The remains (cf. Fig. 28 “B,” “C”) of another very interesting stele belonging to about the same epoch or a little earlier, and military in character, were discovered by De Sarzec at Tellô. In the top register of fragment “B” three warriors are seen proceeding in file, two of whom are archers and carry quivers which are decorated with large leaves, while a leg is all that remains of the third. In the second register an archer is seen in the act of drawing his bow; his attitude is fixed and steady, and his bow is bent to the utmost, while his quiver hangs over his shoulder; before him a smitten foe lies prostrate on his back, and in contradistinction to his vanquisher who is clad in a long tunic, is entirely naked, while his right hand is raised in supplication. We next come to another warrior clad in a short fringed skirt and wearing a conical helmet: with his left hand he is seizing the beard of an enemy, who is also naked like his prostrate brother in the same register, and his right hand is raised, about to bring down his knotted club upon the face of his defeated prisoner. Below, is the figure of another warrior armed with a long pike. In “C” we have another fragment of this interesting sculpture, in the top register of which two warriors are seen marching in file; the one behind is carrying a battle-axe at the trail. In the register below, a warrior clad in a short skirt and wearing a helmet is engaged with a prostrate enemy; one of his feet is firmly planted in the unfortunate man’s stomach, and with his right hand he is further punishing him with the aid of his knotted club. Behind these two figures we have another like scene represented; here the all-powerful warrior is armed with a long lance, which he is carrying at the port; with his right arm he is marching along a prisoner much shorter than himself, whose arms are bound behind his back; the prisoner is naked, like most of the defeated enemies of Sumer and Akkad as portrayed by the sculptor. All that remains of the third register is the head and the upper part of the bow of an archer.

We must now pass from the epoch of the Semitic kings of Agade or Akkad, to the later period of Sumerian civilization, the age in which Ur-Engur and Dungi, kings of Ur, and Ur-Bau and Gudea, rulers of Lagash, lived and reigned. We are unable to assign a definite date to any of these rulers, but they probably flourished somewhere about the middle of the third millennium B.C. One of the most interesting bas-reliefs belonging to this time is reproduced in Fig. 28, “D.” We have here a representation of a god seated on a throne. He wears a long square beard, and his head is surmounted by the horned cap emblematic of divinity; his mantle covers nearly the whole of his body, the right arm alone being excepted. The head, which in its contour and general appearance recalls the heads of the Assyrian winged human-headed lions and bulls of some fifteen or sixteen centuries later (cf. Plate XXV), is like them, depicted full face, the seated body being sculptured in profile; in his left hand the god holds a sceptre, the end of which is fashioned like a leaf. In Fig. 28, “E,” we have a reproduction of what is probably the largest fragment of an early Babylonian bas-relief in existence. It was excavated at Tellô and measures about four feet in length. The upper part of the relief is occupied with a procession of four figures apparently engaged in the service of the gods, while below, a seated figure is seen playing an elaborate instrument of eleven strings, the lower part of the frame of which is decorated with a horned head and the figure of a bull. This relief would appear to have formed part of a stone socket.

As might be expected, the material used for most of the Babylonian as well as the later Assyrian bas-reliefs was a species of limestone and alabaster, as this kind of stone lends itself readily to the impress of the chisel, but the harder stones were also sometimes utilized for the purpose.92 Thus in Fig. 28, F, we have a sketch of what remains of a black steatite relief belonging to this period. The fragmentary inscription gives us the name of the goddess Ningal, who is here portrayed in a singularly attractive manner, and with an extraordinary amount of detail. An elaborate robe covers the whole of her body, and a necklace adorns her throat; her hair hangs over her shoulders, while the crown of her head is encircled by a fillet. The general technique of this little sculpture is surprising in its fidelity to nature; the attitude of the goddess, her body half turned and her left arm resting negligently on the back of her chair is life-like, and the face itself is not without a beauty of its own. The difficulty involved in the portrayal of a human eye in profile, so painfully manifest on the Vulture Stele and other earlier Sumerian monuments, where the eye is portrayed full-face, the rest of the head being done in profile, has here been surmounted, and we have before us a perfectly naturally conceived and executed face and head.

In Pl. XIV we have a reproduction of the sculptured stele of black basalt upon which is inscribed the world-renowned legal code of Khammurabi, the most illustrious king of this first dynasty of Babylon. The king is seen standing in reverential attitude before the Sun-god Shamash, from whom he is receiving the laws inscribed below. The king wears a long robe reaching down to his ankles, but leaving his right arm, which is raised in adoration, untrammelled by the folds of his mantle. The seated deity likewise has a long beard, but his high horned cap differentiates him at once from his adoring servant, while from his shoulders tongues of fire are seen shooting forth, doubtless representing the rays of the sun. In his right hand he holds the ring and staff emblematic of dominion and power. He is similarly represented in Nabû-aplu-iddina’s tablet (cf. Pl. XIV) and also on two contemporaneous stelæ in the Louvre, in one of which he is in a standing position. Beneath his feet are the mountains portrayed in miniature. The laws enacted on this stele, which is now one of the treasures of the Louvre, number about two hundred and eighty, and deal with all kinds of subjects. It was set up in E-sagila, the temple of the chief god Marduk in Babylon, so that every aggrieved party at law could go and consult it. Like so many of the monuments of Babylonian antiquity, this stele was captured by the Elamites and removed to Susa, where it remained until the French excavations on that site brought it once more to light.

As we have already seen93 the dynasty to which Khammurabi belonged was brought to an end some time later by an invasion of the Hittites, a powerful mountainous people whose home lay in Cappadocia. A century or so afterwards, i.e. about 1800 B.C., another mountainous nation known as the Kassites swept down from their strongholds in the Elamite territory on the east of the Tigris into the defenceless Babylonian plain, where they established and maintained their supremacy for a long time to come. Unfortunately the artistic relics of the Kassite period are few, and for the most part unimportant. Meanwhile, however, the Assyrians in the north had asserted their independence, and ultimately (i.e. about 1275 B.C.) succeeded in reducing Babylonia and establishing their sway over the whole of Mesopotamia. In spite of this fact, we have practically no specimen of the sculptor’s art during the long interval separating the fall of the First Dynasty of Babylon and the ninth century B.C., and it is not till the time of Ashur-nasir-pal, king of Assyria, and Nabû-aplu-iddina, king of Babylon, that we are able again to study in detail the work of the sculptor in the Tigro-Euphratian valley. To the former king we are indebted for a large series of bas-reliefs taken from the walls of his palace at Nimrûd (Calah), while to the latter we owe one of the most interesting and instructive Babylonian bas-reliefs in existence (cf. Pl. XIV).

One of the earliest specimens of Assyrian bas-relief as yet discovered is that which was found by Taylor at a village called Korkhar, situated some fifty miles north of Diarbekr. The relief in question was sculptured on the natural rock, which had been smoothed for the purpose by order of Tiglath-Pileser I (circ. 1100 B.C.).94 The king is represented in a standing posture, his right arm is extended and he is pointing with his forefinger, while in his left hand he holds a mace; the king’s figure and general appearance are already quite stereotyped, and show no more originality or vigour than the representations of the later Assyrian kings. This same monarch has further left us the upper part of an obelisk erected to commemorate his feats in the chase, on one side of which there is a small relief in which Tiglath-Pileser is seen receiving the submission of various vassal-chiefs, while above their heads are the emblems of certain deities, the most interesting of which is the winged human-headed disc of Ashur, the patron god of Assyria. But these reliefs, interesting as they are, afford us little material upon which to form an estimate of the sculptural ability of the Assyrians at this period; the chief inference which they permit us to draw is that Assyrian art seems to have neither advanced nor declined appreciably, during the interval of two hundred or more years which lapsed between the time of Tiglath-Pileser and Ashur-naṣir-pal. The latter king succeeded his father Tukulti-Ninib II as king of Assyria (885 B.C.). Tukulti-Ninib had largely restored the fallen fortunes of the northern country, thus paving the way for the successes of future reigns, but Ashur-naṣir-pal extended the power of Assyria in every direction, as well as consolidating her rule over the districts reduced by his father. It is accordingly by no means unnatural that he should have desired to commemorate and perpetuate the record of his triumphs in pictorial fashion upon the walls of his palace at Nimrûd, and it is with his reign that the history of Assyrian bas-reliefs really commences, so far as our present material goes.

Assyria was in some ways the natural home of the bas-relief, for she contained a plentiful supply of alabaster and limestone, the softness of which facilitated the work of the artist and reduced his difficulties to a minimum: Babylonia on the other hand yielded practically no stone, and all that was used had to be quarried at a distance and transported at great cost and labour, and that fact makes the early efforts of the Babylonians in this direction all the more praise-worthy, and the proficiency to which those efforts gave birth, as seen for example in Narâm-Sin’s stele of Victory, the more astonishing. But this notwithstanding, the bas-relief was more highly developed in the northern country, where it played an all-important part in the artistic life of the people. The general object of these bas-reliefs was to commemorate the king’s victories over his enemies and his conquests in the chase, rather than to produce a purely æsthetic effect. In other words they are pictorial records rather than artistic products, and that fact is further borne witness to by the cuneiform texts with which they are generally inscribed. At the same time however, they afford material for the study of Assyrian sculpture. The art of sculpture in Assyria suffered all the drawbacks which befall every art once it becomes professionalized; it lacks spontaneity which is the very connotation of art, it is made to order, and therefore it inevitably knows no freedom but is the dull slave of conventionalism. But in spite of all this, the bas-reliefs of Ashur-naṣir-pal and his successors, hampered as they are by those universal enemies of human art, professionalism and conventionalism, still enshrine, or imprison if you will, the artistic genius of the people, and on this account, if for no other, are deserving of careful attention.

The reliefs which covered the walls of the palace of Ashur-naṣir-pal at Nimrûd (Calah) consist either of single figures of gigantic size, or else in a series of small scenes divided into two friezes by cuneiform inscriptions. In Pl. XV we see Ashur-naṣir-pal followed by a winged mythological being; both are engaged in the performance of a religious ceremony, the king with the bow and the arrow which he holds in his hands, the attendant with the cone which he holds up in his right hand. The semi-divine character of the winged creature is evidenced by his head-gear which consists of the horned cap, but the faces of both figures are more or less identical, a lamentable characteristic of all Assyrian portrayals of human or semi-humanly conceived beings. The chief peculiarities of this type of face are the large eyes, the curved nose, and the profusion of hair on both head and face. Both figures are clad in a long robe and deeply fringed mantle which extend to the feet. The footwear consists of sandals fastened by thongs passing over the instep and round the big toe. The muscular arms of both are adorned with bracelets, the pattern of the decoration on which is a replica of the ubiquitous rosette so characteristic of Assyrian art. The king’s head-gear consists of a helmet from which two tails hang, and in its appearance generally, is not unlike a bishop’s mitre. Both king and divine attendant carry what appear to be two daggers tucked into their waistbands. The muscularity noticeable in the arms is yet more aggressive in the left leg of the mythological being, which, unlike that of the king, is left exposed. This grotesquely realized conception of strength is but the decadent descendant of the naturally expressed vigour so noticeable in the statues of Gudea. And here may be mentioned one characteristic peculiarity of Assyrian sculpture; it will be observed that a long cuneiform inscription is chiselled right across the relief, pursuing the even or uneven tenor of its way quite recklessly through wings, garments, bodies and hands, and there is no obstacle which it fails to overcome, not even excepting the deep fringe on the mantles.

One of the most luminous of these small bas-reliefs is reproduced in Pl. XVI(2). Ashur-naṣir-pal and his army are storming a beleaguered city; the walls of the city are crenelated after the regular Mesopotamian fashion. Immediately before the walls the movable tower resting on six small wheels and containing the battering ram is stationed, the efficacy of which may be judged from the bricks falling from the battered walls. Mounted on the top of the tower is an archer with bow bent, whose person is protected by another warrior bearing a shield. The king is portrayed behind the movable tower in the act of drawing his bow; his head-gear differs from that of the warriors, who wear a conical helmet. In Pl. XVI(3), we see the warriors of Ashur-naṣirpal returning victorious from the battle-field. On the right of the picture are two three-horse chariots, both of which carry standard-bearers; above them we see a vulture making off with his prey, which in this instance consists in a human head, and in front are the infantry who appear to be gloating over the gory heads of their smitten adversaries, while to add to the ghastliness of the scene two musicians are playing on stringed instruments.

Ashur-naṣir-pal was however quite as proud of his victories in the chase as he was of his conquests in the battle-field, as is attested by the numerous hunting scenes which he caused to be carved in relief on his palace walls. In Pl. XVI(4) we see Ashur-naṣir-pal, erect in his chariot, in the act of dispatching a lion by the aid of his bow and arrow. The lion is treated with considerable boldness, and the skill of the artist in the portrayal of animal life—or death, as here—when compared with the stereotyped lifelessness of the king, is sufficiently striking. But Assyrian art does not reach its climax here, as we shall see when we come to consider the lions on Ashur-bani-pal’s bas-reliefs; the latter show a certain delicacy in the handling, and an intuition into all those infinite subtleties and varying nuances which are the hall-mark of life, animal or human as the case may be, and which apparently are not felt or at all events not successfully realized in the earlier works. The portrayal of the lion here is strong and life-like, but the spectator can never get away from the consciousness of the fact that it is a pictorial representation; he can never abandon the thought of the sculptor and the excellence of his art, or lose himself, be it only for a moment, in the reality itself. But in the reliefs of Ashur-bani-pal, one can for a brief space forget the artist and his work, and see the lion itself; one can catch a faint note of his dying gasp as he lies there motionless, his body transfixed with arrows, and it is in the effacement of the artist and the material which he uses that art attains the zenith of her power.

But Ashur-naṣir-pal’s love for sport did not deter him from his religious obligations, on the contrary he appears to have attributed his triumphs in the chase to his god, for on his return he offers a libation over the body of the lion or bull which providence has delivered into his hand (cf. Pl. XVI(1)). The cup he holds in his hand resembles the top of a champagne glass, while his left hand is leaning on a bow in the usual characteristic manner. Before him is an officer, evidently of high rank, for his dress is an exact replica of the king’s, but his head is bare and his hands are clasped in a deferential manner. By the side of this high official is an attendant or eunuch with a fly-flap, while behind him is another attendant, and last of all are two musicians playing stringed instruments. On the other side of the picture, immediately behind the king is an attendant with a ceremonial umbrella, followed by two servants with bows on their shoulders.

Although Ashur-naṣir-pal’s contemporary Nabû-aplu-iddina king of Babylon has left us but few memorials of his reign, we are nevertheless indebted to him for one unique specimen of Mesopotamian sculpture (cf. Pl. XIV). Reference has already been made to this tablet on account of the light which it throws on certain architectural problems, it now remains for us to consider it as a work of art and an historical monument. The text records the restoration of the temple of Shamash by two kings called Simmash-shipak and Eulmash-shakin-shum, both of whose reigns took place some time in the eleventh century B.C. It then proceeds to describe the condition into which the temple, its ornaments and accessories subsequently fell; the shrine of the god had been denuded of its treasures which had been misappropriated in one way or another; the sculptures which adorned the walls and the image of the deity himself had suffered violence at the hands of the godless. All this Nabûaplu-iddina set about to rectify; he restored the glory which the fane had enjoyed in early days, in particular he enriched the time-honoured statue of the god with gold and lapis lazuli, he re-established the temple worship in all its former pomp and splendour, and took vengeance upon the enemies of Shamash and the king who had perpetrated this sacrilegious outrage. The king himself celebrated the occasion of the temple’s re-dedication by a munificent supply of offerings, and issued detailed regulations as to the ceremonial vestments of the priests, and the days upon which in each case they were to be worn in future. In the scene above, Shamash is portrayed enthroned in his shrine at Sippar, holding a disc and rod in his right hand; the sides of the throne are sculptured with mythological beings, whose rôle seems to be to support the throne, while above and in front of the god’s head are three astrological emblems. The roof and supporting pillar of the shrine itself have been discussed elsewhere (cf. p. 164): two divine beings are stationed on the top of the shrine; they hold in their hands two taut ropes which are attached to a large disc, emblematic of the sun, placed on an altar immediately in front of the shrine, and by means of which the disc is kept in position. Approaching the altar and advancing towards the shrine are seen three worshippers, the first of whom is the high-priest of Shamash, who is introducing the king into the presence of the divine symbol in a manner so frequently seen on Babylonian cylinder-seals, while last of all comes a goddess. One of the interesting points about this little sculptured tablet is that though it was made by a ninth century king of Babylon the style of art to which it conforms would indicate that it is not an original work of Nabû-aplu-iddina, but a copy of a much older archetype. The head-dress of the god for example is characterized by four tiers of horns, and is practically identical with that found even as early as the time of Gudea, the later Assyrian divine head-dress on the other hand generally having but two or three horns on either side: Shamash here too holds the disc and rod in his hand in precisely the same manner as he is represented doing on the famous stele of Khammurabi (cf. Pl. XIV); his long beard is likewise depicted in much the same way as it is there. In short, there seems little doubt that the original of this ninth century product must be sought for somewhere about the commencement of the second millennium B.C. Another particularly interesting feature about the discovery of this sculpture was the simultaneous discovery of two clay coverings for it. One of these was found to be broken, and was probably made by Nabû-aplu-iddina himself, but the other bears an inscription of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon from 625-604 B.C. During the two centuries which had elapsed between the time of Nabû-aplu-iddina and the reign of Nabopolassar, the oft-restored temple had again fallen into disrepair, and it fell to the lot of the last-named king to once more restore the time-honoured fane; he too, like his predecessor two hundred years before, made “offerings rich and rare” to the immortal Shamash. The object of these clay coverings was of course to preserve the sculpture from damage (cf. Fig. 5).

To return to Assyria, Ashur-naṣir-pal was succeeded by his son Shalmaneser II: we unfortunately possess but few bas-reliefs belonging to the time of this king, the best-known being those sculptured on the Black Obelisk; these reliefs have been illustrated and dealt with in detail in so many works, owing chiefly to the historic importance of the inscription on this monument, that it seems hardly necessary nor desirable to discuss them here. Shalmaneser’s immediate successors have left us few memorials of themselves, artistic or otherwise, and after their reigns a general decadence seems to have set in, from which Assyria did not recover till the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III, or Pul as he is called in 2 Kings xv. 19 and elsewhere. This king restored the fortunes of the empire, and extended his power on every side, and happily for our subject he has immortalized his exploits in picture-fashion on hard stone, as well as in writing on clay cylinders and tablets, though unfortunately the bas-reliefs of this king which have survived are few in number. One of the best preserved is that in which Tiglath-Pileser III is seen conducting a siege (cf. Pl. XVII). The details of this sculpture vividly recall the words Isaiah is reported to have used in his endeavour to rally the failing courage of Hezekiah, king of Judah, who was inclined to surrender himself and his city to Sennacherib—“Thus saith the Lord concerning the King of Assyria, he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields nor cast a bank against it.” All the means of attack here mentioned are represented in our bas-relief. The warriors have their bows bent, and doubtless have already dispatched many an arrow with deadly effect: their persons are protected by large wicker shields which cover the whole of their bodies. The “bank” in this case has clearly been “cast against” the besieged city, and the purpose that the “bank” was destined to serve is at once manifest. It consisted in an artificial mound up which the movable tower containing the battering-ram was advanced. On the top of the wall of the besieged city, a man is seen with hands outstretched suing for mercy. The defeat of the enemy and the reduction of their city is signalized in a highly realistic fashion; beneath the “bank” some of the vanquished are seen prostrate and naked, while above, on a level with the top of the wall a number of captives, also naked, are impaled on stakes. The inscription refers to the various articles of tribute brought by conquered peoples, but is not possessed of any especial interest.

Tiglath-Pileser III was succeeded by Shalmaneser IV, the most noteworthy event of whose reign was the siege of Samaria; the city held out two years, and fell in 722 B.C., after Shalmaneser had been dethroned by Sargon the usurper. Sargon reigned some eighteen years and achieved many victories, the most momentous of which was that gained over the united Egyptians and Philistines at Raphia, near the Egyptian frontier. His sculptural bequests are many, and they comprise the gigantic winged human-headed bulls and lions which are in some ways the most impressive and the most characteristic specimens of oriental art. These winged monsters are neither bas-reliefs, nor are they perfect round sculptures, but a mixture of the two, and will accordingly receive consideration in the second half of this chapter.

But the palace erected by Sargon at Khorsabad, which was excavated by Botta more than half a century ago has yielded a rich harvest of bas-reliefs pure and simple, one of which is reproduced in Fig. 29. The scene is a familiar one in Assyrian sculpture; a fortress is being attacked, of course successfully, by Assyrian soldiers. The fortress appears to have been built on the top of a height, doubtless with a view to rendering it the more impregnable. It consists of three rows of towers, superimposed one on the top of the other, the largest row being at the base and the smallest at the top, the general contour not being unlike that of a ziggurat with its receding stages. One wing of the fortress is protected by two towers, with which it is connected by means of a wall, while the other wing apparently extends right down the slope of the height. Access to the fortress is gained by arched doorways, one of the many incidental proofs of the frequency with which the arch was used in Assyrian architecture. A number of small rectangular houses lie at the foot of the hill, the doorways of which are arched like those of the flanking towers, while in both cases the doors or gates themselves are double-leaved. The windows, or embrasures, which are very numerous, are all square, and the battlements are crenelated as usual. Three pairs of colossal horns crown the fortress, which Botta is inclined to think may be actual horns, the disproportion of their size being of course no argument against that view, for disproportion is a characteristic of early oriental art. In such case they could be only emblematic, and presumably indicative of strength, but it seems infinitely more probable that the horns represent the sculptor’s attempt to portray flames of fire, which are thus seen leaping up from the fired fortress. Some of the besieged are suing for mercy with outstretched hands, while others are evidently determined to fight to the last: they are armed with long spears and rectangular shields, while their backs are covered with the skins of animals. The enemy are literally at the gate, and it is impossible to tell when they will effect an entrance. Three of them are attempting to undermine the wall by means of long-handled prongs, two more are at work with their short swords, while to the left are two Assyrian spearmen of superhuman size, whose symbolic presence at once removes even the faintest shadow of doubt there might be as to the issue of the conflict. The attack is a strenuous one, as a mere walkover would bring no glory to the Assyrian arms, but at the same time, in spite of the severity of the battle raging round the fortress, the irresistible might of the Assyrian colossus is grimly suggested by the two giant warriors. The artistic treatment of the two heroes deserves some notice; the aggressive muscularity so characteristic of Assyrian representations of kings and warriors is not indeed altogether wanting in the legs, but the arms are wholly free from this all but universal defect, while the pose of both arms and legs is exceptionally natural and singularly true to life. They are armed with spears of the same type as those used by the beleaguered army, but their shields are round in contradistinction to the oblong shields of the enemy, and they are girded with short swords. Their clothing and helmets are of a frequently recurring type, while both of them wear armlets and one of them wears a plain bracelet on his left wrist.

Sargon was succeeded in 705 B.C. by his famous son Sennacherib, the principal event of whose reign was probably the destruction of Babylon in 689 B.C. But the name of Sennacherib is famous rather on account of his close relations with the kingdom of Judah, and the unsuccessful siege of Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah, than for the conquests which he made, considerable as they were. The excavation of his palace at Nineveh has led to the discovery of a large number of bas-reliefs, many of which had been fractured as well as damaged by fire when the city was sacked by the combined forces of the Medes and the Babylonians about 609 B.C. For the most part they illustrate the campaigns undertaken by Sennacherib. What is noticeable at once in the bas-reliefs of this king is their complexity, as contrasted with the simplicity of those of Ashur-naṣir-pal. We have already observed that entire scenes are sometimes portrayed upon the bas-reliefs of the last-named monarch, though more often the relief is monopolized by two or three large and striking figures, one of which generally represents the king, but by Sennacherib’s time what had hitherto been the exception now becomes the rule, and the bas-reliefs of this king are practically all scenic in their effect and most elaborate in their composition. This exaggerated complexity is due not so much to the variety of subjects treated in each relief, as to the ignorance of perspective on the part of the artist, for the treatment of even a limited number of subjects or objects within the scope of a single picture demands that these objects be seen and represented in perspective, and if that demand is not met, confusion worse confounded is the inevitable result of the artist’s abortive attempt. This confusion is seen to perfection, if the “oxymoron” may be allowed, in the reliefs which adorned the palace walls of Sennacherib king of Assyria. A portion of one of the most instructive of these sculptured slabs is reproduced in Fig. 30.

The scene is one of great interest, not merely for the student of Assyrian art, but for the light which it throws upon the mechanical resources of which the Assyrians of that day availed themselves, resources which the very existence of the gigantic human-headed bulls and lions presupposes, but which are here illustrated in a specific manner by Sennacherib’s sculptors. The safe transport of a gigantic mass of solid stone was no easy matter even for the excavator of the nineteenth century,95 how much greater the difficulties to be surmounted by a people whose mechanical knowledge was some two and a half millennia younger! In the artistic treatment of this sculpture there are of course obvious defects. There is the usual ignorance of perspective on the part of the sculptor, though this is less pronounced than elsewhere; the trees in the foreground and background are arranged in lines in a somewhat conventional manner, though the intentional or accidental diminution of size in the trees in the background as compared with those in the front of the sculpture, makes the general setting of the scene appear much more true in its arrangement than would otherwise be the case. Unfortunately it has not been possible to include the back row of trees without sacrificing the more important parts of the sculpture, hence their omission here.

All interest is centred round the bull, Assyrians and war-captives alike having but one work and that is the transport of this awe-inspiring monster. In the right-hand corner we see two carts, each being drawn by two prisoners and containing ropes and timber. The carts have two wheels, each wheel containing eight spokes in contradistinction to the four spokes of the early Babylonian wheels. The bull has been carefully laid on its side upon a sledge which is shaped like a boat in the front. Both ends of the sledge are pierced with round holes for the reception of the ropes. The latter, tightly secured to the sledge and bull, are about to be pulled by a number of prisoners who succeed under the gentle stimulus of the taskmaster’s lash in gradually moving the colossal monster. Before starting, however, it was seemingly necessary to give the sledge some assistance by means of a huge lever, one end of which is placed under the stern while to the other end three ropes are attached, by means of which a number of workmen are doing their utmost to move the lever on its fulcrum. To gain a greater leverage one of the workmen is engaged in inserting a wedge between the upper surface of the fulcrum and the under side of the lever, while the movement of the sledge is further facilitated by means of rollers which workmen are seen busily putting in position. Upon the top of the recumbent bull kneels the foreman engineer giving the signal for each successive and united effort to the men on the towing-ropes. The presence of three soldiers was apparently necessary to enforce the admonitions of the foreman—an early example of the invocation of the military to support civil authority. Below in the foreground, a number of captives are seen carrying rollers to be set down as the bull advances. They are accompanied by taskmasters who appear to have been wholly devoid of any sense of mercy.

But the best known, because from certain points of view the most interesting, bas-relief from Sennacherib’s palace at Kouyunjik is that in which Sennacherib is seen receiving the submission of the conquered inhabitants of Lachish (Tell el-Ḥesy) (cf. Fig. 31). The king is seated on a throne of great magnificence, and his feet repose on a high footstool. The side of the throne is divided into three registers, each of which is occupied by a row of men with arms upstretched to support the bar above: the bars themselves are decorated with various geometrical devices, while the throne stands upon four large cone-shaped feet. The king’s robes are as elaborate as his throne, both mantle and tunic being richly embroidered and fringed with tassels, while his head-gear consists in a kind of mitre, apparently the usual state head-gear of Assyrian monarchs. Behind him are two attendants, probably eunuchs, each holding a fly-flap in his right hand and a bandlet in his left; their dress consists in a long robe reaching down to the ankle and tied round the waist with a girdle, while a variegated sash passing from the left shoulder across the chest relieves the monotony of the comparatively inornate costume. Their hair is long, and the ends are curled as in the other figures here represented, but they are beardless and hatless. Behind these two attendants is the royal pavilion, the roof-canvas of which is apparently raised either for ventilation or to keep off the sun. The king with a bow in his left hand and an arrow in his right, is listening to his chief officers who are reporting the incidents of the siege of Lachish. The personage who leads the procession carries no arms, but has his head bared and is clad more sumptuously than the attendant officers, as befitteth the king’s vizier; the warriors are armed with maces, short swords, bows and arrows, or spears as the case may be. At a respectful distance from the royal throne three representatives of the conquered inhabitants of the city are making their obeisance before the king, one of them literally grovelling on all fours. The prisoners have a thick, though not a long, crop of hair, while their beards are also thick and short, in contradistinction to those of the Assyrians. Their dress consists of a perfectly plain, short-sleeved tunic reaching from neck to ankle, while their feet are unshod. The dress of the Assyrian warriors will be considered in a subsequent chapter (Chap. XIII). The scene of this somewhat dramatic spectacle is outside the captured city, under the grateful shade of vines and fig-trees, while mountains covered with trees form a fitting background to the picture. The purport of the four-lined cuneiform inscription in front of the king is that Sennacherib, king of hosts, king of Assyria, sat upon his throne of state, and the spoil of the city of Lachish passed before him. But magnificent as is the throne upon which Sennacherib is here seated, it must have been far surpassed in splendour by his royal throne at Nineveh; the latter was apparently made of rock crystal, some of the fragments of which are still preserved.

Sennacherib was succeeded after some intestine feuds by his son Esarhaddon; Esarhaddon carried on the traditions of his predecessors in warring against Phœnicia, and reducing Babylonia, but the distinguishing feature of his reign was the occupation of Lower Egypt by the Assyrians in 672 B.C. Unfortunately we have very few sculptural monuments of this king, though it must not be assumed from this that he was a whit less proud of his feats than his father, but his reign has practically no interest for the student of art and affords us little material for the pursuit of our present subject. This remark, however, is very far from applying to Ashur-bani-pal, his all-glorious son, whose triumphs in the field of art were as great in their way as those achieved in the battle-field. Ashur-bani-pal came to the throne in 668 B.C. and ruled some forty-two years, during which he raised the power of Assyria to a point never reached before and never reached again. The more noteworthy events of Ashur-bani-pal’s reign as well as the consequential effects of his taste for literature have been treated of elsewhere; suffice it to say here that this outburst of military, intellectual and artistic activity was but the supreme effort of an empire whose strength was exhausted and whose vitality was impaired, and even before the death of Ashur-bani-pal the meteoric splendour of her glory had begun to pale. It was as it were the final sickness of an aged man who had weathered many storms and whose recuperative power had hitherto risen to every occasion, at last however the final crisis comes and all is over. But that golden era of Assyrian art, so brief and short-lived, has nevertheless been immortalized by the artists of that day in those stone slabs which now form one of the most precious possessions of the British Museum.

A large number of these bas-reliefs are concerned with lion-hunting; from Pl. XVIII it would appear that lions sometimes suffered themselves to become domesticated; we here see a lion and lioness, the one standing, the other lying carelessly stretched at its ease upon the ground, in a kind of garden, the cultivated character of which is manifest from the presence of a vine. The lion stands before the crouching lioness with head and fore-paws outstretched, in a manner well-illustrative of that dignity and majesty which is always and has always been associated with the king of animals. Unfortunately most of the head and the entire hind-quarters of the lion are missing, but sufficient remains of the animal for us to imagine the rest without much risk of our imagination leading us astray.