Page 128 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE LATE ASSYRIAN PERIOD
macc. Beyond the little tree the outcome of the encounter is shown: ail Assyrian cuts
ofFTcumman’s head; the decapitated body of his son lies across his legs.
Looking back on the astonishing achievement of these pictorial chroniclers we must
rein jnd ourselves of their limitations. It has rightly been said that their art “never trans-
ded the purely episodic. Throughout a period in which the violence of one small
ccn
nation brought a staggering amount of suffering to countless peoples, pictorial art re­
corded battle after battle in a scenic display unhampered by metaphysical considerations,
with a brutal sccularity which, for all its freshness and vigour, had something shallow
and naive. Victory was a man-made thing, it was devoid of symbolical quality which it
had had before both in Egyptian and Mesopotamian art.” 50

Between wars animals were killed. It is uncertain whether the Hon and lioness of plate
io8a were intended to give Assurbanipal sport. They are shown in the royal park amidst
palms and trees to which vines cling laden with grapes. Lilies and daisy-like flowers are
in bloom. This shady idyll is an exception among the animal reliefs of Assurbanipal; as
a rule they are scenes of carnage, which are incorrectly described as hunts. For the ani­
mals, at any rate the lions, were killed in an open space cordoned off by soldiers forming
a wall with their shields. Within this wall the lions were released from rough wooden
cages (Plate io8b) by men themselves protected by a similar cage. The king shoots
arrows at the approaching beast, and if these do not kill it and it springs, it is killed by
the spears of the bodyguard. Attendants stand behind the king to hand him his arrows.
It is, of course, a mistake to read the picture as if a number of Hons were released simul­
taneously. A single animal is shown here in three successive positions. It is most impres­
sive when it emerges from the cage. The thrill experienced time and again at tliis mo­
ment, when the outcome is uncertain and the powerful creature takes the measure of his
opponent, left its trace in the artist’s work; the Hon just freed from the cage is drawn
larger, more powerful, than when it is wounded and attacks. In certain renderings of its
release it has a nightmarish quality. In the fray the invincible king detracts from the
lion’s glory.
Sometimes (Plate 109) the king is shown despatching an animal with his sword. Tliis
scene is astonishing, for the Assyrian artist, whatever his methods, represents real events.
If we disregard the winged demons and other products of the religious imagination we
shall not meet in Assyrian art the rendering of impossible situations. How could artists
whose delight in the varied incidents of actual life is so outstanding render an encounter
from which the royal protagonist would, at the very best, carry away a left arm maimed
for life? The answer is that the draughtsman omitted only one detail which would have
disfigured the king, but which was still a standing feature of such duels when they were
fought, up to quite recent times, on the upper reaches of the Euphrates.51 The lion-killer
wrapped his left arm in a huge quantity of black goats’ hair yam or tent-cloth, to protect
it against the fangs and claws of the beast. When the lion attacked it was offered the left
arm to maul, and the right hand holding the sword was free to despatch it. Our plate 109
s ows the moment when the sword strikes home, and reveals that extraordinary subtlety

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