Fig. 249.—Kudurru (unfinished), Kassite period.
One of the most remarkable is that of Melisihu, king of Babylon.[109] Another, which deserves special notice, is that of “Nazi-maruttas, king of Kis, son of Kurig-alzu, descendant of Burna-buryas, king of Babylon.”[110] By way of a specimen we give here an illustration of one which offers a special peculiarity—it is unfinished ([fig. 249]). It will be seen that the figures are winged. Huntsmen, gods, serpents, lions, and birds, the usual decorations of the kudurru, are well engraved, but the cuneiform text is absent. The space reserved for it is framed by two columns, the body of a serpent and a crenellated frieze. It appears, therefore, that this object must have been seized in Chaldæa by the Susians, before it had been utilised and consecrated.
From this general sketch of the stone sculptures which so far have been recovered from the ruins of Susa, one essential fact stands out prominently; stone-carving was not practised in Susa: all the monuments hitherto discovered were brought from Chaldæa. They are Chaldæan sculptures imported into Susa by the victorious Elamites.
§ V. Bronze Metal-Work.
Owing to the fact that they lived in a country where stone could not be obtained without great difficulty, the Susians built their houses, palaces, and temples with brick: and it was doubtless due to the same cause that they showed themselves so eager to carry off the stone statues and bas-reliefs that adorned the Chaldæan cities, and which they seized by right of conquest, to embellish their own capital. The same reason will also explain the extraordinary development we find in the metal-working of the Elamites from the earliest times. With them, bronze took the place of stone. They made bronze statues, bronze bas-reliefs, bronze beams, and such was their knowledge and technical dexterity, that we might almost assert without fear of exaggeration, that bronze metal-working was as advanced three thousand years before our era, as it has ever been in modern times.
M. de Morgan brings this to the proof by exhibiting at the Louvre, among his Susian discoveries, a bronze cylinder 14 ft. 3 in. in length, cast in one piece, like a cannon of average calibre, and covered over the whole surface with archaic cuneiform inscriptions, in the name of the Elamite king, Shilhak-in-Shushinak. Another cylinder of the same class, but not quite so long, is larger in diameter.
What can have been the purpose of these colossal tubes, which are cylindrical, except at the ends where they are squared? One of them is inlaid with small gold studs. It is improbable that they were columns; it appears more likely that they were placed horizontally as beams, or railings, intended for the protection of a nation of giants.
Another bronze object not less strange, is a species of altar, or rather a sacrificial table. This also is made in one single casting, 5 ft. 3 in. long, 27½ in. broad, and 12 in. deep. It is pierced like a stone sink, to allow liquids to escape, and round the sides it is decorated with two enormous serpents. There are also five human busts, Atlas-like figures, who support the altar on their powerful shoulders. Unfortunately, this colossal object has been mutilated with unusual fury; it bears many traces of blows from a mallet, and all the protruding parts have suffered. The five Atlas heads have been broken off and have disappeared. The victorious pillagers, it appears, only stopped their vengeance when their strength was exhausted, and when the enormous metal slab, reduced to a shapeless block without projections, resisted all their efforts. A large number of other objects found by M. de Morgan, both in stone and bronze, bear alas! similar traces of the merciless and brutal hatred displayed by the various races which disputed the domination of Elam.