Page 63 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

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PART ONE: MESOPOTAMIA

war-chariot (cf. plate 36), followed by his light infantry. He seems to lift his spear
against the king of Umma. The same or a similar scene is repeated in the bottom row,
where the head of the victim, looking back over the bare heads of his retreating troops,
is struck by the spear of a figure now lost. In the lowest register Eannatum (of whose
figure only the feet arc preserved) presides over the burial of his dead. They arc laid out
side by side, and their comrades, carrying earth in baskets on their heads, fill the common
grave. Meanwhile the king worships the gods by pouring a libation over two vases filled
with branches. An ox pegged to the ground is sacrificed to Ningirsu.
The side of the stele which we have described records the events as they had been ob­
served to occur; the other side (Plate 35) reveals the hidden forces which brought them
about. The god Ningirsu himself had taken up the just cause of his city; he caught the
men of Umma in his net and destroyed them. The net is closed by - or, at least, seen to
hang from - a handle in the shape of the god’s emblems: the lion-headed eagle over two
lions, hi his right hand the god holds a mace. His figure, occupying two-thirds of the
height of the stele, is followed by a smaller divinity under the lion-headed eagle, while
below it the god’s chariot is depicted. The front of it, with the curved end of the pole,
the rein ring crowned by the figure of a lion, and the wings of the lion-headed eagle, are
visible, before the small head of the divinity.51
It is clear that decorative considerations played only a minor part in the composition
of the steles of victory. The clarity of the pictorial narrative was all that mattered. Thus
the designer disregarded the edges of the stone; in plate 34 die last ranks of the troops
following Eannatum are simply drawn on the narrow side of the stele, as if the stone had
the curved surface of the cylinder.
The fragments of similar steles found elsewhere are too small to allow their designs to
be reconstructed. But victories in war were also recorded on a smaller scale on objects
which could be displayed indoors. On more than one site delicately carved pieces of
shell or mother of pearl have been found, which had been inlaid in bitumen. The result
was some such arrangement as is shown on the so-called ‘standard’ from Ur (Plates
36-7). We do not really know the use of this object, and the absence of inscriptions sug­
gests that it may have served to decorate pieces best described in a general way as furni­
ture.52 The two panels slant inwards, so that the sides of the-object are trapezoid. These
sides are decorated with mythological subjects, but the main panels show two comple­
mentary events: a victory and a feast. Each subject is divided into three registers, and
framed by borders of lapis lazuli set diamond-wise in bitumen and edged with shell.
The main scene occupies the upper register, while the others record subsidiary events;
for there is no strict time sequence. On the side where a military victory is shown, the
king, half a head taller than his men, has descended from his chariot. Spear in hand, he
inspects captives. They are naked, and some of them are wounded. The preceding en-
gagement is depicted below. At the bottom the chariots advance over the bodies of the
dead, each with a driver and a spearman whose javelins project from a quiver. In the
middle register infantrymen despatch some enemies and take others captive. On the other
side of the standard (Plate 37) there is the celebration after the victory. It differs from the
feasts on the square relief plaques in that women do not participate, and no one carries

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