Page 126 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE LATE ASSYRIAN PERIOD
procession without cutting across the farther edge of the road; the ‘forward* or lower
edge is anyhow used as a ground line supporting the figures, and it will be a matter of
personal predilection which explanation carries the more weight.
The main scene of destruction and capture is edged by a narrow strip showing the
relaxation of life in camp. One soldier stands on guard fully armed, while a woman -
presumably a camp-follower - cracks a joke with him. She sits at the camp-fire with
other soldiers who have put their equipment aside and eat and drink in cheerful com-
panionship.
In plate 106, showing the Elamite army in retreat, the latter appears in the subsidiary
strips, while the mountainous region through which they flee towers above the men.
Subtleties in the composition (resembling those in the Arab war relief) convey the speed
of the movement. The pony-carts loaded with soldiers arc spaced diagonally; the regular
stride of the men on foot and the gestures of some of the figures sustain the continuous
and concerted movement towards the right: notice, for instance, in the uppermost of
the three friezes, on the right, the man who signals that a pony-cart, which has caught up
widi a column of infantry, can pass.
Above this orderly but hasty retreat appears a scenery of extreme complexity. Al­
though badly damaged by fire and salt, the main features can still be discerned.46 Among
the trees at the top rises a building with two columns in antis. Columns and pilasters are
crowned by capitals with stylized plant-like ornaments and the bases of the columns
are similarly adorned; they can be matched by column bases actually found at Khorsa-
bad.47
To the left of the building a stele of an Assyrian king marks the region as subjected
territory and the warring Elamites as rebels. The monuments are placed on a wooded
hillside; a straight path leads up to the stele and to the altar placed in front of it. The path
is crossed by an irrigation channel from which branches diverge to the right; its water
reaches the hillside over an aqueduct built of stone across the valley. It shows the pointed
arches known from the viaduct connecting the Nabu temple and the palace hill at Khor-
sabad, and from an aqueduct of Sennacherib.48
We must not interpret a relief like this too literally; we cannot say that the Elamites
fled past die hill and its stele, for the action and the scenery are separated, as diey were in
some reliefs of Sennacherib (Plate ioza). The scenery shows outstanding features of the
region through which the Elamites retreat, and they may have been chosen to point the
contrast between the lasting works of civilization - religion, the king’s government,
irrigation - with the agitation of the fleeing tribes.
The rendering of the decisive battle with the Elamites (Plates 104-5) shows one of the
boldest compositions of Assyrian art. There is an overlap in the plates, so that it can be
seen how plates 104 and 105 join. The Assyrians, pressing on from the left, massacre
stragglers and drive the main body of the enemy into the river on the right. There is a
noticeable crescendo in the composition. On the left (Plate 104) there are pairs of com-
atants - wounded or dying Elamites remonstrating with their Assyrian persecutors (e.g.
nti le of second strip); or (on die border line of the upper and middle strip at the right
in this plate) an Elamite archer running while attempting to help a stumbling comrade

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