Page 88 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

HAMMURABI OF BABYLON

Hammurabi of Babylon
The greatest surviving work of the period, a king s head in black granite (Plate 63), is
usually regarded as a portrait of the greatest figure of the age, Hammurabi of Babylon
(1792-1750 b.c.). This view is attractive and may be correct; we have no means of
knowing. The sculptor’s interest in physical substance had led him to an almost impres­
sionistic rendering of the face. The moustache and the short hairs below the lower lip
arc lightly scratched in. They form a transition to the more formal rendering of the
beard. The hair that is just visible under the woollen cap is also rendered conventionally,
with gentle waves combed sideways from a parting in the middle, like those of the god­
dess with the flowing vase and of earlier works. The eyebrows meet in the middle, but
are lightly cross-hatched, not patterned with herring-bone, as in the past. The eyes with
the heavy lids differ from those carved in Gudca’s time (e.g. Plate 50A) in that they are
not mere rims of even thickness round the eyes, but subtly change, being thicker at the
outside than in the middle. In fact, the conventional traits which the sculptor retained
merely emphasize the greatness of his achievement; they are subsidiary features in a
whole which has no parallel among extant works. Yet it would be contrary to all we
know of ancient Near Eastern art to see in the granite head an individual portrait in our
sense. But the rugged, worn, immensely powerful physiognomy certainly embodies a
conception of the ruler which differs from that expressed in plates 46 to 49 as well as from
the Akkadian image of kingship (Plates 42-3); and these varying conceptions did corre­
spond to some extent with actuality, even though we cannot be sure of the precise nature
of that correspondence. In any case the comparisons bring into relief the novelty of
method and the mastery of the sculptor of the granite head.
There are two works in stone and one in bronze purporting to represent Hammurabi.32
The stone ‘portraits’ arc reliefs; one is a small limestone plaque merely showing the
king’s figure beside an inscription. It was dedicated on his behalf to the goddess Ashra-
turn by a provincial governor, and does not call for comment.33 The other relief (Plate
65) is carved at the top of the large irregular stele on which Hammurabi’s famous legal
code was inscribed. The king stands before the throne of the sun-god, the supreme
judge; and the conjunction of the two figures, although conforming to the conventional
scheme of the presentation scene, has here been rendered with a fresh awareness of its
extraordinary nature.34 It conveys, not only a sense of confrontation, but of communica­
tion between the lord of justice and the law-giver. We remember a phrase from one of
the king s inscriptions: ‘ When Shamash with radiant face had joyfully looked upon me -
me, his favourite shepherd, Hammurabi’35 and also of that other phrase in the preamble
o the code of laws, stating that he was called ‘to cause justice to prevail in the land, to
estroy the wicked and the evil, that the strong might not oppress the weak’.36
The scene shown in our illustration is two feet high. Below it appear the cuneiform
signs o the code which covers the rest of the boulder which is over seven feet tall and
measures three feet in circumference at the base. The engraving of the signs is very fine,
ut t e scene above them is worked in the heavy rounded relief found also on the steles

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