Page 64 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD

branches or flowers. The king sits facing his officers, is larger than Iris boon companions,
and wears a kilt which is, at least hi the rendering, more elaborately tassclled than theirs.
On the right a man plays a harp of the type of plate 27B (it is carried by a shoulder-

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strap) and the woman behind him would be a singer or a dancing-girl. The connexion
between die feast and the military success is made clear by the bottom register, where
the spans of onagers can only be explained as war booty. Portable spoils are carried on
the back on regular wooden packs held by straps passing round the forehead of the
porters.
The technique of inlay was widely used in Early Dynastic times; it allowed for grace­
ful design and rich effects in colour and texture, and is found on boxes, gaming boards,
and so on. The soundboxes of harps were similarly decorated, and that of the harp,
plate 31, shows some extraordinary scenes (Plate 38). Uppermost appears the hero of
plate 6 protecting two human-headed bulls, a theme used so frequently and in such vary­
ing contexts that one is tempted to suppose its meaning to be less important than its
decorative effect. But no such uncertainty attaches to the other scenes; nothing could be
clearer and more specific. A wolf and a lion serve at table - but the diner is not depicted.
The wolf has carved the meat and brings dressed boar’s and sheep’s heads and a leg of
mutton. The carving-knife is stuck in his belt. It is of a pattern found in the tombs of Ur
and elsewhere53 and misnamed dagger. The Hon follows the wolf, carrying a large jar
of liquor, apparently wound round with wicker-work, and a bowl or lamp. The relief
plaques, the * standard’ from Ur, and many seal designs show that music was played
during meals; and so we see the bear steadying a large harp which the ass plays. A small
animal - a fawn, perhaps, or a jerboa - sits at the feet of the bear and shakes a rattle - the
Egyptian sistrum - while beating a tambourine or drum held on its lap. The lowest panel
is less clear. A scorpion-man carries an object which we cannot recognize. This seems to
belong to the tall jar, since a similar object projects from its mouth. Can they be clay
tablets? The gazelle which follows him holds tumblers or perhaps incense-burners.
We lack all guidance in this fantastic world. Only the scorpion-man is mentioned in
texts: in the Epic of Gilgamesh he is a guardian of the place of sunrise, a function which
seems irrelevant in the context of our inlays. It has sometimes been said that the animals
arc masked men, but this seems unlikely.54 They have been equipped with human hands
for paws only in order to enable them to carry objects, strum the harp, and so on. In
any case, if masked men performed these scenes the implication would be that the ani­
mals were believed once to have performed them. But we know nothing of the occasion
when this was supposed to have taken place, and camiot judge, therefore, whether it re­
flects myth, ritual, or fable. On a sealing from Ur the lion is the hero of a similar feast.55
Seated on a throne, he swills from beakers handed to him by an antelope on its hind legs.
A onkey brings ajar of drink. Another, likewise upright, plays the harp, and a third the
cym a s. On a sealing from Tell Asmar56 a lion and an ass sit on either side of a jar of
ecr, from which they drink through a drinking-tube. One and a half millennia later,
the animal orchestra appears again on some rough stone reliefs found in a palace at Tell
a in north Syria.57 It is unlikely that mere fables were the subject of works of art of
s importance. More probably we have here traces of ancient myths. On the harp fr om

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