Assur
After Samarra, Bell's next destination in Mesopotamia would prove to be the happiest of her entire 1909 journey. Her aim was the ruinous mound of Qal‘at Sherqat, the place of the ancient city of Assur, where she knew that another team of German archaeologists was hard at work uncovering its ancient brickwork. The site is located on the western bank of the Tigris River, on a rocky promontory rising some 40 m above the floodplain. In its strategic position overlooking the Tigris, Assur would have controlled all commercial boat traffic travelling up and down the river. It also lay on a vital east–west route that connected the resources of the highlands of Iran to the markets of the Euphrates and of the Mediterranean coast to the west.116
Upon approaching Assur, Bell was favourably impressed with its striking appearance, especially of the tall remains of its ancient ziggurat, or temple tower:
As you ride over the ridge of barren hills that skirt the Tigris to the south of Kal'at Shergat, your eye is caught by a great formless pile standing up on the high ground by the river's edge. It is the pyramid, the zigurrat, to give it its proper title, that marked the temple of Assur, tutelary god of Assyria. Few deities have been endowed with a shrine more favourably placed. From the summit of the zigurrat the god could survey the cradle of the race that did him service. The Tigris washes the foot of his temple mound; far away to the north rises the snow-clad barrier of Kurdish mountains, whence its waters flow, a barrier which nature set in vain against the valour of the armies of Assyria, and across the river the plain stretches away in long undulations to where Arbela lies behind low hills. It would, indeed, be difficult to exaggerate the commanding beauty of the site.117
As soon as she arrived at the site, Bell was taken to the expedition house near the edge of the river, where she was warmly received by the four German excavators.118 Bell instantly took to this group of archaeologists, who were ‘keen as mustard’, but above all she was drawn to the ‘big, shy, silent’ director of the expedition, Dr Andrae, who gave her a tour of the diggings and was most forthcoming with his findings and conclusions (Fig. 4.22).119
Bell's esteem for Andrae is not surprising. A man of extraordinary abilities, Walter Andrae was almost universally regarded with admiration and respect by those who knew and worked with him,120 and by the time of Bell's visit in 1909, he had become an archaeologist of the highest order. Trained as an architect in Germany, Andrae had his first experience in the field of archaeology with Robert Koldewey in the early years of the excavations at Babylon, between 1899 and 1903. Under Koldewey's expert guidance, Andrae quickly learned the vital skills of exposing and delineating mudbrick architecture, and of transposing these remains with infinite detail and precision into architectural plans. Andrae was not only a superb excavator and draughtsman, however; he was a talented artist who revelled in capturing the qualities of light, shadow, colour and texture of the Mesopotamian landscape and its ancient remains in striking watercolours and pastels.121 He also endeavoured to reconstruct, through his artwork, ancient buildings or cityscapes as they would have appeared in their heyday in antiquity. Andrae himself may never have branded his own artistic output as anything more than a ‘hobby’ or healthy pastime, but for us today, his paintings and sketches provide a valuable record of the ruins of the ancient sites, the surrounding countryside and the life ways of its inhabitants.122 More than 100 years later, much of this south Mesopotamian environment has now vanished. Furthermore, Andrae's reconstructions bring to life the splendour and monumentality of the ancient cities and their grand structures, these often appearing in the present day as unimpressive, shapeless mounds of earth and rubble.123 Andrae's reconstructions of Assur and its numerous architectural components in the city's prime during the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods are particularly numerous and noteworthy and enliven many of his published reports (Fig. 4.23).124
Confident in his young protégé's abilities, Koldewey entrusted Andrae with the directorship of the excavations at Assur, which he initiated on behalf of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft in 1903.125 Once in this position, Andrae set about disclosing the ancient city's rich history, a task that he would undertake practically every year, with only two returns to Germany, until 1914.126 As it turned out, the site was remarkable for its longevity, having been more or less continuously inhabited for approximately 2,000 years. Its earliest discernible remains dated back to the middle of the third millennium BCE, when the settlement clearly had links to the cities of Sumer in southern Mesopotamia. But it experienced its greatest surge in power and wealth during the latter part of the second millennium BCE, often referred to as the Middle Assyrian period. Within Assur, building projects proceeded, often on a monumental scale, as its rulers sought to highlight the magnificence of their achievements, their cosmopolitan status and their unwavering dedication to their patron god, Assur. After a short interlude of political weakness and fragmentation in the tenth century BCE, the kingdom of Assyria rose to prominence once again, transforming into a powerful Near Eastern empire (883–612 BCE). Although Assur lost its status as the administrative capital of this Neo-Assyrian realm, being replaced by other imperial cities to the north, it remained an important ceremonial and religious centre for the god Assur until its demise in 614 BCE, when it was looted and destroyed by the invading Medes. Finally, Assur flourished between the first century BCE and around 230 CE; in the latter period, it became the seat of local Parthian administrators and was characterized by private housing, a temple and the palatial residence of the Parthian satrap.127 After the destruction of the Parthian city in the third century CE, the site was never again reoccupied.128
The architecture that Andrae and his team unearthed at this amazing site went through countless buildings, rebuildings, restorations and additions, producing several levels of stone and brickwork set higher and higher above the naturally elevated plateau upon which the first settlement was established. Often found in association with all of this architecture were incised clay tablets and other inscriptional material, which provided clues as to age and the events that had taken place in the city.
All of Assur's long, rich history was conveyed to Bell by Andrae, whose knowledge of the site and its countless architectural remains, artefacts and texts was unsurpassed, and whose commitment to shedding light on every aspect of this large city, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, was unparalleled. Bell was clearly aware of Andrae's dedication to the site and his detailed approach, for she writes: ‘There is no guess-work here and no scamping, but observation so minute that nothing can escape it, and the true respect for ancient monuments and ancient art which makes no toil seem too long or too heavy.’129
Fig. 4.22 Bell’s 1909 photograph of Assur’s excavation director, Walter Andrae, feeding a gazelle. Bell had a fondness for this ‘big, shy, silent’ man and greatly respected his archaeological methods and achievements at Assur.
The archaeological work at Assur was praiseworthy, and – along with the work at Babylon – Andrae's achievements at this site are regarded by many scholars today as forming the foundations of modern, scientific archaeological exploration in Mesopotamia. As with Koldewey at Babylon, Andrae's focus on obtaining a good architectural record of Assur was paramount, and he sought to record in detail and with accuracy all of the ancient buildings unearthed, down to their individual bricks and stones. Such an achievement in architectural planning is all the more impressive when one considers the vast size of the areas that were opened for excavation – exposed with the assistance of teams of hundreds of local labourers – and the resulting number of structures within the city of Assur that were actually excavated and recorded from 1903 to 1914.
Fig. 4.23 Andrae’s charcoal-and-chalk drawing of the cityscape of ancient Assur, looking from the top of the Assur ziggurat down to the Old Palace and Anu-Adad Temple behind, with its twin ziggurats. Beyond the city walls, at the right of the drawing, is the Festhaus, which stood in a specially planted and watered garden. This was the so-called bit akitu,
a sacred building where religious ceremonies that celebrated the renewal of the king’s reign and the favour of the god Assur were performed during the annual New Year’s Festival.
Andrae also made a concerted attempt to understand the different temporal phases of Assur's long history through systematic, stratigraphically controlled excavations. Such an investigation was carried out in the area of the Ishtar Temple in the north-west part of the upper city, where a continuous sequence of cult buildings from the mid-third to the mid-first millenniums BCE – a period of some 2,000 years – could be obtained.130 In the end, by a process in which the architecture of each temple phase was carefully delineated, recorded and then partially destroyed to get down to the next phase below, Andrae and his team of excavators revealed no fewer than eight principal phases of the Ishtar Temple (phases A–H) through time. Each phase represented either completely new temple structures or already existing buildings that had been renewed and redecorated. For the early twentieth century, this endeavour to chronicle the complicated life of this sacred complex was archaeological practice at its very best, and the resulting published reports, which occupy several volumes, testify to the care and thoroughness that went into such an enterprise.131
The Assur excavations that Bell witnessed in 1909 were in full swing, and her diary entries reflect her determination to understand and record everything that Andrae and his colleagues showed her as they led her around the site. She must have been a rather intense visitor, overwhelmingly eager for knowledge and tireless with her questions. In his memoirs, composed later in his life, Andrae writes: ‘She wanted to know absolutely everything and crept with me tirelessly into every hole and corner of the excavation.’132 Bell herself writes of her days at Assur:
I spent the first day and a half going over the excavations inch by inch with Dr. Andrae. During all the time I was there, every moment when we were not actually looking at ruins we were deep in unpublished photographs and plans, and at lunch and in the evening Dr. Andrae, Mr. Jordan and I eagerly discussed the conclusions at which they are arriving.’133
Among Assur's ancient remains, Bell was led to the great ziggurat – a massive tower with a temple structure on its summit – which lies near the northern edge of the city, occupying a large area and made of stepped brickwork, still preserved to a height of 30 m.134 She was also shown the double temple and ziggurats of Anu and Adad, the Mesopotamian gods associated with heaven and the storm. She reports having seen several of the trial trenches that Andrae had dug across wide expanses of the site, in an effort to expose all aspects of the settlement of Assur, not just monumental architecture associated with elite royal and religious activities. In some cases, the trenches had probed quite deeply, exposing very ancient, partially visible houses and streets.135 Bell writes evocatively of the effect of peering into one of these trenches:
The houses are in an unusually perfect state; their walls, preserved not infrequently to a height of several feet, enclose little cobbled courtyards with narrow cobbled streets between. These worn and ancient ways, emerging from under the steep sides of the trench and disappearing again into the earth at its further limit, give the observer a sense as of visualized history, as though millenniums had dropped away that separate him from the busy life of the antique world.136
Last, Bell was shown Assur's Parthian-period remains, which were found over much of the site; the Germans spent considerable time planning for and comprehending these.137 Bell describes the Parthian remains enthusiastically in her diary entries and a letter to her parents. She also took several photographs showing various Parthian-period details, in the form of columns, capitals, colonnades and sculptural decoration.138 As Bell noted, much of the later Sasanian and early Islamic architectures with which she was preoccupied, especially at Ukhaidir, derived their inspiration from earlier Parthian forms. Bell's interest in such developments would figure especially in her 1914 work on the Ukhaidir palace, during which she traced many of Ukhaidir's features, particularly the open-sided iwan, back to the Parthian period.139
Bell's photographs from Assur are particularly numerous and capture several aspects of the site and its peoples. Besides her predilection for recording the artistic and architectural details of ancient remains, so often reflected in other photographs of her Mesopotamian journey, Bell was also capable of appreciating Assur from a wider perspective. This finds expression in her panoramic photographs, several of which highlight the impressive setting of the site, with its location high above the Tigris River.140 The panoramas also emphasize well the incredibly broad exposures of some of the excavations, revealing the foundations and wall remnants of entire building complexes, such as the so-called Festhaus outside the city walls,141 or the massive brickwork of the city fortifications at the western Tabira Gate.142 In a few cases, Bell also endeavoured to capture the vertical scale of the excavations, as in her photograph showing the Assur ziggurat from the east, which takes in the height of the ziggurat, as well as the massive ruins of brickwork descending as far as the Tigris floodplain below (Fig. 4.24).143 In another photograph, taken from the level of the floodplain, one sees not only the towering fortifications of the ancient city, but also the enormous sloping layers of debris that represent the German excavators’ spoil heaps, the by-product of their prodigious diggings.144
Together with the images of cleared and well-articulated architecture, some of Bell's photos of the Assur excavations are enlivened with the presence of the local labour force responsible for the physical clearance of these ancient structures. They are seen standing in the midst of the operations or resting to one side, while being directed on high by a German supervisor (Fig. 4.25).145 Still other photographs feature Assur's Expeditionshaus, where the payment of workers was being carried out on a table pulled to the middle of the courtyard.146 The contrast between the German archaeologists sitting upright in their neat suits – one white, one with the appearance of a military uniform – and their un-queued group of variously clad workers highlights well the perceived unequal relationship between the two parties (Fig. 4.26). It is interesting that Bell chose to capture these particular scenes. On the one hand, one could argue that she was simply making a record of an archaeological project that she thoroughly admired, with all of its organization, industry and efficiency. On the other hand, her photos could reflect her underlying colonial attitude and her belief in the intellectual superiority of the foreign team of archaeologists in contrast to the unnamed, uneducated, local labour force at Assur.147
Bell was intrigued by just about everything she was shown at Assur and appreciated not only Andrae's profound knowledge of the history of the site and its architecture, but his personality, too. She was touched by his friendly behaviour towards her and his generosity. Even when she returned to Assur in 1911, Andrae was in her view the perfect host and colleague:
I found this year, as I found 2 years ago, great profit from endless talks with Dr. Andrae. His knowledge of Mesopotamian problems is so great and his views so brilliant and comprehensive [...] He put everything at my disposal, photographs and unpublished plans and his own unpublished ideas. I don't think that many people are so generous.148
Bell's photographs further reflect her esteem for Andrae, who appears in several of her shots, on site, in the company of his fellow archaeologists and in two charming photographs where he crouches down to feed a gazelle (Fig. 4.22).149 Last, with her German colleagues at dinner in the Assur Expeditionshaus – in a rare image of Bell from this time – we see her smiling, wearing a fine dress and leaning slightly into Andrae, seated directly to her left (Fig. 4.27).150
Above all, Bell seems to have been captivated by Andrae's abilities to bring the past to life through his colourful reconstructions, and with this she found in him a kindred spirit. Although she does not mention his drawings or artwork, she recalls his ability to describe the past in a vivid way that echoed her own penchant for imagining history in all of its rich colour and vividness. Her imagination, so inspired by Andrae
, is best reflected in a passage from Amurath to Amurath:
Fig. 4.24 Bell’s 1909 composite photograph of Assur from the east, showing the ziggurat and the masses of exposed brickwork extending down to the river valley below.
Fig. 4.25 Bell’s 1911 photograph of excavations in progress at Assur, showing workmen and a German archaeologist in the foreground (possibly Conrad Preusser).
As Dr. Andrae led me about the city, drawing forth its long story with infinite skill from wall and trench and cuneiform inscription, the lavish cruel past rushed in upon us. The myriad soldiers of the Great King, transported from the reliefs in the British Museum, marched through the gates of Asshur; the captives, roped and bound, crowded the streets; defeated princes bowed themselves before the victor and subject races piled up their tribute in his courts [...] Human victims cried out under nameless tortures; the tide of battle raged against the walls, and, red with carnage, rose into the palaces. Splendour and misery, triumph and despair, lifted their head out of the dust.
Fig. 4.26 Bell’s 1911 photograph of Assur workmen being paid at a table set up in the centre of the German expedition dig-house courtyard. Seated are two members of the German team, Paul Maresch (facing the camera) and probably Conrad Preusser.
One hot night I sat with my hosts upon the roof of their house. The Tigris, in unprecedented flood, swirled against the mound, a waste of angry waters. Above us rose the ziggurat of the god Ashur. It had witnessed for four thousand years the melting of the Kurdish snows, flood-time and the harvest that follows; gigantic, ugly, intolerably mysterious, it dominated us, children of an hour.
‘What did they watch from its summit?’ I asked, stung into a sharp consciousness of the unknown by a scene almost as old as recorded life.
‘They watched the moon,’ said Dr. Andrae, ‘as we do. Who knows? They watched for the god.’
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