Page 196 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

ARAMAEANS AND PHOENICIANS IN SYRIA
courtiers, which arc characteristic of Assyrian art under Tiglathpilcsar III11 and Sargon,
but arc absent in the ninth century and unusual in the seventh. The great battle-pieces of
the reigns of Sennacherib and Assurbanipal have no counterpart in north Syrian art;
for by that time the independent Syrian rulers had been crushed and replaced by As­
syrian military governors. Damascus was taken in 732, Samaria in 722, Zmqirli probably,
too, about that time,12 Carchcmish in 717, Malatya in 713 b.c. Karatepc alone may have
survived until 680 b.c.
I have insisted on these historical facts because they explain why two distinct phases
can be observed in north Syrian art. The distinction is one of subject-matter rather than
style, for the works are too uneven in quality, too crude and too often incompetent for
stylistic criteria to be applied. Nor are the circumstances of the discovery much help for
the making of chronological distinctions. Both orthostats and guardian figures were often
re-used when the building was reconstructed. At Alalakh, and at the Lion Gate of
Malatya, the lions are older than the gate where they were ultimately placed and found
in modem times. The statue of Idrimi was discovered in a temple or palace at Alalakh
built 200 years after the king’s life-time. Thus forewarned we may turn to the north
Syrian monuments.
Architecture

The distinctive feature of north Syrian architecture is the planning of the forward sec­
tion of royal palaces (Plate 154A). One enters, at the top of a low flight of steps, a portico
with one to three columns which gives access to the throne room. Both portico and
throne room have their main axis parallel to the facade. Stairs to the upper storey are set
to one side of the portico.13
Buildings answering to this description occur at Tell Tayanat (Plate 154A); at Zin-
$irli (Figures 98-101); at Sakjegeuzi (Plate 155)14 and perhaps at Carchemish.15 They
are not found in Hittite architecture,16 but have their prototype in north Syria itself.
We have described their antecedents in the palace of Niqmcpa of Alalakh in the four­
teenth century b.c. (Figure 67 and p. 145), which, in its turn, can be explained as a
remodelling of an older type of building, represented by Yarimlim’s palace, with a
view to achieving a more imposing, a truly palatial, effect. In Niqmepa’s palace we see
behind the main room a suite of bedroom, bathroom, and lavatory. The two buildings
of the type under discussion (Figure 80) form the north-west and north-east sides of
the court in the Upper Palace of Zin^irli, and here also we find bathrooms (Nos. 5 and
9) on the ground floor, suggesting that the adjoining small rooms were bedrooms.
Behind these two buildings there is a long store-room where wine-jars were kept.17
There is a similar disposition in Niqmepa’s palace (Figure 67). Thus the domestic
arrangements of the fourteenth century b.c. recur at Zin^rli in the eighth, an observa­
tion which corroborates the conclusion suggested by a study of the plans.18 We may
follow Assyrian usage and call a building constructed in this manner a *bit-hilam . The
Assyrians, as we have seen, spoke of* a portico patterned after a Hittite palace which they
call a bit-hilani in the Amorite language’.19 The reference to Amorite - a Semitic north
Syrian tongue - reminds us that the Assyrians of die first millennium located the Hittites

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