Page 106 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE LATE ASSYRIAN PERIOD

m

MS

SUMS?

to Sargon’s throne room

towers flanking the entrance, and two transverse guardrooms where ingress could be
opposed by force and where, in peacetime, police and customs officers were stationed.
The actual passage through the gate was lined with gypsum slabs placed on edge and
supported by a plinth. These protected the walls for five or six feet against damage by
carts and other traffic and also presented difficulties for enemy sappers in times of siege.
They appear clearly in plate 77B, a photograph taken when the inner gateway was still
filled with fallen debris. It appears beyond the sculptured slabs of the outer portal; and
within the debris the white plaster lining the inner surface on both sides of the second
gate appears clearly; even the curve of its vault is indicated by a line of white plaster,
appearing in the shadow on the right. Below these plastered surfaces one sees the ortho­
stats on their plinths. Such orthostats were unknown in the south (where stone had to
be imported), but they were used in Hittite buildings at Boghazkeuy and elsewhere in
the fourteenth century b.c.,3 and in north Syrian buildings of the same or an even later
date, at Alalakh (Tell Atchana). At Boghazkeuy the jambs of the outer gateway
were sometimes carved with guardian figures such as Hons or sphinxes (Plate 128). In
Assyria this was also done, and it is therefore most probable that Assyria followed a Syro-
Anatohan example in the use of stone orthostats. But she surpassed the inventors in the
appheation of their method. The decorated orthostats at the outer entrance to the Citadel
are thirteen feet high and fourteen feet long.
The winged human-headed bulls (Lamassu) are known to be genii protecting the
palace. One of them is figured in a relief showing how timber felled in the mountains
and intended for the palace is transported by sea; here the Lamassu appears among ships
and waves to guard the transport.4 At the gate their power was rehed upon to prevent
the entry of evil forces. A second genius, holding a sprinkler and a metal vessel with holy
water, supports the Lamassu (Plate 83). At the palace entrance Lamassu appeared again,
and the ways into the throne room were guarded by a concentration of figures which
produced an overwhelming impression of power (Figure 31).
The Citadel gate led into a street which passed between the Nabu temple and building
M; next it passed underneath a stone viaduct which connected Sargons palace with the

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