate 13) and were at some time - cither when danger threatened or when the shrine was completely renovated - buried together under the floor beside the altar. The two divinities are differentiated from their worsliippers in three respects: by their stature, by the presence of identifying emblems on their bases, and by the huge diameter of their eyes. The figure of the god (Plate 15) is about thirty inches high, that of the priest (Plate 17) about sixteen inches, that of the bearded man of plate 16, where the feet are missing, twelve inches. The base on which the statue of the god stands bears a design in relief: an eagle (probably lion-headed, but the head is lost) and on cither side a gazelle with the branch of some plant, a group which we have recognized as the emblem of the deities who were worshipped in the Proto- literate temples at Warka. We know, from an inscribed copper vessel which belonged to the temple, that tliis deity at Tell Asmar was called Abu, ‘the Lord of Vegetation*.
The statue of the mother goddess is identified in a very direct way: a tiny standing figure was inserted into the base, representing her son. In quality her image is far inferior to that of the god, and the immense eyes fail in their effect. The statue of the god, on the other hand, possesses a magnetism of which no one who has seen the original can remain unaware. It seems charged with a fierce power, appropriate to the source of the vitality of plants and beasts and men.
The deities each carry a cup, and this recurs in the hands of some of the worshippers; occasionally they grasp a branch (Plate 19) or a flower as well. This probably means that these men had represented themselves and the gods as participants in the greatest feast in the calendar, when, at the New Year, the human and divine spheres for an instant seemed to touch.^* If our interpretation is correct, the ten statues found together at Tell Asmar constitute a group, not only by the circumstance of their discovery and the homogeneity of their style, but also because they were intended to represent the gods and the congregation at tliat most auspicious moment when man felt liimsclf closest to the deities he revered.
The statues representing mortals vary much in quality (Plate 13). The best show an in- tensity well in keeping with the belief that a hidden life animated them (Plates 16 and 17}.
It is possible to distinguish the means by which this effect was mainly realized : a reduc- tion, or rather a concentration, of all shapes to abstract, almost geometrical forms. The kilt, for instance, is rendered as a truncated cone. The bare upper parts of the bodies are square in section, with an almost brutal limitation of the primary, consciousness of the body as consisting of chest, flanks, and back. In plate 17 the chest-muscles arc rendered by planes meeting in a sharp ornamental line; the first or little finger in a closed hand becomes a spiral, the chin a wedge, the ear a double volute. The shapes of skull, cheeks, and arms are less easily described, but are equally abstract, and equally plastic. The hair is rendered in two strictly symmetrical halves, clamped round the face and setting it off in a system of horizontal ridges. This system harmonizes with diat of the beard (Plate 14),
24
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
which fits in the profile with the triangles of nose and lips. But both in front and side views the intent eyes arc the centre of the plastic composition. Whatever the differ- ences between individual statues, the formal principles are the same, and their logic is astonishing. This is a plastic style in which the chaotic reality of visual impressions is mastered by the creation of a perfectly homogeneous, self-contained, three-dimensional form, of an abstract order.
Perhaps it should be said that one need not impute any reasoning of this kind to the ancient sculptors. An analysis of works of art rationalizes and makes explicit what was intuitively created. But the sculptures we have described present in an extreme form one of the possible solutions to the problem of all sculptors - how to create a body which asserts its reality in space. It will do so if its own spatial volume is clearly recognized and convincingly established. If its three-dimensional character is not properly stressed the sculpture appears improbable and imperfectly realized. From the fifth century b.c. the West has rendered the human figure as a living, potentially mobile organism, involved in a network of relationships, and to be comprehended by the spectator only in a circular movement that can encompass the whole range of its complex functions.^ In pre- Greek times it was not organic imity, but abstract, geometric unity that was sought The main masses were arranged in approximation to some geometrical form - the cube or cylinder or cone; and the details were stylized in harmony with the ideal scheme. The clear three-dimensional character of tlicse geometrical bodies was reflected in the figures composed under this rule. And it is the dominance of the cylinder and the cone which imparts unity and corporeality to the Mesopotamian figures: note how the arms, meet- ing in front of the bodies, and the fringed lower edge of kilts, emphasize the circum- ference, and thereby the depdi as well as the width. This geometrir a;;>proximation es- tablishes the figures emphatically in space.
It also explains the spellbound appearance of all pre^Greck sculpture in the round. Only the choice of tlic ideal form dilFers: in Egypt it is the cube or oblong rather than the cylinder or cone. Once chosen, the formal ideal remains dominant; throughout all changes of style Egyptian sculpture is squaied, Mesopotamian sculpture is rounded. In Egypt front, sides, and back are joined as brusquely as possible and the limbs d<^ not overlap from one plane into the other; in Mesopotamia, at all times limbs and clothing are made to empl^ize the rotundity of the stone. In Egypt the seated figure with its many right angles - at knees, elbows, and hips - is the favourite and most effective sculp- tural subject. The Mesopotamian sculptor is apt to botch this pose by either reducing or exaggerating its crucial element: the horizont j expanse from hip to knee. No one seeing the front view of the figure in plate lo can be certain that it is a seated, not a standing figure. In another statue, from Khafajc,^^ the head is the apex of a cone, of which the surface descends almost uninterrupte^y from the face along the arms held before the chest to the absurdly protruding knees. Even in plate 28, where the natural proportions arc preserved, the roundness of all edges and the over-all pattern of the fleecy kilt are seen to obscure the motif if we compare it with the treatment it would receive in Egypt. In Mesopotamia the standing figure is the most popular as well as the most successful sub- ject of statuary.
25
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
We have said that the abstract form to which the figure approximates remains un- changed throughout the history of a country’s art. But the manner of approach varies. The first school of Early Dynastic sculpture (Plates 13-18) devotes itself to geometric approximation with passionate intensity. It reduces to abstractions not only the main forms, but even details like chins, checks, and hair. It is truly a school of carvers rather than modellers, to which single-mindedness and coherence impart its peculiar beauty.
The richness of these works is enhanced by polychromy. The stone is a veined gyp- sum; the eyeballs arc cut from shell, die pupils from lapis lazuli or black limestone. Hair and beard are covered with a black bituminous paint, wliich also fiUs the incised eye- brows and serves as mastic in which the eyes are set. In the heads of women the hair is treated in the same way. In a figurine from Tell Asmar,^® the parting was neatly picked out by a strip of mother of pearl set in the bitumen. In plate 18 the hair was modelled in bitumen (of which traces remain) and protruded as a fringe from beneath the finely plaited headcloth. The ears arc fully pierced, and were probably supplied with earrings of gold wire. The inlays of the eyes have not been found.
The carvers of tliis school proceeded with a boldness which would have horrified diosc true and congenital workers in stone, the contemporary Egyptians. The arms arc cut free from the body, even the legs arc sometimes freed and intended to carry the weight of the body without the support of a back pillar. Breakages were frequent, and many statues were repaired in antiquity. Nor were the legs and arms only liable to crack or snap off, though those are the commonest fractures. The sculptors attempted to pre- vent them cidier by leaving stone between the legs, or by making a back pillar, or even (as in the figures of our god and goddess from Tell Asmar) by giving the ankles a pre- posterous depth and thickness (Plate 13). This blemish may be called a minor one, but a number of other works arc undeniably failures, grotesque and ugly. The explanation of all these peculiarities is simple; stone was too rare a material for the Mesopotamians ever to have become familiar with it in die manner of the Egyptians. In the Nile valley a strong tradition of stone carving could be developed in the workshops, so tliat a very high level of craftsmanship was maintained, and even uninspired works were almost always adequate.
The Mesopotamian style of sculpture which we have described is also represented by works in metal. Remarkable figures were cast in copper as early as the Second Early Dynastic Period. Of the most ambitious one so far known a mere trace remains: at Tell Agrab we found a well-shaped foot which must have belonged to a nearly life-size copper statue. It may be, of course, that the statue was of some other material with only the face, the hands, and the feet cast of copper, or that the body and limbs consisted of copper sheets hammered over a bitumen core. This method was used for some large figures of lions found at Al ‘Ubaid, belonging, presumably, to the Tliird Early Dynastic Period (see below).
At Khafaje three complete figures of copper were found, of which the largest meas- ured about thirty inches and the other two (Plate 20b) each about sixteen inches. Their heads were provided with a four-armed claw upon which plates with offerings or bowls of incense were placed before the gods. They resemble, therefore, on the one hand the
26
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
copper rushlights found at Kish (Plate 29c), and, on the other, the small stone figures from Tell Asmar and Tell Agrab, which bear on their head a vessel or a hollowed-out turban (Plate 13). In all these cases, where the figures are not statues in the narrow sense, but temple furniture, diey arc naked, wearing only a triple girdle. We cannot decide whether they depict human or mythological beings. Perhaps these naked girdled figures are another version of the hero of plate 6, and of the seals of all later ages.^’ In the seals his regular companion is the bull-man (Figure 14) and a fine if incomplete figure of a bull-man, carved in the early style in green serpentine, has been found at Umma. He stands upright, and his two horns, like those of the goat in plate 28, would require a tliird point to serve as support for bowls with offerings. He resembles in all details the bull-man commonly occurring on cylinder seals of this and later periods. He is strikingly tall and slender, ithyphalhc and wearing a triple girdle - and must be considered as a rendering in the round of the same benevolent demon. His horns and liis legs below the knee were cast in metal and attached in sockets cut into the stone. Tlje locks wliich descend on either side of his face and his beard were also of metal and riveted to the stone.^
There are some small pieces of metal work which are very ingenious and elaborate. One, a double vase, foutid, and no doubt used, in the Temple at Tell Agrab, has as sup- port a pair of strictly antithetical wrestlers, on whose heads the vessels seem to be bal- anced (Plate 20c:). From the same site comes die little model of a chariot drawn by four onagers.^^ Even though the surface is badly corroded, some trace ot the subtle modelling survives in the animals, especially their heads. The chariot is as lightly built as is com- patible with strength. It has no body, the driver stands on two treads above the axle and has thrown back his kilt to free his legs; for he must grip with his knee.' kind of wooden centrepiece, covered with a fleece, to keep his balance in liis springless veliiclc. The span of four is guided by reins fixed to rings in die upper Hps ot the asses, and by a whip, now lost (Plate 20a).
When we now review the statuary of the Second Early Dynastic Period as a w’holc, the works in stone and in metal appear as equals; neither shows influence of the other. Tliis is most unusual. At no other time do we find Mesopotamian S( iilpture which repre- sents so outspokenly and exclusive W the formal language ot the stone-cutter. The con- trast is not between the actual materials, metal and stone, of course, but rests in die method of achieving plastic forms. The sculptor liberates the tigure he has conceived from the enclosing block; the metal-worker builds up his wax model by adding ma- terial to an amorphous core until the form is complete. To individual artistr as well as to nations cither one or the other procedure is more congenial; they cidicr proceed per forza di levate or per via di porre, as Michelangelo put it. And the congenial method will prevail over the other, to the extent that the characteristic forms of the favoured tech- nique will be imitated in works produced by the other. In Egypt, for instance, stone carving was the leading craft, and works in wood and metal did not exploit the poten- tiahties peculiar to these materials, but followed the canon of the stone-cutter. In the Mesopotamia of later times metal seems to have become the leading craft and influences work in stone. It may be relevant to remember that Mesopotamia is a land where day
27
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
and mud must needs be used for a variety of purposes - for pots and tablets, for gutters, pipes, window-grills, for figurines and relief - and that consequently modelling was the commonest of all Mesopotamian techniques. However this may be, Mesopotamian works in metal, although rare (for they were usually melted down in later times), show a re- markably high quality, and stonework displays modelled forms (e.g. Plates 46 and 47) in all subsequent periods. The abstract style of the Second Early Dynastic Period never reappeared.
It was succeeded by a style which is not merely a modification, but, in its most strik- ing aspects, the antithesis of the earlier one (Plates 21-5). Instead of sharply contrasting, clearly articulated masses, we see fluid transitions and infinitely modulated surfaces. In- stead of abstract shapes, we see a detailed rendering of the physical peculiarities of the model. By a new and subtle treatment of the surface the base of the skull is differentiated from the neck, the bony forehead and temples from the soft cheeks. This manner, what- ever its virtue, is a denial of the values which the older style realized by the tautness of its simplified surfaces. In second-rate works the attention now given to the differentia- tion of surfaces produces a disintegration of plastic coherence. In the best works this danger is avoided and a new sensitivity to subtle changes in physical substance imparts hfe to figures which lack the vigour and intensity of the carher images.
Conversely, some details of die older style appear crude in the hght of the new; the flat ridges which once rendered the mouth are replaced by delicately curved Ups which rise at the comers in a contented, somewhat complacent, smile (Plate 22(:). A double chin adds to the impression of material well-being, and folds of fat arc sometimes indi- cated between chest and stomach. Collar-bones and nipples are now also shown. The square section formerly given to the bare body is rounded out, the kilt is rendered with all the detail of its fleece-like surface and loses its stark geometric outline. In plate 23 the realistic tendency has even affected the rendering of accessories, like the wicker-work scat, and the kilt is entirely free from stylization (cf. Plate 19). A certain precious- ness appears in the treatment of the beard, where the curls, turning at the tips, arc separ- ated by a series of drill-holes. This device is also found in a figure of Lugalkisalsi from Warka,®^ 400 miles to the south, and illustrates the uniformity of style tlirough the whole of Mesopotamia; for the figure of plate 23 comes from Mari on the middle Euphrates. The fashion of shaving the head while growing a luxuriant beard was pre- valent^^ at Mari, but it is abo found at Assur^ and Khafaje.^’ It is worth while to com- pare this detailed rendering of the beards with the succession of ridges which served in the earlier style. The heads also have been transformed; the proportion between skull and face has changed entirely. In the older style the cranium was unnaturally reduced in volume because the whole treatment of the head aimed at giving a plastic setting for the face with its piercing eyes. In the later style the natural proportions are restored.
The change of style need not be a result of the influence of modelled works to which we have referred. It is quite likely that the Early Dynastic sculptors, having followed abstraction to its utmost limits, began to explore the possibilities offered by the opposite approach. But the causes of the cliange must in any case remain an open question. We know only that the realistic style is found throughout the country in the Third Early
28
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
Dynastic Period and already existed in the Second.^ We also know that it was never abandoned.
We have referred exclusively to figures of men in discussing style; the figures of women arc, on the whole, of lesser quality and their styhstic character becomes blurred. The contrast between the images of god and goddess in plate 13 is typical, not excep- tional. Most of the surviving statues of women belong to the later style. This is probable in plate 24A/ a female figure from Mari, with a head-dress not, so far, found elsewhere. It is certain for the figures of plates 24B and 25. The hair is generally shown as in plate 25, with the long plait wound round the head, which gives, in front vtcw, a good frame to the face.
Non-human figures arc known in both styles. Plate 26a shows the front part of the arm-rest of a throne. It depicts one of the monstrous creatures which populated the fairy- land of contemporary seal designs. The heavy mane of a bison surrotmds an enigmatic bearded face; the horns arc broken off. It is the human-htidcd bull. His counterpart, the bull-man, is known in sculpture in an offering-stand discussed on p. 27.
The cow of plate 26b is made of translucent serpentine. It has a beard, which is here shown as a ritual appendage, boimd round the muzzle. At the back of the head two locks of human hair descend from between the horns as if one viewed from behind a deity wearing a homed crown. It is likely diat the cow represented the goddess Nintu, ‘Lady of Births \ since it was not only found in her temple but would fit a pedestal built on its altar. The meaning of the beard remams unknown; it recurs often when animals embodying some superhuman power are represented (e.jj. Plates 27B and 31). The small green figure is oddly impressive, powerful out of all proportion to its size; the scheme of the earlier stone vases (Plate 5), where animals passants turn their he ids at right angles to face the beholder, acquires a new meaning where the beast possesses this weird numinous power and the beholder is a w orshipper of the embodied deity.
The cow of Nintu and the arm-rest with the human-headed bull belong to the end of the Second Early Dynastic Period, the period when the second, reaUstic style had been established.^^ This style in stone sculpture is contemporary with an extraordinary efflorescence of statuary in copper and gold. Copper lions scr\Td as guardians of the temple of Ninhursag, ‘Lady of the Mountain’, at Al ‘Ubaid.^ It lias not yet been de- cided whether the heads were cast or hammered over a bitumen core. The bodies were certainly made of hammered sheets of copper riveted together The creatures show their teeth, and a protruding tongue of red jasper adds to their fierce appearance; so do the large inlaid eyes. Lions’ heads of the same type, but carved in stone, com*' from Lagash, and the device of guardian lions survived to the Hammurabi Period and re-emerged later in Assyria.
The friezes of stone animals discovered in the ProtoUterate temples of \?^arka (Plate 4) find their counterpart in metal at Al ‘Ubaid. A scries of standing bulls, and another of calves kneeling down, turn dieir heads outwards in the old-established manner.^ The bodies of the calves are worked in relief, but the heads were cast separately and arc en- tirely detached from the wall. We do not know where these friezes appeared in the building, gincr they were discovered buned in a trench, thrown there, no doubt, on the
29
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
occasion of a renovation of the temple. We arc equally in die dark about a great sym- bolic panel, found in the same temple (Plate 27A). It shows in die centre the lion-headed eagle Imdugud, gripping a stag with cither claw. The gesture docs not represent aggres- sion but affinity: the same deity is symbolized by bird and deer. The combination adorns the base of the statue of the god Abu (Plate 13) where plants arc added to the herbivores. If the eagle is con*cctly interpreted as the embodiment of the black rain-clouds, his pre- sence in the temple of the Mother Goddess Ninhursag (Lady of the Mountain) is easily explained. At Lagash the god was said to enter the temple ‘like a rumbling storm, like a bird of prey descrying its victim’, when he arrived for his sacred marriage with the god- dess. The absence of plant motifs in the copper rchef is compensated by the large number of rosette flowers which were composed of petals cut from red and white stone mounted upon terra-cotta nails wliich were fixed in the walls of the temple.
The heads of the three animals on the copper panel are cast separately. Such cast heads are occasionally found in the ruins without any trace of the decayed bodies of sheet cop- per. They may, therefore, belong not to architectural friezes of the type just described, but to objects of perishable material, such as furniture. Lion-heads, for instance, were used ornamentally as parts of a wooden sledge; and the heads of lierbivores occur on harps. It is possible that differences in pitch corresponded with an attachment to harps of the head of a bull, a cow, a calf, or a goat.
Plate 27B shows a reliable reconstruction of one of the harps foiuid at Ur. The sound- box was of wood which had, of course, decayed. But its shape was presen/ed by the order in which shell, lapis lazuli, and red jasper had been set in bitumen. Triangles of the same materials, alternating with bands of gold-leaf, liad covered the iipriglits wliich sup- ported the bar to wliich the strings were attached. It seems that the instrument was con- ceived as a creature giving forth music, for its head, cast in gold, is attached to the sound- box. The bull’s head of plate 31 is fixed to a harp in the same manner. There gold-leaf is modelled over a core, and lapis lazuU is used to render the beard, the shaggy hair be- tween the horns, the horn tips, and the eyelids and pupils. The splendid goat’s head of plate 29B may also be derived from an instrument. It is cast in copper, superbly modelled, and conveys the uncanny character of the goat to perfection.
The animal which forms the centre of the strange and beautiful object of plate 28 seems equally daemonic. From a wooden base, covered with coloured stone inlays in bitumen, a tree rises. Its branches end in leaves and in the symbolical rosette-flower. A billy-goat has put its forefeet on the branches and peers through tlic foliage. Its heavy coat is rendered by separately carved pieces of shell and lapis lazuli, set in the bitumen that covers die wooden body. The two horns are cut from lapis lazuli. A piece of wood that gives rigidity to the body emerges between the shoulders and is covered with gold- foil. Originally^ its top was on a level with the tip of the horns so that bowls and saucers with offerings could be placed upon it. We know from a contemporary seal design (Figure 12) how such objects were used. The stand of plate 28 represents in the round that combination of herbivore with plant which we have repeatedly met as symbol of the great gods of natural fertility. But as it comes to Hfe in the stand it has acquired an extraordinary potency. It appears in the full mystery of its animal vitality, not sub-
30
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
human, but superhuman. Its close relation with the fertility gods is shown on an Akkad- ian seal (Figure 17A), where it puts its forefeet familiarly on the god’s knee, while a man and woman humbly approach with their offerings. Tammuz is called in a hymn ‘hus- band of Ishtar the bride . . . creating the seed of cattle, head of the stalls ’ but also ‘leading goat of the land’. Such plirases, and the image of the seal design, reveal the inadequacy of the usual colourless phrases that the goat is sacred to Tammuz or symbolizes him. or that the god is the embodiment of the male principle in nature and manifest in the fer- tility of the flocks. The works of art reveal how inevitably our abstractions miss the directness widi wliich the god s manifestation was experienced, and how the animals appeared charged widi his essence, and hence with the very life of the immortals. In the emblem on the base of the statue of plate 13, in friezes, on seals, or on vases, beasts and plants may seem to us mere ornaments, and we must reconstruct the meaning they had for die Ancients by an intellectual effort. But in the offering-stand of plate 28 the gold animal thrusting its head among the artificial branches reflects with awe-inspiring direct- ness the divine power which was once thought to be at icst on the altar.
Engraving and Relief
The vase of plate 32, from Tclloh (Lagash), is made of silver and set on a wvippcr stand. It bears on the neck an inscription of Entemena, king of Lagash, and shows two engraved friezes, separated by a band with the herring-bone wliich is hkewise common on gold vases from Ur. But the extreme simplicity of shape is never combined with engraving at Ur; nor is the engraving there representational. Entemcna’s vase is a display piece, presented to the temple of die god whose emblems arc engraved on r. At Lagash he was railed by a purely local name, Ningirsu, but he is none other than the god of the natural life whom we have met even on monuments of the Protolitcratc Period. The frieze of calves on the shoulder of the vase resembles (do’vn to the pose of the forelegs) the copper frieze of the temple of the Mother Goddess Ninhursag at Al ‘Ubaid. At Lagash Nin- girsu was considered also as the bringcr of rain-storms and inundations, and since both rain and the rise of the waters in the Tigris arc sudden and violent, Ningirsu had a violent warlike character. Hence die predominance of lions, and of die lion-headed eagle, Im- dugud, personification of the storm-clouds, in the imagery of Lagash. On the main frieze of our vase the bird occurs four times; first he grasps a pair ot lions, dicn two goats, again a couple of lions, then a pair of oxen. The combination of these creatures circumscribes the sphere of action of the god: his violence, in war, in rainstorms, in fl'^ods; and his beneficent manifestation in natural life.
It is characterisdc of Mesopotamian art that the four groups showing Imdugud with a pair of animals arc not merely set side by side. They arc interlocked. The claws of the birds clasp the lions; the lions sink their teeth into the faces of the ruminants, which again are held by the claws of the next bird and bitten by the lions of the adjoining group. A continuous frieze results. It is as if the cylindrical form which dominates sculpture in the round, glyptic, and mural decoration in Mesopotamia had so strong an appeal that every opportunity to emphasize its characteristics was welcome to the designer. The
31
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
continuous cylindrical surface caused him to animate the creatures in his design so that each made the one gesture, with claws or mouth, which closed the ring. We shall see the same thing on the cylinder seals of the period.
It recurs on several votive mace-heads. One of these, dedicated to Ningirsu by Mesi- lim, king of Kish,^^ shows on top the lion-headed eagle, and on the circumference a series of lions, each of which attacks the one in front and is in turn attacked by the one behind. Once more the design is interlocked and continuous. But the device is not applied mechanically. In the mace-head of figure 13, for instance, the lion-headed eagle, occurring four times, as on Enteniena’s silver vase, grasps gazelles in each instance. Hence the four groups remain separate and the roundness of the mace-head had to be empha- sized by another device, namely by the sweep of the seven-headed hydra across the top.^* We must now consider a class of stonework which betrays httlc concern with decora- tive effect, but aims at clarity of representation, namely, square plaques of limestone pierced in the middle. The earliest of these date from the Second Early Dynastic Period,
Figure 13. Mac&-licad
and they continue until the end of the Tliird, On the early plaques the relief is clumsy, executed in two planes without modelling. The scenes possess, however, a certain liveli- ness. The majority render a single subject, a feast in which a male and a female personage are the chief participants. In plate 33 a they appear in the top row. On the right a bearded man, holding a bunch of dates or a leafy branch in his left hand, receives a cup from a servant. On the left a woman is seated with cup and branch. A maid-servant behind her chair waves a circular fan with one hand and holds a wine-jar in the other. In the middle appear two entertainers, drawn back to back for symmetry’s sake; one plays the harp, while the other dances with folded arms a kind of hompipc.^^
The second register, divided into three parts by the space for the central hole, shows the bringing of provisions for the feast: on the left two men carry a large beer-jar slung from a pole. One of them has also the circular pot stand on which the pointed vessel will be placed. On the other side meat on the hoof is brought in the form of a goat; the ser- vant carries a large knife in liis hand and a pile of loaves on his head. Below is a groom with an empty war chariot, preceded by a spearman and followed by a man who carries some object - probably a pot - tied to a pole over his shoulder. It will be seen that the fragments of plate 33 a do not fit properly. They did not, in fact, belong to the same re- lief. The main sections were found at Khafaje, but the missing left-hand bottom comer
32
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
, was completed in die illustration by using a portion of relief found at Ur. I mention this not only to explain the illustration, but also to emphasize the fact that identical or closely similar plaques of this type were set up in temples throughout the land.-*^ The subject which first suggests itself - namely, a feast held after return from a victorious war - is excluded by the absence of any specific feature identifying the historical occa- sion. Other aspects, too, point to a recurrent, and in fact a ritual occasion for the erection of these plaques. The attitude of the main celebrants, with cup and branch, will be re- membered in the statues set up in the temple of Tell Asmar before the gods (p. 24 above), and we have suggested that these referred to the celebration of the New Year Festival, when a common rejoicing umted mortals and immortals. Other features in the plaques (for instance the empty war chariot) arc not incompatible with this supposition. Some variations in the composition of these stone plaques occur. The lower register may show a rowing boat instead of a chariot; or scenes of entertainment: men wrestling and boxing^ or dancing^ or climbing trees.^^ In the upper ’"cgister the divine participants arc sometimes shown, served by priests in ritual nakedness. But some plaques are too different to be considered variants of plate 3 3 a. They may show libations being poured before the gods, and a few seem purely decorative. Yet on one of these, that of the High Priest Dudu of Lagash,^® we find, besides symbols of the god Ningirsu, an inscription saying that the plaque was dedicated ‘as a support for a mace\^^ Maces, such as that shown in figure 13, were common votive offerings to die gods. They were kept, like other emblems, in the temple, and in later times (and perhaps also in the Early Dynastic Period) they played a part in the administration of oaths.®® It is possible that the plaques with festival scenes served the same purpose as diat of Dudr, namely to support a divine emblem; it is also possible that they were pegged to the temple w.dl in honour of the benefactor who had contributed the means for holding the feast. But none has been found in its original position.
A few generations before Dudu a ruler of Eagash, Umauslie, had tlie plaque (Plate 33b) made. In its carving it shows a great advance over die earlier type illustrated in the same plate; the details of the figures are now modelled, not engraved. Y'et it is an artless piece of work. Urnanshe is shown carrying a basket of mud to mould the first brick of a new temple he is to build. In the right-hand bottom corner he celebrates the complcrion of the work. His family is commemorated by two stiff rows of figures, identified by their names.
We know that steles existed on which historical events were commemorated, but since the wars between the city-states sec-sawed without decision, not one of these monuments has survived complete. The best-preserved fragment was found at Lagash (Plates 34-5), and records a victory of its ruler Eamiatum over the neighbouring city of Umma. The people of this city had destroyed a boundary stone solemnly set up under a previous king and had occupied fields belonging to Lagash. In the upper part of the stele (Plate 34) Eamiatum is seen advancing before the phalanx of his heavy infantry; the spearmen arc protected by a wall of shield-bearers. They march over the pros- trate bodies of the enemies. On the right vultures and lions arc shown devouring naked corpses. Below this scene of carnage Eannatuin again appears, this time in hi .
33
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
war-chariot (cf. plate 36), followed by his light infantry. He seems to lift his spear against the king of Umma. The same or a similar scene is repeated in the bottom row, where the head of the victim, looking back over the bare heads of his retreating troops, is struck by the spear of a figure now lost. In the lowest register Eannatum (of whose figure only the feet are preserved) presides over the burial of his dead. They are laid out side by side, and their comrades, carrying earth in baskets on their heads, fill the common grave. Meanwhile the king worships the gods by pouring a libation over two vases filled with branches. An ox pegged to the ground is sacrificed to Ningirsu.
The side of the stele which we have described records the events as they had been ob- served to occur; the other side (Plate 35) reveals the hidden forces which brought them about. The god Ningirsu himself had taken up the just cause of his city; he caught the men of Umma in his net and destroyed them. The net is closed by - or, at least, seen to hang from - a handle in the shape of the god’s emblems: the lion-headed eagle over two lions. In his right hand the god holds a mace. His figure, occupying two-thirds of the height of the stele, is followed by a smaller divinity under the lion-headed eagle, while below it the god’s chariot is depicted. The front of it, with the curved end of the pole, the rein ring crowned by die figure of a lion, and the wings of the lion-headed eagle, are visible, before the small head of the divinity.*^
It is clear that decorative considerations played only a minor part in the composition of the steles of victory. The clarity of the pictorial narrative was all that mattered. Thus the designer disregarded the edges of the stone; in plate 34 the last ranks of the troops following Eannatum are simply drawn on the narrow side of the stele, as if the stone had the curved surface of the cylmder.
The fragments of similar steles found elsewhere are too small to allow their designs to be reconstructed. But victories in war were also recorded on a smaller scale on objects which could be displayed indoors. On more tlian one site delicately carved pieces of shell or mother of pearl have been found, which had been inlaid in bitumen. The result was some such arrangement as is shown on the so-called ‘standard’ from Ur (Plates 36-7). We do not really know the use of this object, and the absence of inscriptions sug- gests that it may have served to decorate pieces best described in a general way as furni- ture.®^ The two panels slant inwards, so that the sides of the object are trapezoid. These sides are decorated with mythological subjects, but the main panels show two comple- mentary events: a victory and a feast. Each subject is divided into three registers, and framed by borders of lapis lazuli set diamond- wise in bitumen and edged with shell. The main scene occupies the upper register, while the others record subsidiary events; for there is no strict time sequence. On the side where a military victory is shown, the king, half a head taller than his men, has descended from his chariot. Spear in hand, he inspects captives. They are naked, and some of them are wounded. The preceding en- gagement is depicted below. At the bottom the chariots advance over the bodies of the dead, each with a driver and a spearman whose javelins project from a quiver. In the middle register infantrymen despatch some enemies and take others captive. On the other side of the standard (Plate 37) there is the celebration after the victory. It differs from the feasts on the square relief plaques in that women do not participate, and no one carries
34
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
branches or flowers. The king sits facing his officers, is larger than his boon companions, and wears a kilt which is, at least in the rendering, more elaborately tassellcd than theirs. On the right a man plays a harp of the type of plate 27B (it is carried by a shoulder- strap) and the woman behind him would be a singer or a dancing-girl. The connexion between the feast and the military success is made clear by the bottom register, where the spans of onagers can only be explained as war booty. Portable spoils are carried on the back on regular wooden packs held by straps passing round the forehead of the porters.
The technique of inlay was widely used in Early Dynastic times; it allowed for grace- ful design and rich effects in colour and texture, and is found on boxes, gaining boards, and so on. The soundboxes of harps were similarly decorated, and that of the harp, plate 31, shows some extraordinary scenes (Plate 38). Uppermost appears the hero of plate 6 protecting two human-headed bulls, a theme used so frequently and in such vary- ing contexts that one is tempted to suppose its meaning to be less important than its decorative effect. But no such uncertainty attaches to the oilier scenes; nothing could be clearer and more specific. A wolf and a lion serve at table - but the diner is not depicted. The wolf has carved the meat and brings dressed boar’s and sheep’s heads and a leg of mutton. The carving-knife is stuck in his belt. It is of a pattern found in the tombs of Ur and elsewhere” and misnamed dagger. The lion follows the wolf, carry mg a large jar of hquor, apparently wound round with wicker-work, and a bowl or lamp. The rcHef plaques, the ‘standard’ from Ur, and many seal designs show that music was played during meals; and so we see die bear steadying a large harp wliich the ass plays. A small animal - a fawn, perhaps, or a Jerboa - sits at the feet of the bear and shakes a rattle - die Egyptian sistrum - while beating a tambourine or drum held on its lap lowest panel is less clear. A scorpion-man carries an object wliich we cannot recognize. This seents to belong to the tall jar, since a similar object projects from its mouth. Can they be clay tablets? The gazelle which follows liini holds tumblers or peilups incense-burners.
We lack all guidance in this fantastic world. Only the scorpion-man is mentioned in texts: in the Epic of Gilganicsh he is a guardian of the place of sunrise, a function which seems irrelevant in the context of our inlays. It has sometimes been said that the animals are masked men, but tliis seems unlikely.” They have been equipped with human hands for paws only in order to enable them to carry objects, strum the harp, and so on. In any case, if masked men performed these scenes the implication would be tliat the ani- mals were believed once to liavc performed them. But we know nodiing of the occasion when this was supposed to have taken place, and cannot judge, therefore, ^’diethcr it re- flects myth, ritual, or fable. On a scaling from Ur the lion is die hero of a similar feast.” Seated on a throne, he swills from beakers handed to him by an antelope on its hind legs. A donkey brings ajar of drink. Another, likewise upright, plays the harp, and a third the cymbals. On a scaling from Tell Asinar” a lion and an ass sit on cither side ot ajar of beer, from which they drink through a drinking-tube. One and a half millemiia later, the animal orchestra appears again on some rough stone reliefs found in a palace at Tell Halaf in north Syria.” It is unlikely that mere fables were the subject of works of art of this importance. More probably we have here traces of ancient myths. On the harp from
35
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
Ur they are presented in the charmed manner of Sumerian art which suspends our dis- belief whoi it converts the world of fiury-tale into reality. It is in such a world that the benign human-headed bull of plate 2dA and the demonic goat of plate a8 exist, and die animals and monsters of the harp inlays celebrate their festival.
Glyptic Art
The seal designs of the period are very largely renderings of diis same fmtasdc world (Plates 3SH40; Figures 14-16), but in them it is subjected to the decorative requirements peculiar to die seal. In attempting diis the Early Dynasdc seal-cutters were so successful that their inventions have decisively influenced the repertoire, not only of later glyptic, but also of the metalwork and textiles of Mesopotamia, and through these the art of Greece and Persia, and even of medieval Europe. The starting-point is, as we have seen (p. 18), in the Brocade Style which developed one of the tendencies first observed in Protoliter- ate times, where every subsequent development has its roots. The Brocade Style sacri- ficed subject to design; simple linear figures were scattered over the surface to form a continuous frieze of even density. The style was, in its purest form, elegant but jejune, and its subject-matter was soon enriched. In the Second Early Dynastic Period this pro- cess continued, but the stylistic principles remained unchanged. The design was still mainly linear, and wider surfaces, such as the bodies of animals, were flat and witliout modeUing (Plate 39, A and b). Plasticity was introduced only in die Third Early Dynastic Period.
The seal-cutters made much use of that animation which enabled the engraver of the silver vase of plate 32 to produce a continuous design. When he made the lions attack the neighbouring herbivores, he imited juxtaposed figures into a closed chain. On the seals the commonest subject is a frieze of animals and fantastic creatures which seem to be engaged in a free-for-all fight. We do not understand the implications of this theme, which is a favourite one with the Mesopotamian artists of all periods, but a somewhat clumsy des^ like figure 1 5A shows that one of the sources of the friezes was the defence of herds and flocks against the depredations of lions. Whether the calf’s head drawn on the left is merely a space-filler or is meant to represent a victim of the beasts of prey we do not know, but the bull which collapses under the lion’s paws is reprieved in the nick of time by two bull-men. The same elements are used to produce the more sophisticated seals which display an astounding gift of invention, since they are often but variations on the same theme. The particular requirement of a seal - namely, that it should bear an individual, distinctive engraving - oflered a challenge to the designers to which they re- sponded with delight. In figure 14B three bull-men restrain two lioiu, while a bull stands by unharmed. Two heads of goats are space-fillers. There is nowhere a hiattu in the frieze, yet the figures are not crowded. The facts of die scene - the killing of livestock by lions - which are presented plainly in figure 15A, are taken for granted, and the interest centres in the composition. Another version is plate 39A where we meet the naked hero of plate 6. He holds the beard of a wild ox in either hand, and is shown once more bend- ing past a lion which he seems to stab with a dagger in the hind quarters while grasping
36
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
Figure 14. Seal impressions of tlic second Early Dvnasne Penod, from Fara
the forepaw of another lion. This latter beast is drawn across a goat facing to the left. The crossing of figures is now a favourite device; it increases the density of the design and makes space-filling motifs, such as heads, plants, and the Uke, superfluous. The same illustration also shows how an inscription was treated during this period. It appears on the left, not separated from the rest of the design by a frame, but seemingly part of it. The space left over below the written signs is filled by the hero bJt\^ccn two goats, drawn on a smaller scale than the rest of the scene. These designs are entirely homo- geneous (that is, linear) and continuous: it is not possible to isolate the impiession of a single revolution of the cylinder seal, since the ends arc carefully dovetailed, a feature obscured by the neatness of modern draughtsmen, who arrest the loose ends which they really should show on both sides of their copies; the photographs do show them.
The design of figure 14A is even more complicated. Again two lampant lions flank a central figure, as in figure 14B. Bui this time the figure is not their master but their vic- tim, a goat, drawn widi two heads to fill the broad space between the lions. As in figure 14B, two bull-men attack the lions in the rear, but tlit heads of the beasts are turned outward, towards their attackers. The group of animal and plant which fills, in figure 14B, the space left on the cylinder after the group of five had been drawn, is re- placed in figure 14A by a filling showing lion and bull-man in combat.
The detailed comparisons of these two seals may serve as an illustration of the rich variety produced by modifications in the composition of a few recurring motifs. The goat with the two heads gives the clue to the monsters which arc frequent on these seals. One type appears in plate 39B and figure 14c. His tressed and bearded head is shown in full-face, and the trunk and arms are human; but the legs are lions standing on their forefeet, while their end in panthers’ heads which tlie arms of the creature thrust away from its face. It would be useless to expect the literary sources to disclose the nature
B
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PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
Figure 15. Seal impressions of the second Early Dynastic period, from (a) Tell Agrab and (b) Khafaje
of this extraordinary monster; it originated ‘on paper’, a product of the craftsman’s fancy. Ty^o stages of its genesis can be recognized in our plates. In plate 39B, on the left, a bull-man dispatches with a dagger a lion which he holds upside down by the hind legs. In plate 39c, a slightly later seal, the naked hero grips two Hons in this position. The tlirec elements of the group have coalesced, fused by the draughtsman’s imagination into a single, more marvellous creature, to take for a moment its place among the mythical bull-men and human-headed bulls, the lions and lion-headed eagles. Other monsters, too, came into being in tliis fashion. Even when subjects more significant than the ani- mal frieze were rendered, the design showed the closely spaced, cymmetrical, or repeti- tive character of a textile pattern. That is the case, for instance, with the sun-god in liis boat (Figure T5b), which we shall discuss later. A story is but rarely told in a straight- forward manner, without attempt at decorative effect.
The strength of die seals of the Second Early Dynastic Period lay in the rich variety of designs which were neither purely ornamental nor clearly representational and which derive their fascination from the ambiguity of their subject as well as from their formal beauty. They were executed in a linear, disembodied style whose possibilities were ex- ploited to die full.
The next development was a movement away from this method of engraving. The Third Early Dynastic Period returned to the modelling in relief which had been com- mon in the Protolitcrate Period, but had been lost during its final dechne, and had been neglected in the First Early Dynastic revival of the Brocade Style. The Third Early Dynastic Period kept to the themes of die preceding age, but made them appear more substantial. The potentialities of modelling were recognized and the depth of the figure was no longer treated as an inevitable but aesthetically indifferent consequence of the technique of engraving. The new style gave importance to parts of the design which its predecessor had used cavalierly. A comparison of the seals of plate 40 with the earlier one of plate 39, A and B, brings out the lack of interest of the flat surfaces in the animals’ hindquarters or the hero’s legs. In plate 39c the body of the rampant gazelle is still nearly flat, but the hero’s body and the lions’ hindquarters arc truly modelled, and the play of light and shadow hfts these areas out of their previous insignificance.
The lions in plate 39c (as in most of the seals of the Third Early Dynastic Period) show their face in front view, while it had been rendered before in profile (Plate 39A; Figure 14). The frontal view allowed the contrast between face and mane to achieve its full plastic effect; similarly the ibexes and stags of plate 40c stand out against the embroidery of plant design covering the background, while in the earlier style (Figure 143) the
38
THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
Space-filling plants arc a part of a homogeneous linear design, equal in value to the ani- mals. But even in the Third Early Dynastic Period so strongly marked a contrast be- tween figures and background is rare. On the whole the figures appear modelled against a neutral smooth background. The elaboration of plasticity increases the volume of the figures. The lion's head seen from the front or from above shows a splendid and massive mane. Even the faces of heroes and bull-men become broader as well as more plastic. At the same time the friezes grow more crowded; the older well-spaced gioups of three or five figures, symmetrically arranged (Figure 14, a and b), become rare, and most figures are put as upright as possible while crossing others (Figure i6a; Plate 40A). Tliis cross movement of figures becomes, in fact, the main device of composition and is handled
A
H
Figure 16. Seal impressions of the third Early Dynastic period
with virtuosity. In the best examples the fantastic world of play and struggle remains a compelling vision; but it no longer bears analysis. The earlier designs had, for all their ingenious interlacings, remained variations of a recognizable theme, the defence of herbivores against beasts of prey. The relations between the individual figiues, their character as aggressor or victim of attack, were never obscured. But in the ^vild tnilee of the later seals erstwhile allies may become antagonists if it suits the draughtsman's con- venience. Both sides are, moreover, strengthened; the stag and the leopard are added to the cast of figures, no doubt to counteract the monotony which the exclusive use of tlie criss-crossing shapes would otherwise produce. For the same reason ammals — mostly victims - arc often inverted. In the usual frieze of crossing animals all the formal interest lies in the upper half of the design, the lower part merely consisting of legs, which may be elegantly spaced, as in plate 40B, but remain rather dull (Figure i6a). The placing of one or more of tlic animals upside down (Plate 40A) corrects that shortcoming. The
39
PART one; MESOPOTAMIA
Strength of the tendency towards decoration for its own sake is shown by the swastika of lions (Figure i6a) and the circle of four men who each hold their foreman by the ankle while threatening him with a dagger (Figure i6b).
The stress on plasticity did not destroy linear beauty. In fact the elaboration of tails and hair tufts in plate 40B shows a new sophistication, if compared with plate 39A. But the tendency to increase both the mass of the modelled figures and their number became ultinutely incompatible with the established schemes of composition and destroyed them. The difficulties were twofold. One of them concerned the inscriptions which, in the past, could be absorbed in the linear design but now appeared as an intrusion between the modelled figures. A greater difficulty was the unevenness of surface which resulted from the crossing of such relatively substantial figures (Plate 40A). This might go so far as to prevent the making of a clean impression; in any case it was aesthetically in- acceptable.
Throughout the Early Dynastic Period the beauty of a seal required a continuous de- sign of even density. Each hiatus was filled by a subsidiary motif; there were no vertical breaks at any point. The harmonious spacing of the design ensured the effect of either long or short impressions taken from die seal. This principle w^as basic to die Brocade Style and was well maintained, even towards the end of the Third Early Dynastic Period, when crossing figures were piled up in the friezes. But when the figures became more substantial, the frieze appeared overloaded (Plate 40A). The figures require space and air - and so we notice at the end of the period an innovation which really consisted in a pull- ing apart of the interlaced figures, and thereby an introduction of a hiatus between each struggling group (Plate 40B). The effect is splendid; even vigorous modelling docs not produce heaviness. But the frieze as a whole has lost its coherence; we now sec three dis- tinct groups placed side by side on the seals’ surfaces. The basic principle of Early Dynas- tic seal design has been sacrificed. Yet once again, as at the end of the Protoliteratc Period, the disintegration of a prevalent glyptic style becomes the starting-point for a fresh development at the opening of a new age. There is, however, one difference: the end of the Early Dynastic Period is in no way an age of decline. And the changes which we are about to describe amount to a transformation of Mesopotamian art while it was at the height of its power.
40
CHAPTER 3
THE AKKADIAN PERIOD
<CIRCA 2340-2180 B.C.>
Throughout its history, Mesopotamian art exhibits a curious polanty. It reveals on the one hand a love of design for its own sake, and on the other a delight in physical reality. In the Protoliterate Period the seal designs illustrate both tendencies, separately or combined. Later, in the First and Second Early Dynastic Periods, decorative traits prevail. During the Third, in such seals as those of plate 40, the tendency towards the concrete fmds renewed expression, and it gains prcdomiii,mcc in the reign of Sargon of Akkad. The change of style miglit therefore be regarded as a mere shift of emphasis within the native tradition, but such an interpretation of the Akkadian achievement would be quite inadequate. The innovations are too striking; and the few splendid works which survive (Plates 41-4) cannot be understood without reference to matters which arc altogether extraneous to the field of art.
The accession of Sargon of Akkad, his conquest of the vai ious city-states, his organiza- tion of a realm which retained its coherence for over a century under his descendants, permanently affected, not only the art, but also the language and political thought of Mesopotamia. Under the appearance of familiar procedure - the piecemeal subjection of the city-states to a single ruler - a new enterprise was set afoot widely different from the ephemeral achievements of earlier conquerors. For in Sargon’s person an clement of the population which had hitherto remained inarticulate now asserted itself and took com- mand. The Akkadians had affinities with the Syrians, but they were not foreigners. 'We do not know when they infiltrated into Mesopotamia nor what were their numbers in the south; but by the end of the Early Dynastic Period they were predominant in the central districts, round modem Baghdad, and farther north along the rivers.
The heart of Mesopotamian civilization lay to the south, in Sumer. There the great transformation of prehistoric culture had taken place in the Protoliterate Period, and from there Sumerian influence had radiated far into Persia and Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt.^ The main route of this transmission ran along the Tigris and Euphrates. At Tell Brak, on the Kdiabur river, a tributary of the Euphrates, there stood in Protoliterate times a shrine which was to all intents and purposes a Mesopotamian temple.* At Mari on the middle Euphrates* and at Assur on the Tigris^ the local script and statuary, amulets and beads, were indistinguisliablc from those used in Sumer proper during Early Dynastic times.
The inhabitants of those more northerly regions were, hov '-*vcr, not Sumerians. We know very little about their culture before they adopted Sumerian civilization, but we do know that they spoke a Semitic language and therefore followed traditions which differed from those of Southern Mesopotamia, We may surmise that the differences went
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PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
deep, for the Sumerian and Akkadian tongues are not even distantly related. The fim is agglutinative, the latter inflectional, and vehicles of thought so utterly diverse in struc- ture point to an equally profound contrast in mentahty.* When, therefore, Akkadians adopted Sumerian civilization, they were bound to make a change even where they merely wished to copy. And sometimes they made an intentional change; for instance, they used the Sumerian script for writing the Akkadian language. It is significant that this was done not only in official inscriptions but also in business documents, indicating that the new dynasty represented a numerous and important section of the populace. It is also significant that contemporary texts never treat Sargon’s rule as a foreign domina- tion. His accession marked a shift in the relative importance of two elements of the settled population of the land. There was no break in continuity. Sargon’s rise to power conformed with an cstabUshed pattern. In the past, too, usurpers or energetic local rulers had sometimes dominated large parts of the country. But Sargon’s unification proved more permanent precisely because the established political structure of Sumer had no traditional compelling force for the Akkadians. These latter did not necessarily think of dominion in terms of the city-state. Among other Semitic-speaking people - the He- brews, Aramaeans, and Arabs - the bond of blood, of family, clan, or tribe, has always been stronger than all others. The Akkadians may well have held a conception of mon- archy in which loyalty to the ruler, as tribal chief, replaced the purely local, civic loyal- ties of the Sumerian cities, and the extent and structure of any poUtical unit coincided with the area held by the tribe.
Sargon and his successors took measures which pointedly disregarded the local units and aimed at strengthening the bonds between the king and his followers; personal loyalty rather than local patriotism was now to sustain the State. Under Sargon*s grand- son, Naramsin, governors of cities styled themselves ‘slaves of the king', who himself assumed a title - King of the Four Quarters (of the Universe) - which proclaimed him the potential ruler of the whole earth.
It is precisely this new conception of kingship which is expressed in the works which we shall now describe (Plates 42-4). They possess a secular grandeur without precedent in Mesopotamia. The bronze head, miraculously preserved in a rubbish-heap at Nine- veh,^ is three-quarters life size. The hair is bound in the manner of Eannatum (Plate 34) and the fashion goes back to Protoliterate times (Figure 7a), a clear instance of the sur- vival of Sumerian tradition. It is plaited, wound round the head, and gadiered in a chig- non at the back, while a gold diadem supports the plait. The fine but elaborate treatment of hair and beard makes a splendid setting for the smooth face and noble mouth. The eyes were inlaid with costly stones which have been gouged out. The tip of the nose was flattened by a fall.
Even the most realistic works of Early Dynastic times (Plates 21-5) seem but tentative approaches to the rendering of physical substance which has been triumphantly achieved in this bronze head. Notice, in profile, how the eye is set in its socket; the shaping of the upper Up; the nostril and the temple; the surety of touch; the infinite play of surface. It is true tliat the bronze head and the small Early Dynastic works in stone are not strictly comparable. But an Akkadian stone head from Bismaya (Plate 41) differs firom the earlier
42
THE AKKADIAN PERIOD
heads after the manner of the bronzed It shows the same firm yet sensitive modelling, the same lack of the small full curves of the Third Early Dynastic style. Its forms are more spacious. Technical details, such as the inlaying of eyes and eyebrows, bespeak the continuity of tradition. And in Akkadian works of lesser quality the affinities with the older period are so pronounced that it is sometimes only possible to assign a work to the Akkadian Period because an inscription names the reign in which it was made.®
The stele of Maramsin (Plate 44) matches the bronze head in beauty, vigour, and originality.® The stone is broken at the top and damaged by water below. It is neverthe- less certain that no other figures occupied the upper portion where the king stands, alone, under the heavenly bodies in which the gods arc manifest. Naramsin himself is deified:^® he wears the homed crown of divinity. He holds his bow in one hand, jin arrow in the other. His battle-axe hangs in the hollow of his left arm. Below him his soldiers climb the wooded mountain-side. The repetition of their stride renders the relentless character of their advance more effectively than the massing of figures in the stele of Eannatum (Plate 34)- The antithesis of their ascent appears in the broken remnants of the enemy’s force on the right, fleeing or imploring pity. Naramsin stands above this agitation with one foot upon the bodies of the vanquished, near him the unsealed summit of the moun- tain, above him the great gods.'^
From the reign of Sargon fragments of at least two steles survive.*^ They lack the grandeur which the unified composition, the concentration of an event in one signi- ficant moment, imparts to the stele of Naramsin. Sargon’s steles were, in every respect, more primitive; in shape they were boulders, as of old (Plate 9a), and the scenes are divided into registers which followed the irregular surface of the stone. Sargon is made rather larger tlian liis soldiers, but docs not wear the crown of the ged; He is identified by an inscription. Another fragment shows a battle scene with birds of prey and Jogs devouring the enemy dead. A third also renders a motif found on the «tclc of the vul- tures of Eannatum : the enemy is ‘ caught in a net ’, a recurring image of Sumerian poetry that has here been given plastic expression. But on Eannatum’s stele the god holds the net; on Sargon’s steles it seems to be held by the king, over whose victory divinity pre- sides. The gods arc not shown as intervening in human affairs, but the king of their elec- tion acts in the fullness of his power.
The fragments of Sargon’s steles stand in a direct line between those of Eannatum and of Naramsin, but in motifs and composition they are closer to the first. There is no trace of the unified and truly monumental design which distinguishes the stele of Naramsin. An earlier treatment of the subject seems, however, to survive in a stele < at in the face of the cliffs overhanging the gorge of Darband-i-Gawr in the Qara Dagh.^® The huge figure of Naramsin towers over the bodies of his enemies. His army is omitted, and the scene of the battle is not shown either; it is the gorge itself. The rock carving might be judged a simplified copy of the stele, but is probably earlier because more primitive. While the rock relief shows the king in the act of scaling the mountain, the stele makes the soldiers ascend while the king stands impassive, the victor in possession of the field.
The reign of Naramsin exhibits the highest achievement of Akkadian sculpture. We do not know whether the same is true of architecture, since no evidence of importance
43
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
survives. But the art of engraving developed the new style to its maturity within the forty years of Sargon s reign. Under his successors excellent work was done, but on established lines. The new development took its start from the last style of the Early Dynastic age, as represented by plate 40B and figure i6b, where figures no longer cross each other and the groups are separately drawn. We have seen that this diinning out of the friezes became necessary when modelling was introduced. But in the Early Dynastic seals the modelling remained subservient to the decorative scheme; it added interest and life to the designs without changing their imaginative character. Under the Akkadians, on the other hand, modelling was employed to achieve verisimilitude (Plate 45). This was a new departure; neither the friezes nor die individual figures of the Early Dynastic seals permitted a realism which placed the physical nature of each living creature in the centre of the artist’s interest. For in a continuous frieze the function of each combatant is more important than his corporeality. Even in such seals as plate 40B the subservience of the figures to the unity of the frieze is evident; note, for instance, the horizontal alignment of die heads and eyes (isocephaly).
In the Akkadian seals the figures are isolated, not only because their greater plastic volume requires an empty space to balance it, but also because the seal-cutter is absorbed in the rendering of the concrete details of their physical appearance. Sometimes he con- centrates so intensely upon bony structure, taut muscles, curly hair, that he disposes of the relation between his figures in a summary fashion. An indifferently lengthened arm connects the antagonists (Plate 45 c). More often his interest in the concrete leads to a new version of his traditional subject. In Early Dynastic times the theme of combat was a pretext for the display of decorative ingenuity; in Akkadian times it was taken for what it is; in looking at such a seal in plate 45A, one almost listens for the gasping breath of the throtded lion vainly pawing the air.'^ Yet it would be misleading (here, as so often) to speak of realism, for the situations depicted arc fantastic enough. But the traditional themes were not rejected on that score, and not only accepted, but imagined quite con- cretely; the desultory skirmishes of the earlier friezes were replaced by fierce encounters.
The isolation of the figures docs not always destroy the continuity of the design. In plate 45 c, for instance, it is maintained by the careful disposition of the tails of lion and buffalo, and by the Venus-star and battle-axe used as space-fillers. The absence of hiatus in this seal would be striking if the purchaser had availed himself of the opportunity to have his name engraved upon it; a space was left open for this purpose above the recum- bent antelope. But even where, as in this case, a continuous frieze is made, the Akkadian designs are static, while the crossed figures of Early Dynastic designs carry the eye from one side to the other throughout its length. There is also less variety in the Akkadian friezes; stag, panther, goat, and ox have been eliminated and the composite creatures have mostly disappeared; for the new insistence on corporeality emphasized their mon- strosity to an extent that precluded the necessary suspension of disbelief. That is proved by the rare occurrences of human-headed bulls in the earliest phase of Akkadian glyptic. They look neither enchanted, as in Early Dynastic, nor demonic, as in Assyrian times, but merely absurd. Only the bull-man, forerunner of die faun, haunts the Akkadian de- signs with his ambiguous vitality. As a rule the Akkadian friezes show but two pairs of
44
THE AKKADIAN PERIOD
combatants: hero and bull-man as victors, lion and bull or buffalo as victims. The scheme of the continuous frieze is, therefore, impoverished by the reduction in the number and variety of its figures, and by their isolation. But in Akkadian times this scheme of composition became uncongenial. It was replaced by a static, antithetical, heraldic composition with an inscribed panel as its central feature.
The Barly Dynastic seal-cutters had never solved the problem of how an inscription could be integrated with their figures. Originally they did not set it apart (Plate 39A) and it looked like an awkward space-filler. Later (Plate 40B) it was framed below but left open at the sides; the problem it presented was evaded. But the Akkadians faced it squarely and solved it by making the inscription the very centre of their compositions. It was flanked by pairs of combatants, in the manner of heraldic supporters (Plate 450). These seals reveal the polarity of Mesopotamian art in a novel form. While the figures are rendered with all the concrete details of their physical reality, tlicy arc presented in a purely ornamental arrangement. Plate 45D offers actually a variant of the usual scheme; the hero does not destroy the buffaloes but waters them from a spherical vessel which is a common feature of Mesopotamian imagery.^* It stands for the source of all water and hence for the origin of life. The significance of the buffaloes remains obscure.
Unusual subjects are much more frequent in the Akkadian Period than at any other time. The frieze of combatants had been developed to its rich variety because of its de- corative potentialities which the Early Dynastic seal-cutters prized. The turn towards the concrete which marks the Akkadian style led, necessarily, away from the frieze, and a larger proportion of seals showed narrative scenes, definite events, either in the world of the gods or in that of men. Such subjects had been relatively rare in Early Dynastic times, but when we happen to know an earlier version of a subject popular in Akkadian times, the difference in treatment is revealing. The sun-god in his boat may serve as an example. Figure 17B shows the Akkadian version. The god is characterized by rays springing from his shoulders. He holds the steering-oar of a b<>at wliich moves of its own accord. This is indicated by the shape of the prow, wliich ends in the figure of a demon or god hand- ling a forked punting pole. Fishes sport along a triple zigzag line. In the field, to the left, the goddess of vegetation appears ; she holds plants in both hands, and an ear of com sprouts from her body. Once again we lack texts which would explain this conjunction of deities, but the seal possibly represents die sun’s progress through the night, beneath the earth which is the domain of the goddess.^^ In any case, die sun-god, too, is repre- sented in an aspect which the majority of the texts ignore; they usually describe him as
Figure 17. Akkadian seal impressions
45
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
the supreme judge, but on our seal he carries a plough, a large vessel, and some other ob- jects in his boat, while a human-headed lion is tied to the prow. The stems ends in a snake’s head, and in the snake the fertility of the earth is symboHzed, as we recognize from other monuments.^^ A number of Akkadian versions of this scene are known, but figure 15B shows an Early Dynastic rendering. While the Akkadian engravers aimed single-mindedly at clarity of representation, at a precise rendering of concrete detail, so that we should be in no doubt of the meaning if only we shared with them the mytho- logical premisses, the Sumerian draughtsman reduced even a scene of this type to a homogeneous ‘brocade’ pattern. In the midst of this network of lines we notice the ani- mated boat, propelled by its own mysterious power. It contains only the sun-god; his equipment is scattered over the field; immediately behind his barque appears the human- headed quadruped (the forefeet are lost in the chipping of the cylinder’s edge). Above its back we see the large vessel and the plough. Behind liim moves a scorpion-man with up- hfted arms. It is, of course, possible that he was intended to precede the sun-god’s vessel, for in the tightly interwoven design there is no indication where the scene begins or ends. The space left above the scene we have described is filled with designs which seem to have no bearing on it, but merely avoid a hiatus: the bird Imdugud holding a honied beast in either claw, and, on the left, a lion and a goat; there was no room for the complete ani- mals, and their forequarters only are drawn. The delineation is very vivid; the boat, the quadruped, the scorpion-man move almost feverishly, but the main interest of the seal- cutter was the production of an uninterrupted, closely interwoven design, while the Akkadian aimed at clarity with his widely spaced, sedately moving figures.
Sometimes men are shown approaching this world of the gods; they bring gifts, either as respectful familiars (Figure 17B), or betraying the distance between human and divine. A good example of this last is shown in plate 45B, where a libation is poured before two weather-gods. The imagery is striking and appropriate; the lighming flashes as the god’s whip widi which he spurs on the fire-spitting dragon who draws his cluriot. The noise of its heavy solid wheels is the thunder. These images describe the terrifying nature of a Mesopotamian storm. Its beneficent aspect is represented by the goddess, standing on the dragon’s back, dispensing rain with both hands. The worshipper stands outside the space in which the gods function. He pours his libation over an altar shaped like a two-staged temple tower. The gods appear as a vision which he contemplates.
The theme of the weather-gods in action is treated differently in other seals.^® For in- stance, a number of the dragons arc drawn obliquely across the cylinder to render the wild confusion of the storm at its height; conversely, the event may be rendered with- out reference to actuality, by a god aiming his arrow at the Bull of Heaven (symbolizing drought), while a storm-demon stands by.
The Akkadian seals, like those of Early Dynastic times, evoke a world of the imagina- tion. But it is no longer the world of the fairy-tale. It is a grim world of cruel conflict, of danger and uncertainty, a world in which man is subjected without appeal to the in- comprehensible acts of distant and fearful divinities whom he must serve but cannot love. This sombre mood, which was first expressed in Akkadian times, remained char- acteristic of Mesopotamian art throughout its history.
46
CHAPTER 4
THE NEO-SUMERIAN PERIOD
<2125-2025 B.C.>
AND THE PERIOD OF ISIN, LARSA, AND BABYLON
<2025-1594 B.C.>
Lagash
The Akkadian dynasty was overthrown by the Guti, wild mountaineers from the north-cast who contributed nothing to the civilization of the plain which they ran- sacked. The Akkadian kings had fought them repeatedly, and rock steles carved in the homeland of the barbarians recorded tlicir initial successes and were intended to deter further assaults. But the mountaineers gradually gained ascendancy, the dominion of the latest Sargonid kings was narrowly circumscribed, and the Guti fmally entered the plain and held it for about sixty years. After that, the Sumerian south took up the challenge, drove tliem out, and reunited the realm under the kings of Ur. But before this occurred one city-state seems to have escaped from the Guti or to have paid blackmail to their cliicftains. In any ease, the city of Lagash flourished exceedingly and produced, under Gudea and his son Ur-Ningirsu, exquisite works of art and Hterature ^
In the sculptures from Lagash - modern Telloh - the teclniical achievements of the Akkadian period arc utilized, but of the aspirations of that time not a trace remains. Piety replaces vigour. We know from texts that the domination of the Guti was felt as a cruel humiliation, and Neo-Sumerian art, from Gudea of Lagash to the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur, dwelt with complacency on the close relation with the gods which was the prerogative of the lawful occupants of the land. Gudea’s works do not reflect a shadow of the troubles of the age, but arc pervaded by the confidence and gaiety of the truly devout. A score of statues represents the ruler, standing or seated, with folded hands, bare-headed or wearing a woollen cap. They resemble one another so closely that our plates 46-8 adequately represent the whole group. The material is costly and very hard diorite, carved witli complete mastery and brought to an extraordinary perfection of finish ; note the long, fine fingers, the bare right arm, the feet, the manner in which the body is indicated under die woollen shawl. The sculptors of Gudea combine, in all these respects, the traditions of the Akkadian school, as is shown by a damaged diorite statue of Sargon s son Manishtusu.* Aldiough the intense vitality of the best Akkadian works is absent from Gudea’s sculpture, they possess the same firmness and precision of modelling and the same richness in the play of light provoked by the stone. The monu- mentality of these statues can best be appreciated if we compare diem with a work which renders the same sulyect in an entirely different way (Plate 49)- This is a small statuette of
47
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
green serpentine, light and graceful; this effect is achieved by an inner logic which com- bines the properties of the semi-translucent stone, the elegance of the contour, the con- trast between the broad shoulders and the narrow waist, and even the unusual gesture. The fingers of the right liand direct our glance beyond their clasp to the long vertical edge of the shawl, while in the monumental statues of diorite the hands form part of the great curve by wliich the arms emphasize the roundness of the ideal form, the cylinder. In these larger figures the gesture of the clasped hands is as logically used as that of the pointed fingers which play their part in the composition of the statuette. Notice, in the diorite statues, the other features that emphasize the cylindrical form, such as the folds of the shawl under the right arm and the roundness of the base. In the serpentine statu- ette, too, as in all Mesopotamian sculpture, the composition is cylindrical, but its slender elegance obscures the abstract framework which the monumental figures accentuate. Plate 46, where Gudea holds a drawing-board on which the plan of a temple is to be traced by means of ruler and stylus,^ shows how awkwardly square elements are fitted in. The seat, too, seems refractory; it could not be rendered in the round without deep undercutting, and was therefore left more or less block-shaped; but, in contrast with Egyptian usage, its squareness is as far as possible mitigated by the treatment of the sides.
The statues were, as we have seen (p. 23 above), placed in the temples as a perpetual reminder of the ruler’s faithful service of the gods, and as active intcrceders on his behalf. His images were credited with power, and this power was sustained by offerings of food and drink. The dedicatory inscriptions took account of the divine hierarchy. The statu- ette of plate 49, for instance, was dedicated to the goddess Geshtinanna, and bore the name: ‘ She transmits prayers*. But the statues dedicated to the city-god, Ningirsu, or to the Mother Goddess, interceded directly, and bore such names as: ‘I am the shepherd loved by my king {i,c\ Ningirsu); may my life be prolonged *.♦
A combination of serenity and forcefulness is characteristic of the statuary of Gudea, and the texts bear out this impression. While Gudea maintained prosperity and peace in the midst of chaos, he ascribed his good fortune to his excellent relations with the deities. These looked with favour on a city ruled by a king devoted to their service. Gudea re- built their temples with an extraordinary expenditure of energy and wealth, and he buried in their foundations an account of his activities. These texts arc most unusual. They describe, not only the facts, but also the moods of the king during the slow and laborious fulfilment of his task, beginning with the first intimation that something was expected of him (the gods prevented the Tigris from rising at the time of the inunda- tion) ; the dreams which were sent to him when he slept in the temple, and which were only clarified by degrees; the long preparation of the site; the purification of the city; the collection of the materials; the final dedication to, and occupation by the gods. These texts, though damaged and often equivocal or obscure, possess, even in translation, an extraordinary poetic force, and a spirit closely related to that expressed in the sculptures. They convey Gudca*s awareness that his devotion had found fulfilment in a relation of trust and goodwill on the part of the gods. The following passage may count as a poetic equivalent of the sculptures. It was spoken by tlie god Ningirsu in the dream which finally overcame Gudea*s doubts as to whether he was indeed called upon to undertake
48
THE NEO-SUMERIAN PERIOD
the huge task of rebuilding Eninnii, the temple of the god. Note that abundance follows the ‘humid wind* which brings the rain:
When, O faithful shepherd Gudea,
Thou shalt have started work for me on Eniniiu, my royal abode,
I will call up in heaven a humid wind.
It shall bring thee abundance from on high
And the country'shall’spread its hands upon riches in thy time.
Prosperity shall accompany the laying of the foundations of my liouse.
All the great fields will bear for thee;
Dykes and canals will swell for thee;
Where the water is not wont to rise To high ground it will rise for thee.
Oil will be poured abundantly in Sumer in thy time.
Good weight of wool will be given in thy time.®
Of the costly objects with which Gudea furnished the t.-inple, only a few survive. A limestone basin® was decorated with goddesses holding tlic miraculous ‘flowing vase’, and they are linked with each other, so that each holds her own vase in the right hand and supports with her left the vase of lier neighbour. The water flows downward in a double stream to cover the earth, and more water streams from the sky, enicrging from round vases borne by goddesses like figure 1 8. These figures have been called the earliest representation of angels, but the heads and arms are not attached to wings, but to bodies clothed in the gown with wavy folds which the standing goddesses also wear. The same motif recurs in the stele of Urnammu (Plate 53) from which figure 18 is taken.*^
Another of Gudea’s basins was decorated with lions® like some of the mace-heads dedi- cated to Ningirsu.® Others were merely inscribed. A fragment of a strle shows a harp being played in the temple.*® Anotlier stele, of which only the curved top is preserved, gives a scene which was also engraved on Gudea’s personal seal: the ruler, held by the hand of his ‘personal god*, his special protector Ningizzida, is introduced into the pre- sence of the great gods. On the seal the god who gives audience is, once again, a deity who dispenses water from the ‘flowing vase\ here marked as tlie source of life by the plant sprouting from it.
Gudea dedicated the steatite vase of plate 51B to his ‘personal god’ Ningizzida, who represents natural vitality in its chthonic aspect, and is therefore identified by two inter- twined snakes, originally pairing vipers (Plate 8a). The dragon, too, counts as a spirit of the earth and appears regularly as the symbol of this god.** Intertwined snakes are ren- dered also in the fine steatite cover of a lamp or dish (Plate 51c), but the dication was apparently engraved on the missing portion of the vessel.
Whether the human-headed bull of plate 50c belongs to the age of Gudea is uncertain. It may be earlier (i.e. Akkadian) or later, but its mildness would agree with the art of Lagash. Notice how even here the creature’s extended attitude, which would easily fit into an oblong, b^< been rounded by the movement of the head The block form, which was dominant in £gypt» is avoided in Mesopotamia.
Of Ur-Ningirsu, Gudea’s son, several statuettes have been preserved. They r^emble closely those of Gudea, but the base of one of them has been enriched by a frieze in rehei
49
PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
of kneeling figures bearing offerings.** The king is clean-shaven and wears a woollen cap; but in another work** he is heavily bearded and his head covered by a low conical cap, or possibly natural curls. This odd appearance remains without parallel. The figures of private people foimd at Lagash have all shaven polls and are beardless, perhaps because they represent priests (Plate 50A). Female figures arc rare (Plate 50B). The high quality of the workmanship equab that of the royal statues. The metal work of the period is mostly lost to us. Inscribed bronze pegs were driven into the foundations of buildings, and these were sometimes held by a divinity (Plate s*a). Sometimes tire upper part of the pegs rendered the ruler, in a conventional way, in the act of carrying on his head the basket of clay used for the moulding of the first brick of the new temple (cf. Plate 333).** Sometimes the peg was topped by the figure of a bull; these were significantly used for the temple of Inanna-Ishtar.
The Third Dynasty of Ur
The peace and prosperity of Lagash, during the upheaval of foreign rule, mark the city as a backwater. History passed Lagash by. When the South rose and drove the Guti back to their mountains, it was under the leadership of Erech and Ur. Lagash became a de- pendency when Umammu of Ur established a united realm which lasted for over a cen- tury (the Third Dynasty of Ur). Although its scribes used Sumerian in most official documents, the dynasty did not abolish the Akkadian language, and in the very concep- tion of kingship over the land it accepted the political innovation of Sargon. The notion found theological expression in the theory that ‘kingship had descended from Heaven’ and