Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal
The royal Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal is shown on a famous group of
They show a formalized ritual "hunt" by King
The slabs or
The carvings come from late in the period of some 250 years over which Assyrian palace reliefs were made, and show the style at its most developed and finest,[6] before decline set in. Ashurbanipal was the last great Assyrian king, and after his reign ended the Neo-Assyrian Empire descended into a period of poorly-recorded civil war between his descendants, generals and rebelling parts of the empire. By 612, perhaps as little as 25 years after these were made, the empire had fallen apart and Nineveh been sacked and burnt.[7]
Assyrian lion hunts
For over a millennium before these reliefs, it seems that the killing of lions was reserved in
An earlier king, Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859), who had erected other lion hunt reliefs in his palace at Nimrud some 200 years before, boasted in inscriptions of about 865 BC that "the gods Ninurta and Nergal, who love my priesthood, gave me the wild animals of the plains, commanding me to hunt. 30 elephants I trapped and killed; 257 great wild oxen I brought down with my weapons, attacking from my chariot; 370 great lions I killed with hunting spears".[10] Ashurnasirpal is shown shooting arrows at lions from his chariot, so perhaps this was a more conventional hunt in open country, or is also in an arena.[11]
In the later reliefs captured lions are released into an enclosed space, formed by soldiers making a
The lions may sometimes have been raised in captivity. Ashurnasirpal II, in an inscription boasting of his zoo, stated: "With my fierce heart I captured 15 lions from the
Palace reliefs
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Assyrian Art: Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions, Smarthistory |
There are some two dozen sets of scenes of lion hunting in recorded Assyrian palace reliefs,[15] most giving the subject a much more brief treatment that here. Neo-Assyrian palaces were very extensively decorated with such reliefs, carved in a very low relief on slabs that are mostly of gypsum alabaster, which was plentiful in northern Iraq. Other animals were also shown being hunted, and the main subject for narrative reliefs was the war campaigns of the king who built the palace. Other reliefs showed the king, his court, and "winged genie" and lamassu protective minor deities.
Most palace reliefs occupied the walls of large halls, with several rooms in sequence. But the lion hunt scenes in the North Palace come from more than one space; mostly from relatively narrow passageways, leading off the larger rooms. They are not complete. Some also were originally on the upper floor, though they had fallen down to below ground level by the time they were excavated.[4] Their original setting was, in terms of dimensions, not that different from the way they are displayed today, though the ceiling would have been higher. The same palace has a much less usual relief with a male and female lion relaxing in a lush palace garden, the lioness snoozing, a "shady idyll" that perhaps represents palace pets, which we know lions sometimes were.[16]
Scenes
Some of the lion hunt reliefs occupy the whole height of the slab; like most narrative Assyrian reliefs the scenes of military campaigns from the same palace are mostly divided into two horizontal registers.[4] The reliefs which came from the upper floor have scenes on three registers.[1] Ground-lines are clearly indicated, which is not always the case, and indeed some lions are given individual ground lines when forming part of a larger scene. As well as the animals, depicted with "extraordinary subtlety of observation",[9] the carving of the details of the king's costume are especially fine.[4] At a late stage in their execution, the tails of nearly all the lions in the single register reliefs were shortened.[17]
The single register scenes show three large scenes from one side of a corridor. The arena of shields is shown, with a crowd of people either climbing a wooded hill for a good view, or getting away from this dangerous activity. At the top of the hill is a small building carrying a scene showing the king lion-hunting. The king makes ready in his chariot, the horses held by grooms. Huntsmen with large mastiff dogs and spears wait within the arena for any lion that comes too close to the shield-wall. In the large scene with the king hunting in his chariot, a total of 18 lions is shown, mostly dead or wounded. The other side of the corridor had similar scenes with the royal chariot in action shown twice.[18]
Another group of reliefs, some originally located on the upper floor and some in a small "private gate-chamber",
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Ashurbanipal II hunts a lion. Bas-relief from his north palace at Nineveh, Iraq. 7th century BC. The Pergamon Museum.
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Ashurbanipal on his horse thrusting a spear at a lion’s head.
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An attendant releases a lion from its cage.
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Wounded lion
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Wounded lioness
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Dead lion
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Lions behind the king's chariot
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Huntsmen carrying dead lions away
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Chariot horses
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The wooded hill, with the shield-wall at right
See also
Notes
- ^ a b Reade, 73
- ^ Honour & Fleming, 76–77; Reade, 72–79, 73; Frankfort, 186–192; Hoving, 40–41
- ^ Honour & Fleming, 77
- ^ a b c d Grove
- ^ Honour & Fleming, 76–77; Reade, 73
- ^ Frankfort, 189
- ^ Reade, 90–91
- ^ Reade, 72–73, 76–77; Frankfort, 187, quoted. Reade emphasizes that the lions reaching the king were probably already badly wounded. Frankfort assumes arm-padding was actually used, but omitted in the images.
- ^ a b c Frankfort, 187
- ^ Reade, 39
- ^ Frankfort, 189, Reade, 39
- ^ Reade, 79
- ^ Hatt, R. T. (1959). The mammals of Iraq. Ann Arbor: Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan.
- ^ Oates, 34
- ^ Hoving, 40
- ^ Frankfort, 186, Reade, 72
- ^ Reade, 73–74
- ^ Reade, 74–75
- ^ Reade, 74–75, 74 quoted
- ^ Reade, 75–79
- ^ Frankfort, 187; Reade, 76; Honour & Fleming, 76–77
References
- ISBN 0-14-056107-2
- "Grove": Russell, John M., Section 6. "c 1000–539 BC., (i) Neo-Assyrian." in Dominique Collon, et al. "Mesopotamia, §III: Sculpture." Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed 19 November 2016, subscription required
- ISBN 0-333-37185-2
- ISBN 978-1-885183-53-8
- Oates, D. and J. Oates, Nimrud, An Assyrian Imperial City Revealed, 2001, London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, full PDF (332 pages) ISBN 978-0-903472-25-8
- Reade, Julian, Assyrian Sculpture, 1998 (2nd edn.), The British Museum Press, ISBN 978-0-7141-2141-3
- ISBN 0-7141-2764-7