Page 120 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE LATE ASSYRIAN PERIOD

a scale pattern. The subterranean course of the water is depicted in three places where
the mountain-side is, as it were, removed, and we see men holding firebrands standing
ist-deep in the water. Where the river emerges, a sculptor has thrown a square object
wa
into the current (a block of stone or a sea ffold), which supports him while he chisels a
stele with the figure of Shalmaneser in the face of the rock.
In the upper frieze we see the source of the stream. It is a grotto in which drops fall
from the ceiling on the stalagmites below. A sculptor is once more at work with hammer
and chisel. This time he seems to be engraving an inscription, for a scribe stands by
apparently holding a tablet. In front of the grotto a bull is slaughtered. On the mountain
is a castle or fortified settlement; to die right appears, it seems, a native amazed at the
intrusion. But on the left we catch a glimpse of the Assyrian army, leaving this scene
with its purposeful stride, bound for further exploits.
With bronzework and wall-reliefs turned into pictorial chronicles the obelisks became
truly commemorative steles. The Black Obelisk (Plate 93) was set up by the king, who
had the gates of his palace decorated in the mamicr we have just described. While here,
and also on the wall-reliefs, the inscriptions are mere legends added to the designs, the
obelisk carries the story in words which are illustrated by the designs of the twenty-four
oblong panels on the sides of the monument.
At this point we may look back and realize the originality of Assyrian narrative relief.
It has no antecedents inside or outside the country, hi the stele of Eannatum (Plates 34-5)
a number of incidents are rendered, but their sequence in time is left vague. In that of
Naramsin (Plate 44) a single significant moment is depicted, and it epitomizes the mili­
tary achievement. In Egypt victory is rendered in so generalized a form that a design
may stand for any battle, and merely records that Pharaoh has once again upheld the
divine order against die powers of chaos and rebellion. One has to go to the columns
of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome to find a parallel for the Assyrian reliefs.
The carving of these friezes is as curious as their subject-matter and their composition.
The relief is very low and often flat. It never renders spatial depth. In plate 87 the shoul­
ders and fore paws of the lion He in the same plane as the wheel of the chariot that covers
the feet; the hooves of the three horses stand on the same ground line. The surface of the
relief is here and there modelled - for instance, the spine of the Hon and its shoulders are
rendered plastically. The chief details are, however, conveyed by engraving rather than
modelling. Incisions arc more frequent and more abrupt and vigorous than in Egyptian
rehef, which is also very low. In plates 83 and 89, for instance, the juxtaposition of
strongly modelled and of almost flat but engraved rehef is very striking. A last peculiar-
ity Hes in the fact that the inscriptions are sometimes cut across the figures.
Between Shalmaneser III and Tiglathpilesar III (745-727 b.c.) Assyria suffered a de­
cline, and of those eighty years hardly any works have been preserved. There are not
many rehefs of Tiglathpilesar III either, but these include friezes of about three feet wide,
some with detailed accounts of campaigns, and others with larger figures belonging to
solemn scenes, which cover the whole surface. But there is one innovation which was to
have
great consequences. In some rehefs (Plate 9415) the surface exceeds die height of a
single figure considerably and tills compels the designer to consider the disposition of his

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