Page 162 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

CHAPTER 10
THE LEVANT IN THE SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C.

Introduction

Syria, of which Palestine is the southern extension, is without unity. Even the land-
scape shows great variation. Wide steppes stretch across the northern end right to the
hills of Kurdistan. Farther south lies the Arabian desert, and near the coast the snow-
capped Lebanon with the Anti-Lebanon, a maze of rich valleys with perennial springs
and streams. In the north this luxurious scenery is repeated on a smaller scale at the bay
of Alcxandretta with the Amanus range. To the south Mount Carmel and the Judaean
and Transjordan hills — less barren in antiquity — present a miniature version of a not
dissimilar setting. Throughout Syria the contrast between the coastal plains and the up­
lands has always been pronounced. But the cultivators and traders of the coast, and the
farmers of the interior, were all liable to be overrun by the nomadic or semi-settled
tribes ‘between the desert and the sown’. Moreover, the great powers considered the
whole region as their sphere of influence, and Babylonia or Egypt, the Hittites or the
Assyrians, dominated at various times parts or the whole of the region between Asia
Minor and Sinai. Where there is never undisturbed growth, there can be no continuity
in the arts.
Some isolated works of sculpture survive from the end of the fourth and from the
third millennia b.c., and these will have to be discussed before we can deal with the
second millennium, in which the Levant flourished greatly. Perhaps the earliest, certainly
the most original, of these are figures from the so-called neolithic layers of Jericho.1 Plate
134 shows the head of one of the best preserved of these figures. The face is eight inches
high, and the whole statue was nearly natural size. Although primitive, the original is
weirdly impressive. It is made of unbaked clay, while die eyes consist of orange-yellow
sea-shells, carefully built in while the clay was still soft, so that the eyelids could be
modelled over the edges of the shells. The clay is covered with a drab wash, and on this
surface the hair and beard are indicated with a dark reddish-brown paint. Such frag­
ments of the limbs as are preserved show the same vivid untaught modelling. One does
not know whether the figure was built up round an armature. It was part of a group of
three, consisting, apparendy, of man, woman, and child, and there were remains of two
such groups. The male figure was in either case very much larger than the female, and
it is perhaps worth remembering that in the Early Dynastic group found at Tell Asmar
(Plate 13) the god was disproportionately larger than the goddess. But we do not know
whether the Jericho triads represent mortals or divinities.2 Recently seven heads prob­
ably belonging to the same school of sculpture as the triads were found in Jericho, also
in the neolithic layers.3 Here actual skulls were incorporated in the work and the features
were modelled in clay over the bony structure of the face. The eyes were inlaid with

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