Page 187 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART TWO: THE PERIPHERAL
REGIONS
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Figure 72. Two sides of carved ivory rod, from Megiddo

female sphinx may have been invented as a counterpart to the male sphinx rendering
Pharaoh. However this may be, the Megiddo panel cannot be quoted in support of the
Syrian origin of the creature, for such details as the vase it holds and the mat upon which
it rests prove that it follows an Egyptian prototype as closely as the Bes and Anubis
panels, hi view of its possible introduction in Egypt in the Amarna Period, it is possible
that the Megiddo ivory belongs to the fourteenth century. 102
/ hi figure 72 an Egyptian theme is treated more freely. The object was probably part
of a piece of furniture - perhaps the support of an arm-rest. On three sides it shows a
traditional theme - herbivores and Hons, but at die right-hand top we meet the kneeling
bow-man from Ala$a Hiiyiik who is also common on Middle Assyrian seals and on
Syro-Hittite rchefs of the first millennium. Some calves or fawns show the ‘ folded poses*
characteristic of the Aegean animal style103 and other vivid attitudes. The fourth side has
three figures one above the other. The outer ones are beardless, and therefore gods rather
than princes, wearing the tall felt cap and a homed crown respectively.104 The middle
figure is a travesty of Pharaoh, or of Osiris, who wears the Atef crown with the royal
cobra, and the shepherd’s crook, which was an ancient attribute of Egyptian royalty.
But secular subjects too were rendered in a manner derived from Egypt. Four narrow
strips of ivory, with dovetailed ends, which went round a shallow box or the top of a
small table or stool, show scenes of which we reproduce two (Figures 73 and 74). hi the
chariot-battle the horses throw up their forelegs according to the Egyptian convention,
and in another piece a tame Hon is shown trotting along with the ruler’s chariot, as it
does in some representations of Pharaoh.105 Yet the charioteers, unHke those depicted in
either Egypt or Mesopotamia, do not stand upright, but bend forward, riding their Hght
vehicles like jockeys standing in the stirrups. The sprawHng figures of the slam, at right
angles to the chariots, again recall the conventions of Egyptian battle and hunting scenes.
A second piece shows the orderly march of chariots and infantry,106 a third the convey-

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and 74. Chariot battle and feast, on ivory inlays from Megiddo
Figures 73
158