Page 165 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART TWO:
THE PERIPHERAL regions
Cultures (Plate 34), but also by Sargon of Akkad
on liis stele of victory,
^ fy/'vl ”he r*ght hand holds a mace; the head i
r\ ||k*i featureless. IS so badly damaged as to be
Mm ,0l,1C °f ^ tW? StclcS is suPP°scd to show a figure standing on a bull,
r \WOU, 1 atC.a godl and bc a dcviati011 froni Early Dynastic
01 1 1 1 || f gCj jUt t le assumPtlon rests on a reconstruction which is insufficiently
Kflrlj founded- lt was worked on both sides, and this is also true of the stele
TTWf y we mustrate in figure 59. Tliis is eleven and a half feet high, thirty-four
vOrfM mdleS wide’ and twenty“eig]lt inc,lcs thick. Its main design shows a huge
fig111’0 in the tasscllcd robe described above, holding a mace or battle-axe
V °nC ^aild* ^la^1 *s k°und up in a chignon at the back of the head,
another feature which connects the stele with pre-Sargonid and Sargonid
vl'fr'tfg Mesopotamia. But the cap shown on the stele points to the age of Sargon,
for it frequently occurs on Sargonid seals and never in the Early Dynastic
Period. A ground-line separates the main figure from a subsidiary com­
Figure 59. partment in which two soldiers, apparently carrying battle-axes, represent
Stele, from the victorious army. This, too, reflects Mesopotamian usage, but the
Jebelet cl Bcida grotesque distortion of all the figures is characteristic of the peripheral
regions.
With this stele we have completed our survey of Syrian works of sculpture antedating
the second millennium b.c.15

Egyptian Predominance (2000-1800 b.c.) and Babylonian
Penetration (1800-1700 b.c.)
At the opening of the second millennium b.c. the energetic kings of the Egyptian
Twelfth Dynasty dominated the Levant. For 1,000 years Egypt had imported timber
from the Lebanon, and the port of Byblos had handled these exports. Now, from about
2000 to 1800 b.c., some of the finest products of Egyptian craftsmanship entered Syria.
Many of these came from the royal workshops, and one wonders whedier some sort of
Egyptian overlordship was acknowledged in the various places - Megiddo, Byblos, Ras
Shamra, and even Qatna, inland - where royal sphinxes, jewellery inscribed with
Pharaoh’s name, and statues of high officials have been discovered. It has been argued
that these officials were Resident High Commissioners and Envoys,16 but we have no
records of Asiatic campaigns such as the New Kingdom has left us, and it must also be
remembered that in Egypt foreign trade was a prerogative of the government carried on
under the fiction that the importations constituted tribute due to Pharaoh as Lord of A ,
and that the price paid was a spontaneous gift made by him to loyal vassals. The presence
of hieh Egyptian officials and the sending of royal gifts do not, therefore, prove an actu
tiolitical suzerainty of Egypt over the Syrian ports. However this may be, die local rulers
of the Levant became possessed of exquisite works of art, and although Syrian wor s o
Sod are comparatively rare, they do show that the Syrian craftsmen responded to
Ae stimulus of these imports. They did so in a fashion which was to remain characte -

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