Mesopotamian Archaeology / An introduction to the archaeology of Mesopotamia and Assyria

by Percy S. P. Handcock

Stele of Victory of Narâm-Sin

Sufficient perhaps has been said to give a general idea of the artistic merits or demerits of the old Sumerian bas-reliefs of the first dynasty of Lagash. The next Babylonian school of art which specifically compels both attention and admiration is that to which the era of the kings of Akkad or Agade gave birth. From some points of view Mesopotamian art reached her climax at this period; neither before nor after was the same success in the reproduction of human figures attained, and the sculptures belonging to this period are in some ways unique in the history of oriental art. The most famous of these monuments of Babylonian genius is reproduced in Pl. [XIII]. This stele, which was found at Susa in the course of M. G. de Morgan’s epoch-making excavations on that site, was fashioned to commemorate some notable victory achieved by Narâm-Sin of Agade. The king is seen in the act of ascending a high mountain; behind him march his trusty warriors armed with spears or lances, and apparently carrying standards. The king himself is armed with a bow and arrow, and also a battle-axe, while his head is protected by a horned helmet; before him crouches one of the enemy, into whose neck an arrow has sunk deep, while another grasps the broken end of a spear. The figure of the king is full of vitality and animation, and offers a very striking contrast to the lifeless conventionalism characteristic of the older Babylonian and the later Assyrian representations of human beings. The whole scene is alive with action, and the effect is not marred by any undue disproportion between the figure of the king and those of his followers. Above the king’s head are the remains of an inscription by Narâm-Sin, but upon the cone intended to represent the mountain which the king is scaling, is an inscription occupying seven lines and bearing the name of Shutruk-Nakhkhunte, king of Elam, which seems to indicate that the stele had been captured by the Elamites and carried off to Susa as a trophy. An interesting basalt bas-relief of this same king was discovered near Diarbekr (cf. Fig. [28] “A”). Narâm-Sin is standing on the right of the inscription, clad in a kind of plaid and wearing a conical hat. His beard is long and pointed, while bracelets encircle his wrists, and he carries a short staff in each hand.

Fig. 28.—A. (Hilprecht, Old Bab. Inscr., II, p. 63, No. 120.)
B, C, D, E, F, Musée du Louvre. (Cf. Cat., pp. 131, 133, 139, 151, 147; Déc. en Chald., Plates 5, 22, 23, 24.)

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.

Apart from the spirit which animates these little figures, the chief point of interest in connection with them lies in the general scheme of artistic representation here adopted. No longer is the conquering army portrayed en masse as on the Vulture Stele of Eannatum, but the idea conveyed and the event commemorated are precisely the same in either case. The all-prevailing idea is that of victory, only the picture of a phalanx of armed troops trampling the nude bodies of their foes beneath their feet, has given place to a series of selected incidents of individual combat, represented after the Homeric fashion. This sculpture clearly belongs to the same school as Narâm-Sin’s stele of Victory, which, however, it probably somewhat antedates, as the cuneiform signs found on the second fragment are of a more archaic character than those used on the monuments of Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin. The little that remains of the inscription is of considerable interest as it contains a mention of the city of Agade, the centre of the Semitic Empire established by the two last-named kings.

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.

Some few centuries after the time of Gudea the city of Babylon became the centre of the chief power in Southern Mesopotamia. Unfortunately the excavations have not yielded us a rich harvest for the study of the artistic development of sculpture during this period, but the material at hand would tend to show that there was far less development in the interval between the later dynasty of Lagash, the age in which Gudea lived, and the establishment of the first Semitic dynasty of the city of Babylon, than there was in the period separating the first dynasty of Lagash from the epoch of Sargon and Narâm-Sin, the Semitic kings of Agade.