Page 114 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE LATE ASSYRIAN PERIOD
round the comer, on the next face. It has been suggested17 that this is due to Mesopo­
tamian preference for cylindrical shapes; the square form of the obelisk was uncongenial
and was, in fact, ignored. But it is also possible to explain this oddity of composition in
another way: the Assyrians may have been impatient of the limitations which the high,
narrow ^ surface imposed, because they desired above all to present a circumstantial
narrative. Later, under Shalmaneser III (Plate 93), a more orderly decoration of the
obelisk was planned, and the submission of Jehu of Israel, the reception of his tribute, and
other scenes, are placed in small closed panels on the four faces of the stone. But by this
time another means of rendering a continuous and detailed story had been evolved: the
stone revetment of the palace walls was used as its vehicle.
We have seen that in Middle Assyrian times wars were recorded on panels of glazed
bricks or on glazed orthostats. The custom was not entirely abandoned in later times,18
but usually, in the ninth century, the stone slabs which covered the lower parts of the
walls in the rooms and corridors of Assurnasirpal’s palace were used for this purpose.
These stones were about seven feet high, and sometimes their whole surface was covered
with one single design. More often, however, they were divided horizontally. A band
of inscription was made to separate two strips of reliefs, each about three feet high. The
rooms were thus surrounded by two continuous narrow bands pre-eminently suited for
carrying the slow-moving pictorial record of the kings’ campaigns, which was the main
subject of the Assyrian artists and a new genre which they invented.19
It it almost impossible to give an adequate impression of these designs. We must
necessarily select illustrations and avoid repetitions. But repetition is of the essence of
this remarkable art, which conveys the moral that Assyrian power is irresistible by
showing, with meticulous care, this power in action. We see the march of armies, sub­
jugating, burning, killing, punishing, with devastating monotony, in country after coun­
try. The charging chariot, which appears on the left of plate 84, is a recurring motif
throughout this series of reliefs. Several slabs show these war-engines advancing against
retreating enemies, while the infantry despatch the wounded left on the field. The more
complex scenes which we reproduce appear as highlights of a continuous and unchang­
ing story: the Assyrians advance; enemies flee. Opposition is centred in a city; it is taken,
its leaders are impaled or killed in other ways; then the inexorable chariotry presses on
again. But, whatever the tenor of the tale, its details are rendered with the greatest vivid­
ness and variety, and the artist’s ambitions are unprecedented, and astonishingly bold if
we remember the means at his disposal. The orthostats, divided into two, gave him
strips of about three feet three inches high, and these were intended to accommodate
little more than a normal standing figure. This is most clearly shown in plate 88; but
plate 86^ illustrates how much could be achieved by the use of what we must call ‘ back­
ground . The siege depicted in front of the king and his shield-bearer is an elaboration
0 originally secondary motifs; the starting-point of the development is shown on the
e t of plate 84, which alone represents in our illustrations the numerous scenes of war
c ariots in action to which I have referred. The king has just despatched an enemy chief
w osc ody slumping from his vehicle, appears underneath the royal team; the enemy
charioteer, bending forward (he is shown underneath the heads of Assumasirpal’s

85