A Companion to Assyria

by Eckart Frahm

  Adad‐nirari III is shown facing right in the usual pose on a high quality stele of calcareous gypsum (“Mosul marble”) found at Tell al‐Rimah, 13 kilometers south of modern Tell Afar in western Assyria. It was apparently set up by the Assyrian governor (LÚ.GAR.KUR) Nergal‐ereš (at least 803–775 BCE). The text includes a lengthy list of the cities under the control of Nergal‐ereš, which was later erased, presumably when this official fell from favor (Baghdad, Iraq Museum; Page 1968; Grayson 1996: 209). The two halves of another stele of Adad‐nirari III – the upper part acquired by Rassam in 1879 at Tell Sheikh Hamad (ancient Dur‐Katlimmu) in eastern Syria and the lower appearing at auction in 2000 – have recently been digitally reunited and its inscription published by Radner. The composition is similar to that of the Rimah stele, but the material is basalt carved in a rougher provincial style. The stele carries two separate inscriptions. On the front is a text of Adad‐nirari reporting his restoration of the temple of the god Salmanu at Dur‐Katlimmu, while on the left side is a text of Nergal‐ereš stating that he made this image of Adad‐nirari and presented it to Salmanu (London, British Museum 131124; Radner 2012).

  Six limestone statues of male deities from the time of Adad‐nirari III, some of them fragmentary, were found by Rassam in doorways of the Nabû temple at Kalḫu. The two largest examples are eleven feet (340 cm) tall and stood in the returns at both sides of the outer door of the gate chamber leading to the temple’s inner courtyard. The two figures are essentially identical: uninscribed, standing with hands folded in front of the waist, and wearing a long fringed robe and crown with single pair of horns. One was found intact and the other in pieces; both are now in the Iraq Museum (Baghdad, Iraq Museum 72132; Rassam 1897: 10; Gadd 1936: 229, plate 7; Oates 1957: 28; Mallowan 1966: I, 260, fig. 196; Strommenger 1970: 20, Taf. 10a–b).

  Rassam also found two pairs of life‐sized statues of male deities standing in the outer entrance of the antechamber between the inner courtyard and the Nabû sanctuary. One pair stood in the inner corners of the deep returns at both sides of the door, facing outward into the courtyard. They are similar to the colossal examples at the courtyard entrance, except that they are smaller (160 cm tall) and wear a smooth garment, on which an inscription is carved below the waist. The text, which is the same on both statues, praises Nabû who dwells in Kalḫu, and states that these statues were dedicated to Nabû by Bel‐tarṣi‐ilumma, governor of Kalḫu, for the life of Adad‐nirari and his mother Sammu‐ramat (Semiramis). The text concludes with a warning to trust no other god but Nabû (British Museum 118888, 118889; Rassam 1897: 9–10; Oates 1957: 29; Strommenger 1970: 18–19, Taf. 8–9; Grayson 1996: 226–7).

  The other pair of divine statues in this door were five feet (153 cm) tall, uninscribed, wore a plain garment and crown with two pairs of horns, and held a rectangular tray or box. These figures stood in the outer part of each return, facing each other across the threshold, in front of and turned at right angles to the inscribed statues. Rassam described these statues as intact, but they were left in place and by the time they were re‐excavated by Mallowan the one to the north had lost its head and only a fragment of the feet of the southern one remained. Both statues apparently made their way to the Mosul Museum, on the evidence of a recently‐published photograph of a museum storeroom (Rassam 1897: 10; Gadd 1936: 150, plate 8 facing p. 36; Oates 1957: 29; Mallowan 1966: I, 261–2, fig. 243; Strommenger 1970: 19–20; Brusasco 2016: 242‐4, figs. 32–3).

  The visitor to Nabû’s sanctuary would therefore first pass between the colossal figures at the entrance to the courtyard, and then turning right, pass first by the uninscribed figures holding trays, and immediately thereafter past the inscribed statues into the sanctuary’s antechamber. The lower half of a smaller seventh statue, which Mallowan identified as another tray bearer, was found in secondary context in the temple’s outer courtyard. Mallowan suggested that it originally stood in the return by the door to NT 7, the antechamber of the Tašmetu sanctuary, which was adjacent to the Nabû sanctuary (Mallowan 1966: I, 261, 263, fig. 196).

  The only known sculpture from the reign of Shalmaneser IV is an alabaster stele of the royal official Bel‐Ḫarran‐belu‐uṣur (at least 782–727 BCE), the palace herald (LÚ.NIMGIR) of Shalmaneser IV, found at Tell Abta on the Wadi Tharthar in the desert southwest of Mosul. Carved in fine metropolitan Assyrian style, it shows Bel‐Ḫarran‐belu‐uṣur standing in the traditional pose of the Assyrian king, but beardless and without headgear, with symbols of deities before his face. The text mentions the name of his king, but deals entirely with his own act in founding a city named after himself here in the desert. He also claims to have exempted the city from taxation, traditionally a royal prerogative (Istanbul, Asariatika Müzeleri; Pritchard 1969: no. 453; Grayson 1996: 241).

  Tiglath‐pileser III (744–727 BCE)

  The walls of some rooms in Tiglath‐pileser III’s Central Palace at Kalḫu were lined with relief slabs, but these had been removed from their original position by Esarhaddon for reuse in his Southwest Palace. They were found by Layard in 1847–49, stacked in the Central Palace in preparation for being moved and in the Southwest Palace, some already on the walls and others lined up on the floor in front of the walls. Further sculptures were uncovered by Rassam and Loftus in 1853–54. The majority of the reliefs were reburied and later reexcavated by the Polish mission in 1974–76 (Layard 1849a: I, 59–61, 375–81; II, 19–37; Barnett and Falkner 1962). Paley digitally published all of the reexcavated reliefs shortly before his untimely death (www.learningsites.com: “Nimrud Central Palace Area”).

  Since the slabs were not in their original positions, Layard was unable to trace the walls of the Central Palace to determine how many rooms might have been decorated. In some cases the reliefs were found stacked in the order in which they had been removed by the Assyrian workers who dismantled the palace, and this together with overlaps in the inscription permitted Tadmor to reconstruct parts of at least four, and possibly as many as six, inscribed relief series. Reade identified an additional uninscribed series. Each of these may have decorated a different room (Tadmor 1967: 177–86; Tadmor 1994: 24–5, 238–59; Wäfler 1975: 302–8; Reade 1979b: 72–6).

  According to Tiglath‐pileser’s building account, his palace decoration included bull and lion colossi and apotropaic figures. In the “West Gate” area of the palace, Meuszynski excavated the lower parts of three bull colossi, which Sobolewski attributed to Tiglath‐pileser III. Layard reported winged deities and figures holding maces, but didn’t draw any examples and only a fragment of one survives. Tadmor distinguished three relief groups (C1, C2, E) that featured figures of these types, but he felt they all could have come from a single room. Two inscribed fragments in the British Museum from another series (D) show the king and an attendant, and Meuszynski found another inscribed slab with courtiers from the same series. Colossal winged human‐headed bulls carved in low relief and colossal wingless humans holding plants were also found. At least two corner slabs carved with two different forms of the stylized tree were excavated: one example is a stylized palm tree, similar to those in Aššurnaṣirpal’s reliefs, with a palmette‐topped trunk framed by a continuous row of palmettes, while one or two other examples had the same central trunk, but it was framed by a row of alternating cones and pomegranates (Layard 1851: 29, 45, 65–6, 71–2; Barnett and Falkner 1962: 25–6, pls. 97–8, 104–7; Tadmor 1994: 172–5; Meuszynski 1976b: 41–2, pls. 12a, 13; Sobolewski 1979: 254–65, figs. 13–14; 1982a: 263–6, figs. 15‐16; Bleibtreu 1980: pls. 5b, 6a‐b, 7).

  Most of the published reliefs, however, including two of Tadmor’s series and Reade’s series, depict military activity. The format of these slabs was the same as that of Aššurnaṣirpal II: two registers of relief separated by a central register of text. Tadmor distinguished between the two inscribed series of military reliefs on the basis of the number of lines in the inscription: his “Series A” has seven lines, while “Series B” has twelve. The
slabs in Reade’s series have the central strip prepared for an inscription that was never added. This may indicate that the palace was uncompleted at Tiglath‐pileser’s death. The subjects of the military reliefs seem to have been drawn from a number of Tiglath‐pileser’s campaigns. Series A includes campaigns to the east and west of Assyria, and Series B apparently shows campaigns to the east, west, and north. Reade’s series showed a southern and probably also a western campaign. The inscription in the central register was not a short text repeated on each slab, as with Aššurnaṣirpal’s “Standard Inscription,” but instead was a long annalistic text that continued from slab to slab, apparently around the entire room (Tadmor 1994). The surviving exemplars of this text, though fragmentary and incomplete, constitute our most detailed source for the events of Tiglath‐pileser’s reign. In addition to the register of annalistic text, at least one relief series included brief captions on the images themselves, giving the names of the cities represented.

  At least three, and perhaps as many as six, life‐sized basalt statues of bearded male deities apparently stood in the poorly‐preserved Ištar temple built by Tiglath‐pileser III at Ḫadatu (modern Arslan Tash). The figures are uninscribed and the three best‐preserved examples were found out of context, but fragments of the beards of two additional statues were found in the Ištar temple, and Thureau‐Dangin proposed that all of these figures originally stood there. The only complete example, found in secondary context at the site, is 173 cm high with a separate base 34 cm high (Aleppo, Archaeological Museum). The figure wears a garment fringed at the torso, waist, and feet, a rounded crown with a top‐knot and single pair of horns, and holds in front of his waist a rectangular box open at the top. In addition, two very similar headless examples were found in nearby locations, one some 6 kilometers away at Maqtalah (Louvre, AO 7538) and the other in a private house in Urfa (present location unknown), and a head that may belong to the Urfa example turned up on the art market (Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum; Thureau‐Dangin et al. 1931: 10, 55, 66–7, pls. I, XV: 10–11; Strommenger 1970: 21–3, 28, Taf. 10c, 16d–e).

  The most complete and best‐preserved group of Assyrian wall paintings was found in the palace at the provincial capital of Til Barsib (Thureau‐Dangin et al. 1936: 42‐74, pls. XLIII–LIII; Tomabechi 1983/1984; Albenda 2005: 33–74), remains of which were uncovered in thirteen rooms (examples in Aleppo Museum and Louvre). They were of three types. First, in most of the painted rooms was a three‐register decorative frieze: a central register of circles or lozenges alternating with animals or protective deities sandwiched between two registers of stylized floral motifs. The second type was apotropaic figures: winged humans – sometimes alone, sometimes restraining a bull – and winged human‐headed bulls. The third type was narrative scenes, which were placed below the decorative frieze in six rooms. The narrative subjects were lion hunts (in two bathrooms and the throne room), processions of western tribute bearers and prisoners (in two reception rooms), and a sea battle (in the main gate chamber). None of the paintings can be securely dated, but on the basis of comparisons with dated Assyrian reliefs most scholars divide them into two groups. The earlier group – the sea battle, one of the processions and most of the other – seems to date around the time of Tiglath‐pileser III (744–727 BCE). The later group, which includes the lion hunts, is most similar to the reliefs of Sennacherib (704–681 BCE) and Assurbanipal (668–627 BCE). At the provincial town of Arslan Tash, by contrast, the walls of the throne room suite of the palace were decorated with a simple geometric frieze (Thureau‐Dangin et al. 1931).

  From Ashur come a glazed plaque possibly of Tiglath‐pileser III (744–727 BCE) decorated with a person before a deity (Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum VA Ass 897) and a section of a glazed brick podium face, also probably from the time of Tiglath‐pileser III, that shows chariots and horsemen in the mountains (Andrae 1925: 21–3, 29–31, figs. 4–5, pls. 6, 10). The only known rock relief of Tiglath‐pileser III is at Mila Mergi, some 25 kilometers northwest of Dohuk in northern Iraq. The king faces left in the usual pose and the area in front of him is covered with an extensive inscription (Postgate 1973a; Tadmor 1994: 111–16).

  Sargon II (721–705 BCE)

  In the palace of Sargon II at Dur‐Šarrukin (modern Khorsabad), the walls of the two throne rooms, the major reception suites, and the associated courtyard facades were lined with wall reliefs. The sculptures that have been published are mostly from the northwest wing, which was excavated by Paul E. Botta in 1842–44 (Botta and Flandin 1849–50; republished in Albenda 1986).

  The relief decoration of Sargon’s palace was modeled closely on that of Aššurnaṣirpal II’s palace at Kalḫu. The facade of the principal throne room (“Court” VII) was decorated with five pairs of human‐headed bull colossi – one pair in each of the three doors and two antithetically posed pairs on the buttresses between the doors. Between each pair of buttress bulls was a colossal human figure holding a small lion. The same arrangement of figures was used also at the main exterior entrance to the palace, and a similar arrangement – without the figures holding lions – appeared on the facade of the subsidiary throne room. Pairs of human‐headed bull colossi were also used in a number of other important doorways in the palace, as well as in the central door of the throne room in Palace F, the arsenal. Like Aššurnaṣirpal’s colossi, these colossi also have five legs. The colossi were accompanied in some doorways by winged or wingless human figures or by bird‐headed human figures, and in smaller doors these types appeared alone. The stylized tree occurred in some doorways and on the corner slabs in rooms decorated with non‐historical subjects. Bull colossi also appear in the citadel gates and at least one of the city gates, accompanied by a colossal winged deity holding a cone and bucket (Place and Thomas 1867–70: III, pls. 8–13, 47; Loud and Altman 1938: pls. 9–10, 39, 46).

  The space on the courtyard walls that was not occupied by colossi, as well as the decoration of several rooms (6, 10, 11), possibly including the throne room, was devoted to tribute processions. With two exceptions, these processions show a single file of figures the full height of the slab. The exceptions are Room 10, a corridor connecting two courtyards, where two registers of tributaries – westerners above and easterners below – are separated by a band of inscription, and the north corner of the throne‐room court, where the subject of the transport of timber by water is shown as if viewed from above, with relatively small figures scattered across the surface of the water‐patterned slabs, giving an effective approximation of figures in space. According to Place the subject of the throne room reliefs was a procession of large figures, presumably in a single register, marching toward the king (Place and Thomas 1867–70: I, 51–2). Other subjects that were depicted with large‐scale figures in a single register were punishment of captives (Rooms 4 and 8), which were inscribed with a continuous historical text as well as with captions identifying the malefactors, and processions of courtiers before the king (Rooms 9 and 12).

  Three other subjects that were used in some rooms were royal military campaigns (Rooms 1, 2, 3, 5, 13, 14), royal hunts (Room 7 and “Monument x”), and royal banquets (Rooms 2, 7). In all of these rooms except “Monument x,” the slab format is two registers of relief separated by a band inscribed with a long annalistic text. As with Tiglath‐pileser III’s relief text, this is our most complete written record of Sargon’s military activities. Defeated cities shown in the military reliefs are labeled and some – but not all – of these places are mentioned in the accompanying annals text, so it is usually possible to determine what campaign is being depicted. From this it appears that the military reliefs in each room show only one or two campaigns, and Reade (1976) suggested that the labeled cities mentioned only in the reliefs may be used to augment the annalistic record of Sargon’s reign. In the two rooms that show two subjects (2 and 7), the banquet is in the upper register and the other subject in the lower.

  In the throne room, the Chicago expedition found a sm
all trimmed fragment of wall relief with a band of inscription, apparently originally belonging to a slab having two registers of relief with an inscribed band in between. The relief subject is laborers towing a loaded boat in the water. Wilson (1995: 114, fig. 8) suggested that this slab may have originated in the throne room. If so, then this room would have combined historical reliefs in two registers with procession reliefs in one register.

  “Monument x,” which is possibly to be identified with Sargon’s bīt ḫilāni (which resembled “a Hittite palace”), was decorated with slabs of black limestone carved with a single register of relief, intended to evoke the basalt sculptures of North Syrian palaces. Two sculptures found in the area of the building showed a bird hunt in a forest, and two others had a pair of guardian deities flanking an unusual stylized tree, apparently on a doorjamb. At the other end of the palace in Room 99, one of the small gate chambers connecting the outer court (XV) with the exterior, Place found at least two additional slabs in the same stone lying on the floor. One showed a procession of three foreign tributaries carrying city models and the other an Assyrian courtier who probably led the procession. On the basis of their dimensions and material, he speculated that these were also intended for “Monument x.” Stacked in one corner of Room 99 were three dressed, unsculptured slabs of black stone, and chips of the same material were scattered on the floor, leading Place to suggest that this was the workshop in which these sculptures were carved prior to being moved to “Monument x” (Place and Thomas 1867–70: I, 92–3; III, pl. 48; Albenda 1986: 48, figs. 20, 76–9, pls. 60–2).

  The remains of a gypsum throne base, the sides of which were decorated with reliefs, were found at the southeast end of the throne room. The preserved panels depict a royal campaign beside a river and a campaign in the mountains (Baghdad, Iraq Museum; Chicago, Oriental Institute Museum, A 11258; Loud, Frankfort, and Jacobsen 1936: figs. 79–80; Blocher 1994). The earliest securely dated sculptured threshold slabs from Dur‐Šarrukin come not from the palace, where thresholds were carved only with a text, but from two of the palatial residences on the citadel, Residences K and L. In both cases the decoration is a floral pattern, augmented in Residence L with an inscription of Sîn‐aḫu‐uṣur, Sargon’s brother and vizier (Loud and Altman 1938: pls. 30, 36, 48, 66; Albenda 1978: pls. 2–5).