DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0132
IOO
SCULPTURE IN WESTERN ASIA.
fiercely on the monarch, who, single-handed or from his chariot, now attacks
him ; we see him fall, pierced by many arrows, witness his dying agony, and
finally see the powerful dead form borne away, to be placed at the monarch's
feet. What could surpass such scenes as the one where the enraged lioness,
pierced by the fatal arrows, drags after her her hind-legs, paralyzed by approach-
ing death (Fig. 52); or that other where the mitred monarch, before an altar-
like table and sacred cone, pours a libation over his victims of the chase
(Fig. 53)? The grandeur of the lions' heads, here arranged in perspective
at the feet of the monarch, may challenge the world in vividness of artistic
power. Nothing could be more astonishing, however, than the contrast be-
tween these majestic brute-forms and the figure of the king, in which the
sculptor's power is exhausted in the elaboration of ornament, and details of
woven stuffs.
The representation by preference, in Assyria, of these more terrible beasts,
such as the snorting war-horse, fierce dog, and fiercer lion, seem, moreover, in
r. Maurr A. A. licrliu.
Fig. 67. Dogs pulling down a Wild Ass. Koyunjik. British Museum.
keeping with the character of a people whose art scarcely ever rises above the
expression of brute force, its main interest centring in the doings of a power-
ful brutal people, whose ponderous physiques are given without any shades of
difference. The size and weight of the iron instruments, discovered by Place
in Sargon's palace, which are altogether too heavy for modern natives to wield,
add still another witness to their physical power.
How great the contrast between this art of Assyria and that of Egypt,
where temple and tomb form the centre ! In Assyria the temple is but an ap-
pendage of the palace : of tombs there are no traces. Hence the presumption
that the Assyrians buried their dead in some far-off holy land. Such to them
was their parent land, Chaldaea, where immense fields of the dead, still unex-
plored, stretch far out into the desert. The tenacity of the Oriental to such
sacred customs is vividly illustrated by the caravans, still to be seen, year after
year, laden with bones of rich and poor, passing even from the remoter north
ern provinces of Persia, to far-off Kurbela, in Southern Mesopotamia, for burial.
Living royalty, doubtless possessing much of a religious character, was the
SCULPTURE IN WESTERN ASIA.
fiercely on the monarch, who, single-handed or from his chariot, now attacks
him ; we see him fall, pierced by many arrows, witness his dying agony, and
finally see the powerful dead form borne away, to be placed at the monarch's
feet. What could surpass such scenes as the one where the enraged lioness,
pierced by the fatal arrows, drags after her her hind-legs, paralyzed by approach-
ing death (Fig. 52); or that other where the mitred monarch, before an altar-
like table and sacred cone, pours a libation over his victims of the chase
(Fig. 53)? The grandeur of the lions' heads, here arranged in perspective
at the feet of the monarch, may challenge the world in vividness of artistic
power. Nothing could be more astonishing, however, than the contrast be-
tween these majestic brute-forms and the figure of the king, in which the
sculptor's power is exhausted in the elaboration of ornament, and details of
woven stuffs.
The representation by preference, in Assyria, of these more terrible beasts,
such as the snorting war-horse, fierce dog, and fiercer lion, seem, moreover, in
r. Maurr A. A. licrliu.
Fig. 67. Dogs pulling down a Wild Ass. Koyunjik. British Museum.
keeping with the character of a people whose art scarcely ever rises above the
expression of brute force, its main interest centring in the doings of a power-
ful brutal people, whose ponderous physiques are given without any shades of
difference. The size and weight of the iron instruments, discovered by Place
in Sargon's palace, which are altogether too heavy for modern natives to wield,
add still another witness to their physical power.
How great the contrast between this art of Assyria and that of Egypt,
where temple and tomb form the centre ! In Assyria the temple is but an ap-
pendage of the palace : of tombs there are no traces. Hence the presumption
that the Assyrians buried their dead in some far-off holy land. Such to them
was their parent land, Chaldaea, where immense fields of the dead, still unex-
plored, stretch far out into the desert. The tenacity of the Oriental to such
sacred customs is vividly illustrated by the caravans, still to be seen, year after
year, laden with bones of rich and poor, passing even from the remoter north
ern provinces of Persia, to far-off Kurbela, in Southern Mesopotamia, for burial.
Living royalty, doubtless possessing much of a religious character, was the