Page 205 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART TWO : the peripheral regions
were gods, but all explicit symbols of divinity arc lacking. The woman (Plate kvaI

but a careful drawing shows that they did not« They arc robed in a shawl worn over a
ttuuc a costume found almost anywhere west of the Tigris and south of the Taurus
ihey hold, not divmc symbols, but scimitars, and it is significant that the inscriptions do
not mention deities. These arc carved in cuneiform on the skirt of the woman and on the
left shoulders of the men.** We know, furthermore, that over-life-sized statues of kings
were set up at Malatya and Ziiaqrirli. The possibility that die three statues represent mem­
bers of the Kaparu Dynasty remains, therefore, open.
The general dependence of these figures on the Mesopotamian tradition is obvious.
The ill-proportioned woman, with her large head and lifeless appearance, recalls the
treatment of that type at the hands of incompetent carvers of other times - for instance
in the private chapels at Ur.45 But these are generalities; there is
no pronounced style,
either as an imitation of better work, or as a result of a vivid original conception of the
nature of statuary. Different styles are oddly combined. The ears of the men, for instance,
are reduced to abstractions, while their feet and sandals are rendered with painstaking
realism, and the treatment of their knees may be an abortive attempt made in either of
these contrary directions. Yet the boldness of the conception of the portico surpasses
anything undertaken by Mesopotamian sculptors. No sculpture in the round resembling
these three figures is known from other sites.46
The cylindrical shape of the figures reminds one of Mesopotamia, where it was the
basic form of plastic composition. In north Syrian art it was not, for in rendering seated
figures the opposite scheme, that of the oblong or cube, was used (Plate 158c). At Tell
Halaf such figures were placed in tomb chapels. Both north and south of the Palace, and
also near the palace of Zin9irli, vaults for members of the ruling family were constructed,
and elsewhere in Syria and east Anatolia representations of the dead at table were carved
on steles set up over their graves (Figure 91). This funerary rendering of a meal goes
back at least to the thirteenth century in Syria, since it appears on the sarcophagus in­
scribed with the name of Aliiram ofByblos (Figure 76). On many of these steles - among
others on that of a queen ofZin^irli of the end of the eighth century B.c.47- the dead are
shown holding a cup. This is precisely die attitude chosen for the statues of Tell Halaf.
These differ greatly among themselves, but the example which we reproduce can be
contrasted with all the others. In an adjoining tomb chapel was found a statue48 resem­
bling those of the Palace portico in style. In another tomb chapel, near the southern
town wall, a group of a man and a woman, carved from one block, and a standing mac
statue were found.49 The double figure has a parallels a double statue found at Marash;
and the fact that funerary statues were desired in Syria (in contrast with Mesopotamia;
is emphasized by a number of rough or partly finished figures which were found at Tell
Halaf 51 and which might serve the needs of commoners. All these figure wo sff ,
Si„' Z a different school, if we compare them with plate .580. They resembleThe
hlrJ' fi-otcs although they ate much coarser in workmanship and more clumsy m
on
cordon; appearing to be little more than stuffed sacks. Plate i58c shows, -

17 6