Art & Architecture :: Assyria, Warrior Artists
While the empires of Sumer, Akkad and Babylon prospered in southern Mesopotamia, the kingdom of Assyria flourished along the northern sectors of the river valleys in an area archeologists once thought to be uninhabited. The later Assyrian Empire (900-612 BCE) would grow to dominate the Near East, but even earlier, at the same time that the great Hammurabi was writing his Code of laws, a king named Shamaki Adad built his palaces in what is now northeast Syria, near the later Assur. The city he built, Shubat Enlil, was built atop the ruins of a great city that pre-dated his own by 1,000 years.
The walls of the previous city, uncovered by archeologists, measure 50 feet high and 60 feet thick. They form a perimeter around a two mile area which may have been the capital of a northern Mesopotamian empire as powerful as, but perhaps older than, Sumer which lay to the south. The origins of this ancient empire are unknown, its language is neither Semetic nor Sumerian and it has been suggested that its people may have been Indo-Aryans who arrived from the east. More remarkably, below this city lay the remains of even older human inhabitation that date to the sixth millennium BCE. All this in an area of the world that archeologists once thought to be devoid of any population.
The later Assyrians began their rise to prominence around 1150 BCE. Prior to this date their attempts to power were frustrated by the mighty kingdoms to the south – the Akkadians, Sumerians and Babylonians – and by the Mitanni to the northwest by whom they were subjugated for a period of time. When the Hittites broke the strength of the Mitanni and a weak Kassite king ascent the Babylonian throne, the Assyrians asserted their power. Beginning around 900 BCE and continuing for the next 300 years, Assyria would be the dominant empire in the Near East.
Assyrian kings became military commanders and Assyria itself became a garrison state with an imperial structure that extended from the Tigris to the Nile and from the Persian Gulf east into Asia Minor. To maintain their lands and conquer new, Assyria garrisoned the army was the largest standing army ever seen in the Middle East or Mediterranean. The upper, land-holding classes consisted almost entirely of military commanders who grew wealthy from the spoils taken in war.
Over the centuries, the center of Assyrian power shifted from Nimrud (Calah) to Khorsabad (Dur Sharrukin) to Nineveh and the military aspiration required to subjugate neighbors and quell occasional rebellions hardened the Assyrians into merciless warriors whose atrocities of war were decried throughout the ancient world. The exigencies of war led to technological innovations that made Assyria’s army almost unbeatable; their iron swords and lances, metal armor and battering rams made them a fearsome enemy. Although they conquered the once powerful Babylonian and Sumerian empires, the Assyrians respected the religions and cultures of these societies and incorporated many of their technological advancements into their own architecture and art.
Architecture
Sargon II, perhaps the most well known of Assyria’s kings said of the capital city he built:
The city to which Sargon was referring was one mile square in area; above it, atop a fifty foot high man-made mound, stood the royal citadel. The positioning of the royal residence had practical applications in that it raised the palace above the flood plain, but it had psychological and spiritual purpose as well. It positioned the king above his subjects and closer to the gods.
The layout of the citadel, with its 200 plus rooms and courtyards is rambling where it may once have been planned to by symmetrical. Rectangular rooms and hallways are grouped around square and rectangular courtyards. The shape of the rooms suggests that they were once covered by brick, barrel vaulted ceilings, an exceedingly practical application in an area almost devoid of timber and good building stone.
Courtyards are a prominent feature of Assyrian architecture. The main courtyard of the king’s residence ran 300 feet long, behind this sat the king’s main residence. Visitors entered from a second courtyard and passed through a central entrance between two large guardian statues into the official court room, the walls of which were lined with large figures of the king and his courtiers.
The palace included the aforementioned courtyards, plus small more personal outdoor areas, the king’s throne room and official state chambers, guard rooms, service quarters, private chambers for the royal family, a temple and a ziggurat. Only four stages, each 18 feet high, of the ziggurat survive where it may once have had seven stages. Each would have been painted a different color and a continuous ramp would have spiraled around from bottom to top to allow for ascent.
Crenellated walls composed the façade of the palace. The arched entrance and the two towers that flanked it were decorated with friezes of brilliantly colored glass that glinted under the Near Eastern sun. The appearance would have been similar to the Ishtar Gate in Babylon.
Sculpture
The guardian statues between which visitors passed were over 13 feet tall. Called lamassu, they are carved partly in the round, rare for Assyrian sculpture, and partly in relief, the far more common sculptural style. The lamassu are man-headed winged bulls wearing the horned crowns of the Akkadian god-kings and the large eyed masks familiar from Sumerian sculpture. From the front, the creature appears to be standing at rest, but when viewed from the side, it appears to be walking. This trick was accomplished by the addition of a strategically placed fifth leg that is visible only from the side. The carving style of the body is bold and vigorous, but the wings are finely sweeping with detailed patterning on the surface of each feather. The total effect is that of a superhuman, god-like being fully capable of guarding and protecting the king, exactly what the sculptor intended.
Very little Assyrian sculpture survives, among the examples we have relief are more numerous than free standing sculptures. As mentioned, even the winged bulls are considered to be primarily relief sculptures. The true reliefs depict the actions of the king, ritual significant events, battle victories and hunting expeditions. They are pictorial narratives of royal feats and seem to be factual in nature, though surely the artist portrayed the king in the most positive light.
Initially the reliefs decorated the throne rooms, later they adorned less official rooms as well and extended over entire wall of a room or corridor. The style of carving differed by king and as the artists perfected their craft they became more sharply descriptive.
The Relief of Ashurnasirpal II at War (c875 BCE, limestone, 39”, British Museum) illustrates the chaos of war. It is not in perspective or in logical sequence but it is readable and conveys the frenetic energy and charged emotion of battle. The individual movements are finely worked and convincing in their lively poses. The artist suggested distance by overlapping the figures, for example the king who stands in his chariot with drawn bow in hand, overlaps his accompanying officers. The scene is a snapshot in stone, capturing a moment in the battle. A team of horses, their reigns drawn tight charge past an enemy chariot that is already breaking apart, its driver has been thrown aside and one horse has already fallen. In the midst of the fray, Assyrian foot soldiers cut the throats of their wounded enemies and in the upper center, a soldier stabs his foe while an enemy warrior attempts to pull his comrade to safety. Behind this, an enemy soldier lies dead. In the upper right of the scene, enemy bowmen try desperately to defend their city’s towers. In the opposite corner, the god Ashur observes the scene.
The far more rigid and formal tone of the Relief of Ashurnasirpal II at Ritual (c875 BCE, Nimrud, 7’8”, British Museum) suits the subject matter. According to Assyrian conventions, the human body is represented as thick and weighty. The limbs bulge with exaggerated muscles and the veins are heavily defined. It is a visual of brute human strength. The king, who is seated in the center solemnly raising a ceremonial goblet, is shown in ¾ view. His torso is turned to the viewer. A winged figure on the left sprinkles holy water. The slow, reverent gestures invoke the feeling of the religious ritual the artist intended to report. In addition to the image, cuneiform inscriptions continue across the shallow recesses.
Two centuries later, in the Relief of Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions (c650 BCE, alabaster, Ninevah, British Museum) cultural conventions persist, but more realistic elements are introduced. In the scene, the lions have been released from their cages and charge the king, who is in his chariot protected by his servants. The animals are shot down by arrows and speared. A lion who is attacking the king from behind is speared by the servants. Dead and dying lion litter the ground, a lioness paralyzed by arrows piercing her spine with blood streaming from her wounds, drags her hind quarters in her last stages of life. The carnage is meant to show the skill and prowess of the king. The ruthless rendering of straining muscles, swelling veins, flattened ears and twisting muscles is the new realism being introduced into Assyrian art.
Ashurbanipal had promoted art and culture and built a vast library of cuneiform tablets at Nineveh, but upon his death in 627 BC, the Assyrian Empire began to disintegrate rapidly. Babylonia became independent; their king Nabopolassar, along with Cyaxares of Media, destroyed Nineveh in 612 BC, and Assyria fell. General Ashur-uballit II, with military support from the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II, held out as a remnant of Assyrian power at Harran until 609 BC, after which Assyria ceased to exist as an independent nation.
Today, still exist as a distinct ethnic group, mainly in northern Iraq, where they are distinguished from their Arab, Kurdish, and Turkmen neighbors by their traditions, politics, Christian religion, and Aramaic dialect.