The employment of the fan in the religious ceremonies of Assyria has already been hinted at. There can be no possibility of doubt that the ceremonies and customs, both sacred and secular, connected with the fan, were common to all the countries of the East, these being the offspring of similar conditions and necessities. Thus we have in Assyrian sculpture frequent representations of the fly-whisk. On a bas-relief from Nimroud King Sennacherib is standing in his chariot superintending the moving of a colossal figure at the building of his palace at Kouyunjik, two attendants behind the chariot bearing an umbrella and fly-whisk; on another relief we see Assur-bani-pal standing, bow and arrow in hand, pouring out a libation over four dead lions before an altar, his umbrella-bearer and fly-flapper being in attendance. We are also introduced to the garden or palm-grove of Assur-bani-pal’s palace, wherein the king is being entertained by his queen at a banquet; the queen holding in her left hand what is evidently a small fan and of the shape and general appearance of the pleated fan, but probably rigid.
The royal fan-bearers were two in number, invariably eunuchs, their usual place being behind the monarch. The long-tasselled scarf appears to be the badge of the office, which was one of great dignity. Its holder was privileged to leave his station behind the throne and hand his master the sacred cup, the royal scent-bottle, or handkerchief, which latter article invariably appears in the left hand. The usage of this office seems to have been very similar to that of Egypt; in the absence of the vizier, or in
ASSYRIA PERSIA subordination to him, he introduced captives to the king, reading out their names from a scroll or tablet in his left hand.[15]
The matter of the ‘handkerchief’ opens up an important question. Sir George Birdwood, in a masterly address before the Society of Arts on the subject of ancient fans, says: ‘On a “marble” in the British Museum, from Kouyunjik (near Mossul, i.e. Nineveh), representing Sennacherib, B.C. 681-705, enthroned before Lachish, two attendants stand behind the throne, each waving in his right hand, over the monarch’s head, a murchal (fly-whisk) of undoubted peacocks’ feathers, and each bearing in his left hand what I identify
as the cover of the murchal. It is absurd to take it to be a pocket-handkerchief.’
On the other hand, Mr. S. W. Bushell, in his Handbook of Chinese Art, refers to the fan- and towel-bearers in the Chinese sculptures of the Han dynasty; these, although somewhat differing in shape from those of the Assyrian reliefs, evidently served a similar purpose.
It is an extremely difficult point to determine; in the reliefs of Assur-bani-pal at Susiana, of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik, and others, two flabelliferæ walk behind the king’s chariot bearing in their right hands the fly-whisks, their left hands not being seen. Standing in the umbrella-covered chariot, immediately behind the king and charioteer, a figure bears a smaller handkerchief or cover in his right hand, but no evidence of a fly-whisk. The left hand in this instance also does not appear in the relief. In a representation of Assur-bani-pal in the Louvre (Layard, Monuments, Series II. Plate 51), the king holds in his right hand a small fan; an attendant behind holds the cover or handkerchief in his right hand, but no fly-whisk. These objects are in most instances fringed, and in some cases embroidered with a narrow border.