Page 97 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART one: MESOPOTAMIA
Mitannian rule; they are found throughout the kingdom of Mitanni. A variant of the
griffin, the griffin-demon, has a similar distribution. The griffins often appear in associa­
tion with the sacred tree , and contmucd to do so in late Assyrian times (Plate oo)
The sacrcdness of trees and plants, or radicr the belief that divinity was manifest in the
vegetable kindom, was, as we have seen, one of the oldest tenets of Mesopotamian reli­
gion. It is merely the form in which the belief finds expression that has changed by the
fifteenth century b.c. On monuments of an earlier date the trees and plants appear with
some degree ofverisimilitude, and it is only possible for us to decide whether they arc
intended to represent natural or symbolical objects when the context in which they
appear is unequivocal. But in Assyria a corresponding symbolism finds expression in the
purely artificial designs of figures 24c and 41 which, at a first glance, might appear to be
used as pure decoration. Now there arc sufficient instances of the performance of ritual
acts in connexion with the artificial sacred tree’ to exclude ornamental preoccupations
as its source. We know, moreover, that a bare tree-trunk, roimd which metal bands,

AAA’AAA ^ isfeSi
0 VSrJliA^Y7 D -i !T
D D
D D [A
Sil
D 0
SCSlI*

1>Js
A B c
Figure 24. Middle Assyrian seal impressions
/
/
called ‘yokes’, were fastened and to which fillets were attached,12 was used in the New
Year’s Festival in Assyria, in contrast with the usage of the south. In Syria, too, a be­
decked maypole’ was an object ofworship, and on one Syrian cylinder seal the head of
the deity dwelling in the object emerges at the top.13 The prominence of the sacred
tree’ in Assyria (Figure 41) is yet another instance of the tendency to represent gods by
their symbols; the relief of plate 72 uses the more direct language of the immemorial

southern tradition.
In architecture the only demonstrable influence from the west and nordi consists o a
technical innovation. As we shall presently see, stone slabs put on edge were use as a
revetment of the lower parts of walls in palaces and other secular buildings. But in p an
ning, and in temple architecture as a whole, Assyria followed the usages of the sout ,
though with certain modifications of the Babylonian norms which probably represent
Assyrian innovations. .
The ancient sanctuary of Ishtar at Assur, which goes back at least to ear y yn
times, was rebuilt by Tukulti-Ninurta I according to the old scheme, with a *“

*££*££it stood in an aleove which was almost a separate room, at the top of a

68