by
Damien F. Mackey
Ashurnasirpal introduced to Assyria a new style of art and warfare,
which appears to have been greatly influenced by the Syro-Hittites.
The above relief fragment from the palace of Ashurnasirpal (so-called II) at Nimrud (Calah), is apparently of a type not previously known in Assyria: https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/king-ashurnasirpal-ii-883-859-bc-attended-his-shield-bearer
“This relief from the palace of Nimrud in Assyria is an orthostat, a stone slab which covered the lower part of a wall of unbaked brick. Though the use of such slabs is known from 2nd-millennium BC Northern Syria and neo-Hittite Turkey (early 1st millennium BC), it was in the reign of Ashurnasirpal II in the 9th century BC that this type of architectural decoration was adopted in Assyria”. ….
Ground Warfare: An International Encyclopedia, Volume 1 (edited by Stanley Sandler, p. 67) informs us similarly: “Ashurnasirpal’s palace at Kalhu [Calah] exhibits finished relief sculptures that are influenced by Neo-Hittite and Phoenician artistic forms”.
More detailed about the Hittite influence upon Assyria at this time is Dr Andrew Jamieson: https://museumsvictoria.com.au/audio/the-wonders-of-ancient-mesopotamia-lecture-series/edge-of-empire-archaeology-on-the-assyrian-frontier/
Edge of Empire: Archaeology on the Assyrian Frontier
Lecture transcript
…. What the BM [British Museum] excavations uncovered were the substantial remains including the town defenses, the temples, palaces, and numerous basalt statues and reliefs with Hittite inscriptions. The chariot slabs found by Woolley and Lawrence at Carchemish provide a good comparison with the Assyrian representations for they have very many elements in common.
However, there are also some important differences. In the Hittite reliefs, there is no integration of the slabs to build a narrative like that that develops in the Neo Assyrian palace reliefs. This is a key point, that those reliefs in the exhibition next door figure prominently a narrative. Have you seen the animations? You can follow the story even if you can't read the cuneiform inscription. But, in these Hittite examples, that storytelling is not developed to such an extent.
The fact that Carchemish might have provided the stimulus for Neo Assyrian artistic activity is not surprising. As I've said, the wealth, the location, the power of this Neo Hittite state. Now whilst the mechanisms of transmission in the Carchemish iconography and compositions are complex to reconstruct, the origins of the physical form are more readily identifiable. Of course at Carchemish we find, like at Tell Ahmar lions and lion reliefs.
Initially, the Neo Hittite city of Carchemish, was a dependency of the Hittite kingdom and its culture derived from the Anatolian central Hittite capital Hattusa. The examples from Carchemish reflect influences from the traditional Hittite capital there in central Anatolia. In fact, the lion sculptures represent the clearest link between the Hittite and the Cyro‑Anatolian examples.
The lion sculptures of Carchemish with their rounded massive ears, gaping jaws, hanging tongues, and wrinkled noses are faithful copies of the lion gates at Hattusa. They show the same iconographic and stylistic details as the carvings from the Assyrian capital. The tradition of monumental stone sculpture and relief associated with the Neo Assyrian palaces therefore appears to have originated from a tradition associated with the Hittite empire on the Anatolian plateau.
The lion gate at Hattusa is certainly the ultimate model for the monumental guardian figures at the entrances to the Assyrian royal buildings and the relief slabs decorating their walls. Those Assyrian lamassu that we associate so strongly, so immediately with Assyria where an idea that originated from outside. The intermediary between them seems to have been the reliefs and the figures associated with those states such as Carchemish and Tell Ahmar.
It's clear that the Neo Assyrian kings were very consciously incorporating into their own building projects elements which evoked architectural forms from the west, from the frontier, from Syria and southeast Anatolia. To conclude, it's often assumed that a political and administrative center will also be the center of artistic influence and production, and thus the source of all stimuli where the similarities occur in the art of its neighbors. The upper Euphrates of north Syria and southeast Anatolia contributes much to the artistic life of Assyria in a complex process of mutual interaction.
It is never a question of imposition, in either direction, Assyria retains its own identity and the development of historical narrative in relief, as I've mentioned for example, was very much an Assyrian innovation. But, based on the archaeological evidence it emerges that the Assyrians drew heavily, heavily from the west, from the frontier. In the course of this process the Assyrians selected elements or forms from their western neighbors, states which at the time had already forged their own language of public display.
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“Those Assyrian lamassu that we associate so strongly, so immediately with Assyria where an idea that originated from outside”. I have previously suggested that their (lamassu) origins would have been with the Hebrew cherubs. And similarly we read in the following article, “… these various popular depictions probably came from dim recollections of the cherubim God had placed at the entrance to the Garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24Genesis 3:24)—angelic creatures …”.
Some contend that the Hebrew krub or a related Near Eastern term is the origin of the similar sounding Greek gryps, whence derives the term gryphon or griffin —an eagle-headed lion. It’s been pointed out that “the human-bodied Hittite griffin … unlike other griffins, appear[s] almost always not as a fierce bird of prey, but seated in calm dignity, like an irresistible guardian of holy things” (Wikipedia, “Cherub”).
The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes parallels between the biblical cherubim and “the gigantic composite creatures well known in Assyrian and Babylonian iconographic and glyptic art.
These hybrid creatures protected the entrance into temples or palaces. The colossal Assyrian composite creatures unearthed during archaeological excavations provide a fitting example. They have been excavated at the site of ancient Nimrud, where they guarded the doorways to the palace of Ashurbanipal II (883-859 BC).
One of these is a winged bull with a human head; another has the body of a lion” (note on Ezekiel 1:5Ezekiel 1:5).
The same study Bible noted on the cherubim atop the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus 25: “These sculpted creatures are most likely winged sphinxes known from a number of other sites throughout the ancient Near East … Such composite creatures have been found in temples and shrines and are often arranged as if guarding the entrance. Their purpose seems to have been protective—to prevent, perhaps only symbolically, unauthorized individuals from entering space where they were not allowed.
“In the Exodus tabernacle, the creatures seem to function as protectors of Yahweh’s presence. They are the last barrier between any possible human entrant and the divine presence. It is not out in front of them but ‘between’ them, says Yahweh, that ‘I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites’ (Exodus 25:22Exodus 25:22). It is therefore also significant that winged composite creatures are found flanking the thrones of kings in the ancient world” (note on Exodus 25:18Exodus 25:18).
As to actual appearance, it’s further pointed out that “Ezekiel consistently repeats the expression ‘looked like’ (e.g., vv. 4,5,10,22,26,27), indicating his unwillingness to commit himself to the substantial identity of the seen with the compared. It looked ‘like’ fire, living creatures, a human being, but these buffer terms indicate that this is only a ‘vision.’
This is the sort of language regularly used in reports of dreams and visions” (note on Ezekiel 1:5Ezekiel 1:5).
How do we account for such remarkable similarities between these mythological creatures from throughout the ancient Near East and the biblical cherubim? A simple answer is that these various popular depictions probably came from dim recollections of the cherubim God had placed at the entrance to the Garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24Genesis 3:24)—angelic creatures that may have been visible to human beings until the Garden of Eden was later destroyed in the Flood of Noah’s day.
[End of quotes]
Regarding Hittite cavalry tactics influencing Assyrian warfare, I wrote in my recent article:
Pharaoh Amenhotep III a Solomon like ruler of Egypt. Part Two: His scarabs found in Ashurnasirpal’s city of Calah
Some Related Technological and Art Anomalies
Though a neo-Assyrian king as to dating (C9th BC), there are strong indications that Ashurnasirpal II was also in fact closely contemporaneous with the early 19th dynasty (c. 1300 BC, conventional dating) and the latter’s Hittite opponents - and by no means, therefore, was he separated from these by the approximately four centuries that are usually estimated. Similarities between C9th BC Assyrian art and that of the early Ramessides (and contemporaneous Hittites) is of course just what one should expect in terms of this revision. They are reflected in both warfare - particularly in cavalry tactics
and horsemanship - and in art. (For more on this, see Chapter 10, p. 250).
….
Here is what Sweeney has noted in regard to the similarities between Ashurnasirpal’s cavalry tactics and that of the Hittite opponents of pharaoh Seti I (c. 1294-1279 BC, conventional dates):[1]
“Hittite cavalry are shown in action against Seti I, and their deployment etc. displays striking parallels with that of the cavalry belonging to Ashurnasirpal II”. Thus for example the Assyrian horsemen, he says, “ride bareback, obtaining a firm grip by means of pressing the raised knees against the horse’s flanks - exactly the method of riding employed by the Hittites portrayed on the monuments of Seti I and Ramses II”. Again, both the early neo-Assyrian cavalry and those of the Hittites against whom Seti I battled, employed the bow as their only weapon. “Even more importantly, they are used in an identical way tactically: they are invariably used in conjunction with the chariotry”.
[End of quote]
Even the Assyrian Annals may have been something of an imitation of Hittite ones:
https://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:911519/FULLTEXT01.pdf (P. 8, n. 11): “… the emergence of Assyrian annals can be linked to the (earlier) development of Egyptian annalistic texts, although a Hittite influence is more often presumed here (e.g. Goetze 1957). Shared features are narration in first person of military deeds, chronologically arranged.”
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