Page 219 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART TWO: THE PERIPHERAL
REGIONS
invalidated by the fact that a bed found in an Assyrian building at Arslan Tash boar,
ycT-.» srs" - Tl,is - t™1 hi-« fa»«tss:Lbi“:

i *if ‘ i , !ia'ac! Was an Aramalc kuiS of Damascus, tire inscription would bv
itself, show that the bed was made there. But it docs not exclude the possibility that’thc
bed was made by Phoenician workmen - or that the carved panels (the inscription is on
underrated piece) were obtained from Phoenicia just as damask or silk is used for
upholstery away from the places where it is manufactured. However, there is little pro-
tit m guessing at the precise circumstances under which this bed was made.
The discovery would obviously give us a date for the Phoenician style of carving if
we could be sure which of the panels belonged to the bed of Hazael. This is, un fort mi-
ately, only possible to a very limited extent, for there were two beds standing in the
room, and only a few carved panels can be assigned with probability to the bed of
Hazael. Its presence at Arslan Tash can however be explained. Hazael’s son, Ben-Hadad,
made submission to the Assyrian king Adadnirari III in 802 b.c. and, among the tribute
which he offered, ivory furniture is especially mentioned. But the main buildings at Ars­
lan Tash were constructed by Tiglathpilesar III, 100 years after Hazael, and there is no
certainty that some of the ivories found in the ruins do not belong to the later period.
Discoveries at Samaria raise the same problem. Ivories found there have generally
been ascribed to the reign of Ahab of Israel (875-850 b.c.) because of * the ivory house
that he made’ (I Kings xxii, 39). And since Ahab married Jezebel the daughter of the king
of Tyre, one would expect Phoenician works in his palace. But on the other hand,
Samaria was not destroyed before 722 b.c., and it is probable that more recent furniture
than that made for Ahab was in use in the palace at the time of the catastrophe. In fact,
the ivories found at Samaria, like those from Arslan Tash, resemble some found at
Khorsabad so closely that we must assume either that they are from about the same date
(end of the eighth century) or that the same motifs were repeated for 100 years or more
without much change. Although this last alternative is not impossible, one could hardly
accept it without proof. The couch of Assurbanipal, for instance (Plate H4)> shows at
the top panels of‘the goddess at the window’. But instead of the single face of plate
170B we see that in the seventh century two figures were depicted, at knee length. Here,
then, the lapse of some fifty or more years has, in fact, produced a change in design.
It has been necessary to point out these uncertainties to explain why no history of
Phoenician ivory-work can be given, not even a development of its style from the ninth
to the sixth centuries. An early and a late group are known, but the intermediate stage
remains uncertain. We can distinguish a number of works made in the ninth century and
a more numerous group belonging to the last third of the eighth century, when Tig a 1~
nilesar III, Shalmaneser V, and Sargon campaigned against the Syrian and Phoemcian
princes and obtained, as booty or tribute, the furniture into which the ivories were
fitted 134 But we do not know whether any of the pieces which happen to be preserv

and it is almost in*ossib|e » W-
Tho bt““b k md .cll from that „f whet regions. But one .lung » ek •
the°lecoratkur of both ivories and bronzes shows affinities with the reperto.re of the

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