Page 210 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

ARAMAEANS AND PHOENICIANS IN SYRIA

of the bases corroborates our interpretation: at Zinc^irli the base consists of two lions
held by a figure clothed exactly like the king. The Carchemish statue rests on a similar
base, but here the lions are held, not by a man, but by a griffin-demon; and here the
statue wears, indeed, a horned crown, holds a kind of double hammer and is identified
by an inscription as the god Atarlukas.76 This seated statue combines the squared lower
portion with a rounded upper part in the manner of the funerary statues from Tell
Halaf.
The statue of a king of Malatya77 which was buried in a grave specially cut for it, is
carved in the elaborate Assyrianizing style which north Syrian art adopted in the last
quarter of the eighth century b.c. He wears sandals, a long pleated gown, and a diadem
with rosettes occasionally found on figures of Sargon at Khorsabad (Plate 96). The same
costume is worn by the ruler of Sakjegcuzi,78 whose reliefs arc executed in an identical
late north Syrian style.
Instead of the variety of monsters guarding the gates of Tell Halaf, there are, at Zin-
9irli, almost exclusively Hons, and it is worth while, at this point, to quote a contemporary
text explaining their character. The Assyrian governor of Til Barsip on the upper Eu­
phrates installed about 770-760 b.c. two gate Hons at his palace. He gave them the fol­
lowing names:
The impetuous storm, irresistible in attack, crushing rebels,
procuring that which satisfies the heart
and
He who pounces on rebclHon, scours the enemy, drives out
the evil and lets enter the good.

The last phrase recaUs the apotropaic character of the device which had originaUy been
reserved for temples. The Hittites of Boghazkeuy, the Assyrians, and finaHy the north
Syrian princelings had adopted it to demonstrate their consciousness of power and to
maintain ahve among the people that fear which ‘satisfies the heart* of their rulers.
The earHer nordi Syrian Hons are merely brutish. But in the course of the eighth
century they change their style and aHow us to judge how strongly the closer contrast
with the Assyrian art of the Syrian palaces of Tiglathpilesar III influenced north Syrian
sculpture. The three Hons of figure 87 were aH found at ZinsirH. The one on the left
protected gate Q in figure 82, built by Kilamuva, presumably about 830 b.c. and leading
into the court of the palace, bit-hilani J. The one on the right belongs to the southern
colonnade (P) built by Barrekub after 730 b.c. It copies rather successfully the Assyrian
rendering of Hons, as known, for instance, from the temple of Ninurta at Nimrud.79 The
Hons from Sakjegeuzi (Plate 155) and TeU Tayanat (Plate 156) are its near relatives. The
middle Hon of figure 87 was found with some others between the outer and inner gates
of the Citadel, and its date remains uncertain. It does not represent a transition between
the old and new types, but an abortive attempt to produce something like the later
images. We cannot say whether it is older than die figure on its right or a contemporary

A similar contrast between works made in Syria before and after Tiglathpilesar III,

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