Page 59 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

*

PART ONE: MESOPOTAMIA

occasion of a renovation of the temple. We arc equally in the dark about a great sym­
bolic panel, found in the same temple (Plate 27A). It shows in the centre the lion-headed
eagle Imdugud, gripping a stag with either claw. The gesture docs not represent aggres­
sion but affinity: the same deity is symbolized by bird and deer. The combination adorns
the base of the statue of the god Abu (Plate 13) where plants are added to the herbivores.
If the eagle is correctly interpreted as the embodiment of the black rain-clouds, his pre­
I
sence in the temple of the Mother Goddess Ninhursag (Lady of the Mountain) is easily
explained. At Lagash the god was said to enter the temple Tike a rumbling storm, like a
bird of prey descrying its victim’, when he arrived for his sacred marriage with the god­
dess. The absence of plant motifs in the copper relief is compensated by the large number
of rosette flowers which were composed of petals cut from red and white stone mounted
upon terra-cotta nails which were fixed in the walls of the temple.
The heads of the three animals on the copper panel arc cast separately. Such cast heads
are occasionally found in the ruins without any trace of the decayed bodies of sheet cop­
per. They may, therefore, belong not to architectural friezes of the type just described,
but to objects of perishable material, such as furniture. Lion-heads, for instance, were
used ornamentally as parts of a wooden sledge; and the heads of herbivores occur on
harps. It is possible that differences in pitch corresponded with an attachment to harps of
the head of a bull, a cow, a calf, or a goat.
Plate 27B shows a reliable reconstruction of one of the harps found at Ur. The sound­
box was of wood which had, of course, decayed. But its shape was preserved by the
order in which shell, lapis lazuli, and red jasper had been set in bitumen. Triangles of the
same materials, alternating with bands of gold-leaf, had covered the uprights which sup­
ported the bar to which the strings were attached. It seems that the instrument was con­
ceived as a creature giving forth music, for its head, cast in gold, is attached to the sound­
box. The bull’s head of plate 31 is fixed to a harp in the same manner. There gold-leaf is
modelled over a core, and lapis lazuli is used to render the beard, the shaggy hair be­
tween the horns, the horn tips, and the eyelids and pupils. The splendid goat’s head of
plate 29B may also be derived from an instrument. It is cast in copper, superbly modelled,
and conveys the uncanny character of the goat to perfection.
The animal which forms the centre of the strange and beautiful object of-plate 28
seems equally daemonic. From a wooden base, covered with coloured stone inlays in
bitumen, a tree rises. Its branches end in leaves and in the symbolical rosette-flower. A
billy-goat has put its forefeet on the branches and peers through the foliage. Its heavy
coat is rendered by separately carved pieces of shell and lapis lazuli, set in the bitumen
that covers the wooden body. The two horns are cut from lapis lazuli. A piece of wood
that gives rigidity to the body emerges between the shoulders and is covered with gold-
foil. Originally40 its top was on a level with the tip of the horns so that bowls and saucers
with offerings could be placed upon it. We know from a contemporary seal design
(Figure 12) how such objects were used. The stand of plate 28 represents in the round
that combination of herbivore with plant which we have repeatedly met as symbol of
the great gods of natural fertility. But as it comes to life in the stand it has acquired an
extraordinary potency. It appears in the full mystery of its animal vitality, not sub-

30