Of all the monuments found at Tello, the oldest, apparently, is a great stele of white stone, both sides of which are covered with bas-reliefs and inscriptions. Unfortunately it had been broken into numerous pieces, and, as these have not all been recovered, it is impossible to restore it entirely. The style of its writing seems the farthest removed from the form into which it finally developed, and its symbols seem to be nearer their original imitativeness than anywhere else. “Inexperience is everywhere to be recognized in the drawing of the figures; eyes are almost triangular and ears roughly blocked out; the aquiline type of nose is but a continuation of the line of the forehead, into which it blends; the Semitic profile is more strongly marked than in the monuments of the following age.”[203]
Fig. 93.—Fragment of a stele; from Tello. Height 1 foot. Louvre.
Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
The bas-reliefs represent strange scenes of war, of carnage, of burial. Here we find corpses arranged in line so that the head of one is touching the feet of his neighbour (Fig. 93); they look as if they were piled one above another, but this, we believe, is an illusion due to want of skill on the part of the artist. He puts objects one above another on the field of his relief which, in reality, were laid side by side. We must imagine these corpses spread over the surface of the ground and covered with earth. If the sculptor had introduced the soil above them, the corpses would have been invisible; so he has left it out. The two figures on the left, who mount an inclined plane[204] with baskets on their heads, what are they carrying? Offerings to be placed on the summit of the sepulchre? or earth to raise the tumulus to a greater height? We prefer the latter suggestion. When earth or rubbish has to be removed in the modern East, when excavations are made, for instance, the work is set about in the fashion here commemorated; the action of these two figures seems, moreover, to indicate that the weight they are carrying is greater than a basket full of cakes, fruits, and other things of that kind would account for.
If on this fragment we have a representation of the honours paid by the people of Sirtella to companions slain in battle, another compartment of the same relief shows us the lot reserved by the hate and vengeance of the victor for the corpses of his enemies (Fig. 94). Birds of prey are tearing them limb from limb on the place where they fell. In their beaks and claws they held the heads, hands, and arms of dismembered bodies. The savagery of all this suggests a remote epoch, when civilization had done little to soften original brutality.
A last fragment belongs to another composition (Fig. 95). It comes from a relief showing either the departure of an army for the field or its triumphal return. Very little is left, but that little is significant;—a hand holding one of those military standards whose use by the Assyrians we have already noticed (see above, Fig. 46), and the head of a personage, perhaps the king, walking in the procession; and that is all. The head-covering of the latter individual seems to be a kind of feather crown with a metal or ivory aigrette or cockade in the centre of one side, reminding us in its shape of the head of one of the great Assyrian bulls; it would seem to be a symbol of strength and victory.
Fig. 94.—Fragment of a stele; from Tello. Height 9¾ inches. Louvre.
Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.