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The Neo-Assyrian Court and Army: Evidence from the Sculptures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

J. E. Reade
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Extract

The Late Assyrian sculptures are somewhat difficult to use as a historical source. They are widely scattered, with the compositions split up, and modern studies have been mainly concerned with artistic developments or the material culture of the Assyrians. Those who are reasonably familiar with the subject-matter, moreover, are inclined to forget that what may seem self-evident to them is not necessarily so to others, and have tended to concentrate on the elucidation of specific points rather than on more general studies. The one major exception is the work of Billerbeck and Delitzsch on Shalmaneser's Balawat gates, and there are articles on the army by J. Hunger, and on large-scale figures by L. Heuzey, which remain of fundamental value, but it may be worth seeing what can be learnt from a new approach.

In this article, therefore, which is written for the benefit of non-specialists and necessarily incorporates much that is already known, I have attempted to isolate the principal categories of Assyrian shown in the sculptures and other official monuments. One should not press evidence of this nature too far, as the sculptures like the annals are propaganda and represent only what the rulers of Assyria wished us to remember; the subject-matter is also affected by stylistic considerations. There is nonetheless, at all times, a mass of information which must bear some positive relationship to the truth.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1972 , pp. 87 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1972

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References

1 BA 6 (1906), no. 1, especially 90–113Google Scholar.

2 AO 12 (1911), no. 4Google Scholar; Mélanges Perrot (1903), 173–182Google Scholar.

3 MAOG 6 (1932), nos. 1–2Google Scholar.

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5 MAOG 6 (1932), nos. 1–2, pls. VII, VIII, XVGoogle Scholar.

6 Sam'al I, 58Google Scholar.

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8 ARAB I, §§ 442, 444, 452.

9 Unfamiliar abbreviations are listed at the end of this article. All references in the text rather than the footnotes are to plates or figures, not to pages.

10 AfO 6 (1930), 93Google Scholar.

11 PKOM 7 (1925)Google Scholar; AT, 78–89; see also RA 29 (1932), 21Google Scholar, and Sotheby's Catalogue, 12/7/71, no. 23, though the provenance of the Sotheby's piece is presumably hypothetical.

12 TB, 141–151, pl. XXXVII, for the Til-Barsip inscription. One of the Hadatu lions has an Aramaic inscription on its back, with šmš in the second line; Thureau-Dangin, (AT, 88)Google Scholar suggests that this belongs to a personal name, and one is again reminded of Šamši-ilu. The photographs of the erased figure in the chariot (AT, pl. VII) are unclear. Examination of the original in the Eski Şark Müze, Istanbul, by kind permission of the director, Bay Necati Dolunay, suggests that the figure was probably beardless and wore no crown.

13 TB, 45.

14 Op. cit., 140.

15 The Chronology of Neo-Assyrian Art, 25.

16 Die Kulturgeschichte des assyrischen Flachbildes, 114.

17 PS, 8; AfO 16 (1952), 247Google Scholar; B. Hrouda, op. cit., 116; Nagel, W., Die neuassyrischen Reliefstile unter Sanherib und Assurbanaplu, 31–39Google Scholar; Iraq 29 (1967), 44Google Scholar.

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19 Cf. MNK, pl. 30, and Loud, G., Khorsabad I, figs. 41–44Google Scholar. It is extraordinary that Loud's excavations at Khorsabad have failed to scotch the myth that Sargon's lost sculptures are at the bottom of the Tigris; obviously the majority are still buried where Botta left them, in situ.

20 Op. cit., 13–15.

21 G. Loud, loc. cit. It is notable that the right-hand figure in Loud's fig. 38 is an important official and retained his headband, but he too seems to have been wrongly carved, with bands hanging down from behind the headband towards his waist. They have been erased, but the line still shows on the photograph. The crown-prince, who stands in front of him on the same slab, was entitled to these bands, and his have not been altered.

22 RCAE II, no. 1051.

23 For all such matters, see Hrouda, Madhloom, and Nagel, op. cit., and W. Nagel, Die mesopotamisch Streitwagen.

24 Klauber, E., Assyrisches Beamtentum, 88–93Google Scholar.

25 MN, II, 48; AfO 8 (1932), 182, caption no. 17Google Scholar. Unger, E., in PKOM 7 (1925), 19Google Scholar, refers also to seals which belonged to āa rēši employed by Bēl-tarṣi-luma and Nergal-ereš; both designs show beardless figures (RLV IV, pls. 194c and 196c). Mr. J. N. Postgate kindly informs me that Bēl-tarṣi-iluma himself and one of his successors among the 8th. century governors of Kalhu were also eunuchs (evidence in his forthcoming Governor's Palace Archive, Cuneiform Texts from Nimrud II). Maybe the beardless figure of SA, pl. 8, no. 2, is one of them.

26 E.g. CT 23, pl. 10, line 14, quoted by Jensen, (ZA 24 (1910), 109)Google Scholar: kīma šu-ut re-e-ši lā ālidi nīlka lībal, “as with a šūt rēši, who does not breed, so may your semen run dry”. Note also the regular contrast between the ša rēši and the bearded ša ziqni (e.g. Iraq 20 (1958), 35, 1. 78Google Scholar, etc.). Who the eunuchs were remains uncertain. So far as I know, no ša rēši mentions his parentage, and the annals do not seem to refer to the castration of young captives. Perhaps they were normally poor children from Assyria itself.

27 AAA 18 (1931), pl. XXXIGoogle Scholar; RLA I, pl. 36a. See in general, Unger's article on Diadem und Krone in RLA II.

28 Square, not curved like that worn by genies as on Plate XXXIII; the genies' tasselled aprons, like the belts seen on Aššurnaṣirpal's lion-centaurs (ANP, pl. IV), are presumably derived from the ropes worn by third-millennium hero-figures (e.g. H. Frankfort, Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, pl. 45), but those worn by humans may originally have had some serious function, perhaps to prevent the sword-sheath chafing.

29 BMQ 19 (1954), pl. XVIIIGoogle Scholar.

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32 ARAB II, §§ 767, 987; Postgate, J. N., Neo-Assyrian Royal Grants and Decrees, 37Google Scholar.

33 TB, 158, pl. XV, no. 2.

34 PKOM 3 (1917), pl. IGoogle Scholar; RLA I, pl. 14. Bēl-Harrān-bēlu-uṣur's tunic has a conspicuous rosette among the embroideries on the right shoulder; this seems unique, but elaborate embroideries are anyway rare on officials shown in the king's presence.

35 Loud, G. and Altman, C. B., Khorsabad II, 85, fig. 12 and pl. 89Google Scholar.

36 Noted by Yadin, Y., The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands, 320Google Scholar.

37 MN, I, pl. 54; M. E. L. Mallowan, Nimrud and its Remains, fig. 371a.

38 Unpublished slab in the Nergal Gate Museum, Mosul. A stick, ḫaṭṭu, is mentioned as a sign of office of the two sukkallē in a Middle Assyrian text (MVAeG 41 (1937), no. 3, p. 14Google Scholar), but this is too far removed in time to be necessarily significant.

39 E. Klauber, op. cit., 26.

40 Mallowan, M. E. L. and Davies, L. G., Ivories from Nimrud II, 28, pl. XVIIGoogle Scholar.

41 M. E. L. Mallowan, Nimrud and its Remains, fig. 251. A hairless alaḫḫinu priest, in a hat of uncertain height, is shown in RLV VII, pl. 84b (KAH II, 138); this individual inherited his father's post, and it therefore seems unlikely that these hairless priests were themselves eunuchs.

42 Calmeyer, P., Actes de la XVIIe rencontre assyriologique, 184Google Scholar.

43 Op. cit., 122.

44 E. Klauber, op. cit., 101. An invaluable list of officials and attendants to whom the title manzaz pāni may apply is contained in K 4395.

45 It is perhaps to one of these, stolen from a mušarkisu, that RCAE I, no. 326, refers.

46 Partly unpublished, see Iraq 29 (1967), 48Google Scholar.

47 Sotheby's Catalogue, 26/11/1968, no. 39; SA, pl. 21.

48 Salonen, A., Hippologica Accadica, 211Google Scholar.

49 E. Klauber, op. cit., 111, A. Salonen, op. cit., 213–218.

50 Conceivably K 4395, II, 25, 26; ADD II, 83.

51 PKOM 7 (1925), 17, pl. VGoogle Scholar.

52 E. Klauber, op. cit., 105; ZA 24 (1910), 142, 212Google Scholar; PKOM 7 (1925), 17Google Scholar.

53 ARAB II, § 1026.

54 MAOG 6 (1932), nos. 1–2, pl. VIII; but one really has to look at the original.

55 MVAeG 41 (1937), no. 3, p. 62.

56 ZA 24 (1910), 101–117Google Scholar. See also Saggs, H., Iraq 25 (1963), 145–154CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 ZA 24 (1910), 142–149Google Scholar.

58 E.g. RCAE II, no. 1009. Provincial areas provide chariots and horsemen as well as foot-soldiers, but only the latter can be identified on the sculptures.

69 Noted by Yadin, op. cit., 458 f.

60 ZA 24 (1910), 212–219Google Scholar.

61 MN, II, 48; AfO 8 (1932), 182, caption no. 17Google Scholar.

62 ZA 24 (1910), 118–134Google Scholar; AO 12 (1911), no. 4, passimGoogle Scholar.

63 Barnett, R. D., AP, p. 19Google Scholar, regards men wearing the headband with earflaps as deportees from Lachish; earflaps may indeed be western in origin, but men wearing them appear in Sennacherib's army at the siege of Lachish itself (MN, II, 20).

64 References: S. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Toponyms, s.v.

65 Iraq 30 (1968), 130Google Scholar; ARAB I, § 56, to be read in conjunction with Borger, R., Einleitung in die assyrischen Königsinschriften I, 27Google Scholar; and ARAB I, § 824.

66 Discussed briefly by Falkner, , STP, 39Google Scholar.

67 Noted by Barnett, , STP, xixGoogle Scholar.

68 R. D. Barnett, loc. cit.; Hogarth, D. G., Carchemish I, pls. B 2, 3Google Scholar. Sargon mentions employing troops from Carchemish, though not all were foot-soldiers (ARAB II, § 8).

69 References: S. Parpola, op. cit., s.v. For a division of the troops into Assyrians, Gurraya and Itu'aya, see Deller, K., Or NS 36 (1967), 81Google Scholar.

70 IEJ 8 (1958), 164Google Scholar.

71 ARAB II, § 4. Indeed all the types of provincial soldier mentioned below were probably employed in Sargon's army; he certainly deported Philistines, Elamites, and Chaldaeans (ARAB II, §§ 5, 33, 45), and some of them must have been kept as soldiers even when this is not specified in the texts. Provincial troops, of equally diverse origins, are regularly mentioned by the seventh-century kings: a list, which could now be extended, is given by Manitius in ZA 24 (1910), 220–224Google Scholar.

72 Layard, A. H., Nineveh and Babylon, 231 fGoogle Scholar.

73 It has now been located there by J. Meuszyński (Polish Academy of Sciences: Travaux du Centre d'Archéologie Mediterranéenne, vol. 11Google Scholar; Etudes et Travau V (1970), 42)Google Scholar; I am indebted to R. D. Barnett for the loan of this article, which deals with the east wall of room G. Meuszyński, in reaching conclusions slightly different from mine, was not aware that BM 124567 and 124568 (formerly Nimrud Gallery, 24, 25) are clearly not contiguous; the latter must therefore be slab 12, while slab 7 is the one in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. This in turn would appear to be contiguous with its partner, in the same museum, which is indeed identified as slab 8 by the embroidery in MN I, pl. 8. We are left with slab 13, rather than slab 8, as the only possible home for BM 118926 and 118927; Layard apparently ascribed this pair of heads to slab 12, which is agreed to be impossible, but 12 is more probably a misprint for 13 than for 8.