(Layard)
The Assyrians were also more skilled in mechanics than the Egyptians and were not inferior to them in agriculture. Two reliefs, one Assyrian, the other Egyptian, give us an opportunity to compare how each nation overcame the difficulties attending the moving and putting in place of their enormous collossi of stone. It is shown that the Assyrians knew the use of the lever, which the Egyptians did not, and that they took much greater precautions against upsetting the collossi. How the Babylonians and Assyrians, like the Egyptians and Chinese, made use of irrigation is well known. On the same tablets with the records of their deeds of war, the rulers often spoke of the laying out of canals, the regulating and deepening of the river beds “enduring waters for the enduring use of town and country,” and associated their own names with them. On account of the higher altitude of their country than that of their southern brethren, the Assyrians had to surmount greater difficulties in achieving such works, but this did not deter them from rivalry with them. One canal leading from the Upper Zab and one of its tributaries, irrigated the region between this river and the Tigris, and also supplied the capital, Kalah, with drinking water.
Sennacherib did something similar for Nineveh, which together with its environs was completely dependent upon rain. He had a network of canals constructed, which were fed, partly by the Khushur, and partly by the small mountain brooks of the Accad and Tash mountains. Here also two objects were attained, to furnish Nineveh with good drinking water, and to make the surrounding country fruitful; for the king had it all planted with many kinds of plants, among which was the vine. Floriculture was also much encouraged by the kings of Babylon and Asshur. They admired beautiful parks in which strange foreign animals were bred and nurtured. Marduk-bel-iddin, king of Bit-Yakin, apparently the same who at one time overcame Babylon, owned sixty-seven vegetable gardens and six parks of which a catalogue still exists, although he was constantly at war or guarding against the vengeance of the Assyrians.h
ASSYRIAN ART
But the world-historic relations of Mesopotamian art are best brought out by a study of the later and more perfectly preserved examples of Assyrian craftsmanship. It was the Assyrian who borrowed more directly from the Egyptian in developing his art, and who passed on artistic impulses to the Persians on the one hand, and to the Greeks on the other. The question to what extent the Assyrians were themselves influenced by the Mycenæan art of early Greece is one regarding which students of the subject are not agreed, and which we need not enter upon here.a
It is impossible to examine the monuments of Assyria without being convinced that the people who raised them had acquired a skill in sculpture and painting, and a knowledge of design and even composition, indicating an advanced state of civilisation. It is very remarkable that the most ancient ruins show this knowledge in the greatest perfection attained by the Assyrians. The bas-relief representing the lion hunt, now in the British Museum, is a good illustration of the earliest school of Assyrian art yet known. It far exceeds the sculptures of Khorsabad, Kuyunjik, or the later palaces of Nimrud, in the vigour of the treatment, the elegance of the forms, and in what the French aptly term mouvement. At the same time it is eminently distinguished from them by the evident attempt at composition—by the artistical arrangement of the groups. The sculptors who worked at Khorsabad and Kuyunjik had perhaps acquired more skill in handling their tools. Their work is frequently superior to that of the earlier artists in delicacy of execution—in the details of the features, for instance—and in the boldness of the relief; but the slightest acquaintance with Assyrian monuments will show that they were greatly inferior to their ancestors in the higher branches of art—in the treatment of a subject and in beauty and variety of form. This decline of art, after suddenly attaining its greatest perfection in its earliest stage, is a fact presented by almost every people, ancient and modern, with which we are acquainted. In Egypt the most ancient monuments display the purest forms and the most elegant decorations. A rapid retrogression, after a certain period, is apparent, and the state of art serves to indicate approximately the epoch of most of her remains. In the history of Greek and Roman art this sudden rise and rapid fall are equally well known. Even changes in royal dynasties have had an influence upon art, as a glance at monuments of that part of the East of which we are specially treating will show. Thus the sculpture of Persia, as that of Assyria, was in its best state at the time of the earliest monarchs, and gradually declined until the fall of the empire. After the Greek invasion it revived under the first kings of the Arsacid branch, Greek taste still exercising an influence over the Iranian provinces. How rapidly art degenerated to the most barbarous forms, the medals and monuments of the later Arsacids abundantly prove. When the Sassanians restored the old Persian monarchy and introduced the ancient religion and sacred ceremonies of the empire, art again appears to have received a momentary impulse. The coins, gems, and rock sculptures of the first kings of this dynasty are distinguished by considerable elegance, and spirit of design, and beauty of form. But the decay was as rapid under them as it had been under their predecessors. Even before the Chosroes raised the glory and power of the empire to its highest pitch, art was fast degenerating. By the time of Yezdigird it had become even more rude and barbarous than in the last days of the Arsacids.
This decline in art may be accounted for by supposing that, in the infancy of a people, or after the occurrence of any great event having a very decided influence upon their manners, their religion, or their political state, nature was the chief, if not the only, object of study. When a certain proficiency had been attained, and no violent changes took place to shake the established order of things, the artist, instead of endeavouring to imitate that which he saw in nature, received as correct delineations the works of his predecessors, and made them his types and his models. In some countries, as in Egypt, religion may have contributed to this result. Whilst the imagination, as well as the hand, was fettered by prejudices, and even by laws, or whilst indolence or ignorance led to the mere servile copying of what had been done before, it may easily be conceived how rapidly a deviation from correctness of form would take place. As each transmitted the errors of those who had preceded him, and added to them himself, it is not wonderful if, ere long, the whole became one great error. It is to be feared that this prescriptive love of imitation has exercised no less influence on modern art than it did upon the arts of the ancients.
As the earliest specimens of Assyrian art which we possess are the best, it is natural to conclude that either there are other monuments still undiscovered which would tend to show a gradual progression, or that such monuments did once exist, but have long since perished; otherwise it must be inferred that those who raised the most ancient Assyrian edifice derived their knowledge directly from another people, or merely imitated what they had seen in a foreign land. Some are inclined to look upon the style and character of these early sculptures as purely Egyptian. But there is such a disparity in the mode of treatment and in the execution, that the Egyptian origin of Assyrian art appears to me to be a question open to considerable doubt. That which they have in common would mark the first efforts of any people of a certain intellectual order to imitate nature. The want of relative proportions in the figures and the ignorance of perspective—the full eye in the side face and the bodies of the dead scattered above or below the principal figures—are as characteristic of all early productions of art as they are of the rude attempts at delineation of children. It is only in the later monuments of Nineveh that we find evident and direct traces of Egyptian influence: as in the sitting sphinxes and ivories of Nimrud, and in the lotus-shaped ornaments of Khorsabad and Kuyunjik; perhaps also in the custom which then prevailed of inserting the name of the king, or of the castle, upon or immediately above their sculptured representations. Neither the ornaments of the earliest palace of Nimrud, nor the costumes, nor the elaborate nature of the embroideries upon the robes, with the groups of human figures and animals, nor the mythological symbols, are of an Egyptian character; they show a very different taste and style.