Art occupies too prominent a position in the life of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and they have produced too much that is original and peculiar to them, for this history to pass over the question in silence. Even a mere sketch of their culture would be incomplete without it. At the same time great precaution is necessary. In the determination of the chronological succession of undated monuments so much depends on subjective valuation and æsthetic judgment that, without a long and conscientious study of the history of art, one is liable to serious error. And the determination of dates largely influences one’s conception of the progress of Babylonian-Assyrian art; æsthetic judgment, one’s decision concerning the character, independence, and value of this artistic effort.
Here again, as in the language, religion, and in the whole civilisation of this people the unity of the Babylonian-Assyrian race comes clearly to light. Whatever differences may exist between Babylonian and Assyrian art in the conception of detail, in certain peculiarities of technique, in the choice of subjects, at bottom they are one. It has ever been characterised as a national school in which one and the same character prevails, so that a work of art, be it from Telloh, Babylon, Nineveh, or Kalah, at once shows its connection with it. All the differences are merely shades, changes caused by time. This is especially noticeable when one considers what material for example was used for building. In Babylonia it is difficult to obtain stone; there are no rocks there. Consequently this material, which had to be brought from a distance, and was therefore expensive, was kept like precious and other metals for the decoration of the whole, for pillars, bas-reliefs, dedicatory inscriptions, etc., or for making a firm foundation, while dried and burnt bricks were used for the buildings themselves. Among the Assyrians this difficulty did not exist. Excellent stone, which was easily worked, was found in close proximity, and the Assyrians understood how to hew and shape it. In spite of this, they imitated the Babylonian custom and used mainly bricks for their buildings. They preferred continually to repair these temples and palaces, which soon fell into ruin, or else to replace them by others, rather than to depart from the traditional mode of building of their ancestors.
The question has been raised as to whether Babylonian-Assyrian art may not perhaps have been a daughter of the Egyptian. Without doubt Assyrian art was at least influenced by it. All the ivory objects which have yet been found are plainly imitations of Egyptian motives, although they were certainly not made by Egyptians, and some of them date from the time of Asshurnazirpal. The lotus ornament also, which is so often used as a temple decoration, points to an Egyptian origin. Perhaps, however, the models were not borrowed directly from the Egyptians. Certain dishes and cups for drink-offering, which occur in Mesopotamia, as well as in western Asia and southern Europe, are plainly ornamented with Egyptian cartouches, hieroglyphics, and symbols, but in such a divergent form that no Egyptian could have made them; and these objects have the name of the artificer in Aramaic characters on the border or back. It is thus plainly to be seen that this Egyptian fashion wandered into Assyria through the influence of Aramäen artists.
When it is acknowledged, however, that Egyptian patterns were imitated by the Assyrians at a comparatively late date, and that Egyptian motives were borrowed from her artists, it does not by any means follow that Babylonian-Assyrian art as a whole was of Egyptian origin. This could be proved only from the oldest monuments to be found in Babylonia. It was in fact believed, when the art works of Telloh first became known, that they showed a great similarity to the products of Egyptian art. They displayed the same simplicity and naïveness, the same clean-shorn heads and faces, and many other coincidences. The connoisseurs of art, however, believe differently. The similarity is great; nevertheless a careful examination shows the independence of Babylonian art in respect to Egyptian. Thus in the oldest monuments the same peculiarities, truth and strength, appear, which in the later development of art among the Assyrians were so greatly exaggerated, whereas they are wholly lacking in Egyptian figures.
A further similarity is found between the oldest pyramids in the Nile valley and the Babylonian-Assyrian Ziggurat. In the first place, however, the pyramids had a wholly different object from the Ziggurat, and, in the second place, it must not be forgotten that the Babylonian temple architecture varies greatly from the Egyptian. If there is any dependence it is not on the side of the Chaldeans; they did not borrow their art from the Egyptians. At the same time the similarities are so remarkable, especially between the old Chaldaic statues and the oldest productions of Egyptian sculpture, such as the statues of Shafra, Chufu, and Ra-em-ke, that we are compelled here, as in the case of the writing, to suppose a common stock out of which both branches grew independently and in a way peculiar to each.
The important discoveries made by the French consul, De Sarsac, at Telloh have first thrown some light on the old Chaldean art in which the whole Babylonian-Assyrian art has taken its origin. The question as to whether the works of art found there are Semitic or non-Semitic does not concern us here. It is more probably the latter. At any rate we are here confronted with a civilisation preceding the flourishing period of the known Semitic dominion in Babylonia.[35] A temple was found there 53 by 31 metres square which shows the same fundamental plan as the later Chaldean architecture, that is, a structure of burnt on a foundation of dried brick, the corners exactly facing the points of the compass (not the side as in Egypt), a Ziggurat in the centre, the whole, as is seen from stamps on the stones, dating from the time of the priest-prince Gudra, who is known from other sources, and who rebuilt or founded this temple. Besides, a large number of larger and smaller works of art were discovered, cylinders, reliefs, bronze objects, especially statues, which had been collected either by the ruler already mentioned or by other priestly princes or kings.h
Before building a temple or palace, a religious ceremony took place corresponding to what we call to-day laying the corner-stone. Nabuna’id relates that in the ruins of the oldest Chaldean temples he looked for the foundation stone, the temen which the original kings had placed there, and that he had the good fortune to find this corner-stone, whereas several of his predecessors had excavated only in vain. In our days such cylindrical tubes have been found covered with close writing difficult to decipher, which had been placed in little niches at the corners of the foundation facing the four points of the compass. Thus at Nimrod, Rawlinson caused excavations to be carried on in one of the corners of the tower, feeling sure that he would find objects similar to those which had been met with elsewhere. He relates his discovery as follows: “At the end of half an hour a small cavity was found. ‘Bring me,’” said Rawlinson to the man in charge of the digging, “‘bring me the dedicatory cylinder.’ The workman put his hand into the hole and showed the cylinder; those present could not believe their eyes and looked at each other in amazement. The cylinder, covered with inscriptions, then came out of the hiding-place where it had been placed probably by the hands of Nebuchadrezzar himself, and where it had lain for twenty-nine centuries.” In the fruitful excavations which he undertook at Telloh, De Sarsac made similar discoveries. “I found,” said he, “at a depth of scarcely thirty centimeters under the original soil, four cubes of masonry of large bricks and bitumen, measuring eighty centimeters on each side. In the centre of these cubes was a cavity of twenty-seven centimeters by twelve and by thirty-five of depth. This cavity filled with yellow sand enclosed a statuette of bronze, representing now a man kneeling, again a woman standing, sometimes also a bull. At the foot of each statue, usually embedded in the bitumen which lined the cavity, were found two stone tablets, one white, the other black. It was the black one which usually bore an inscription in cuneiform characters, like or almost like the one carved on the figure of bronze.” Moreover De Sarsac in place of statuettes found cones of clay in the shape of large nails with hemispherical heads, and having an inscription around the stem.m