Page 118 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE LATE ASSYRIAN PERIOD
misleading, for this dragon had represented the thunderstorm from early times (Plate
45B and p. 46), and the relief may show the common action of a weather-god and his
adjunct.30
The reliefs we have discussed impress us by their vividness and variation. Yet they
appear, on closer inspection, to use a very limited set of formulas, which arc adapted to
various purposes or combined in different ways. An example of this is found in the hunt­
ing scenes. In one of these the king grasps a wild bull by the horn while plunging a sword
between its shoulders. He stands in his chariot, turned backwards, as in plate 87. In fact,
the group of charioteer and king is identically rendered, even to the position of As-
surnasirpal’s head; only the posture of the arms is changed to suit the action. Some-
times recurring elements are combined in different ways to avoid monotony. The
scene in which the king pours libations over slain bulls and lions closely resembles that
in which a vassal kisses his foot (Plate 88). The former subject includes a bearer of the
royal sunshade, and two pairs of men (one of them being a musician) alternate with a
single figure before the king; in the second group a single person is followed by two
pairs; and in yet a third the king is attended by a more elaborate suite. In this way each
scene gets a particular character, while yet a strict homogeneity unites the series as a
whole. The forcefulncss of the designs, combined with an economy of formulas, suggest
that the reliefs of Assurnasirpal II are perhaps in fact, and not merely as a result of the
accident of discovery, the first attempts at narrative mural decoration on a large scale.
Under the next king, Shalmaneser III (859-824 b.c.), the new style was applied to
metal work. Hinges of the palace gates were ornamented with bronze bands which were
nailed down on the leaves of die wooden doors. These were six feet wide and over
twenty feet high, and moved on pivot shafts eighteen inches in diameter. The bronze
bands were eight feet in length, eleven inches in height, and only one-sixteenth inch
thick; over thirteen of diese have been preserved.31 Like the orthostats, they are divided
into two registers, and within these bands, which are each five inches high, innumerable
small figures act the story of the king’s wars (Plates 91-2). They were first engraved and
then embossed by hammering the metal from the back on a bed of bitumen. There is
little beauty in this mass of detail, but much liveliness and an indefatigable urge from
episode to episode.
In plate 92A, in the upper strip, the southern Mesopotamian city of Bit Dakuri ap­
pears on the extreme right, and the Chaldean inhabitants are shown carrying tribute
through their date-groves towards Assyrians. In die lower strip an officer, seated on a
stool and accompanied by his staff and guards, watches the deposition of the Chaldean
tribute at a pontoon-bridge. The text of die king’s annals referring to the event reads as
follows: ‘ I went down to Chaldea, I conquered their cities. To the sea which they call
TheBitter Water ” (the Persian Gulf) I marched. The tribute of Adini, son of Dakuri
silver, gold, Ushu-wood, and ivory, I received in Babylon.’
The river is narrower at the top of die strip than at the bottom, but in other bands
this difference camiot be observed, so that it is unlikely that a phenomenon of perspec­
tive is rendered here. In any case, the narrowness of the strips, just over the height of a
standing figure, prevented a number of problems from becoming acute, and the

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