THE TRIUMPH OF THE VISUAL IN NEO-ASSYRIAN ELITE DISPLAY INSCRIPTIONS

Overview

The Neo-Assyrian kings were thoroughly engaged in palace building projects. Ashurnasirpal II built what is considered by archaeologists the Northwest Palace at Kalhu and his son Shalmaneser III built another palace (“Fort Shalmaneser”) that would later be renovated by Esarhaddon and named the “review palace.” A later king, Tiglat-pileser III also built a palace at Kalhu considered now to be the Central palace. Though Sargon II made renovations to Ashurnasirpal II’s Northwest palace, which he considered the “Juniper Palace,” he later moved the capital to virgin soil and built a new city known as Dur-Sharrukin, which included a new palace. Following Sargon II, Sennacherib moved the capital promptly to Nineveh and built the “Palace Without Rival.” After Esarhaddon (see above), Ashurbanipal restored Sennacherib’s palace as well as the arsenal at Nineveh. He also ordered the reconstruction of the North palace, which was for the crown prince.[1] This frequent palace building was fueled by each king’s heroic priority to outdo his predecessors and to memorialize himself in the combination of architecture, visuals, and writings. This discussion now reviews the various combinations of visuals and writings in the form of elite display inscriptions that each king commissioned. Two general trends are evident: (1) the use of writing for its visual appeal and (2) the diminished use of writing by the later kings. After reviewing each king, a summary further reflecting on the triumph of the visual over the verbal in Neo-Assyrian elite display inscriptions is offered.

Ashurnasirpal II

The first decorated Neo-Assyrian palace was built by Ashurnasirpal II, but it is surely not an ex nihilo creation, since it has roots in previous Neo-Assyrian and Middle Assyrian traditions, and beyond.[2] It is stunning in its exhaustive use of visuals, whether bas-reliefs on wall slabs, gateway colossi, or otherwise, which are replete with writing. The contents of the visuals concern a variety of subjects, such as apotropaic genii, the sacred tree, battle scenes, and processions, that all relate back to the king and his accomplishments. For a guest entering the throne room, he or she would first encounter processions of tribute, which would reinforce many of the dynamics of the imperial ideology.[3] As for the writing that complemented these visuals, it was mainly a repeated inscription, known as the Standard Inscription, which makes an appearance over four hundred times, and is a summary of the king’s genealogy, titulary, campaigns, and palace building project. This inscription either ran right over the reliefs or was set apart in a horizontal bar between them if they were in upper and lower registers. Similar inscriptions adorn the throne-base, colossi, and thresholds. There are even extensive inscriptions on the back of the wall slabs that can only be seen if they are turned around. These inscriptions, which are related to the Wall Foundation Text and have commonalities with the Standard Inscription, deal with the king’s genealogy, titulary, as well as the geographic extent of his conquests and the rebuilding of Kalhu.[4] Together, these images and texts were intentionally designed to impress upon a variety of audiences the power of the king and the imperial ideology.

Shalmaneser III

In stark comparison to his father’s palace, Fort Shalmaneser did not apparently have wall reliefs, though it was still decorated with inscribed throne bases, colossi, and thresholds, concerning which Russell comments:

Shalmaneser’s threshold inscriptions, like those of Assurnasirpal II, seem to have been based on an extant text. Unlike Assurnasirpal’s texts, however, which seem to have been applied with no consideration for completeness, the Shalmaneser examples were apparently compiled specifically for their intended location, with special care taken that they constitute a complete and intelligible whole. This is precisely the same sort of transformation that will be seen in comparing the Shalmaneser III and Assurnasirpal II bull inscriptions and perhaps reflects the growth of a larger literate audience, for whom an inscription exists to be read.[5]

Though it appears that this careful structuring of the text suggests “the growth of a larger literature audience,” Russell later admits that literacy was very low and that these inscriptions were not frequently read, which is covered more in the summary. He later adds that the texts may be complete and intelligible because the scribes were more adept at fitting them into the allotted space.[6]

Tiglath-pileser III

Shalmaneser III’s reign ended in conflict and the Neo-Assyrian Empire stagnated until the reign of Tiglath-pileser III. Like Ashurnasirpal II, he built palace at Kalhu decorated with wall reliefs and inscriptions. Unlike the Standard Inscription, however, the inscription on his wall reliefs was a single, annalistic text that was always separated from the reliefs in its own central register. He also utilized caption-like epigraphs that helped to explain their juxtaposed visuals. This was likely done for both current and future audiences, since his scribes may have had trouble identifying the events depicted in Ashurnasirpal II’s own reliefs, which lacked these epigraphs. [7]

Sargon II

Sargon II initially restored Ashurnasirpal II’s Northwest palace at Kalhu, which may have influenced his palace at Dur-Sharrukin, since it was similarly heavily inscribed. Like the inscriptions on the wall reliefs at Tiglath-pileser III’s Central palace, those of Sargon II were set in a middle register and arranged military campaigns annalistically or geographically. Unfortunately, areas such as the throne room are not well-preserved. Overall, the themes of the various wall texts align with the images depicted in any given room. Sargon II’s palace also seems to utilize more caption-like epigraphs than that of Tiglath-pileser III’s, but this might be partly due to the preservation of both.[8]

Sennacherib

Sennacherib’s palace was a departure from the previous ones, both in terms of location and use of inscriptions. His wall reliefs had no main text, but only caption-like epigraphs, and their back sides had only labels on them for posterity-sake. Though these epigraphs were minimal, Russell remarks, “Rather than distract from the image, these brief texts served, by their mere presence, to focus attention on specific elements of the representation. They also identify the king, as well as his foes, and provided a brief summary of the most important parts of the action.”[9] The most substantial inscriptions, which shared many of the same kinds of contents as the wall relief inscriptions of previous palaces, were on the colossi, which varied from colossus to colossus, unlike many of the previous palaces. This variety is probably a compensation for the lack of inscriptions in other contexts.[10]

Ashurbanipal

Considering the limited and scattered attestations of elite display inscriptions in palace settings from the time of Esarhaddon, this discussion instead moves onto Ashurbanipal, the last great Neo-Assyrian king before the severe decline of the empire. In a similar fashion to Sennacherib’s “Palace Without Rival,” Ashurbanipal’s palace at Nineveh was largely devoid of inscriptions. The only visible writings were epigraphs that aided in largely pictorial reliefs to identify key participants, direct speeches, and events. Some of them were quite lengthy and read like the Standard Inscription that summarized the deeds of Ashurnasirpal II, especially in hunt scenes that highlighted the king’s prowess. Whereas previous kings used such epigraphs mainly as captions, those in Ashurbanipal’s palace could probably be strung together to help create a narrative alongside the visuals, especially with regard to Ashurbanipal’s campaign against Teummman of Elam. Interestingly, in comparing the caption-less rooms of the North Palace with the caption-filled Room XXXIII, Russell speculates that towards the end of Ashurbanipal’s life, “the dense captioning of Room XXXIII had gone out of fashion.”[11] As for the visuals of Ashurbanipal’s palace, they remained quite beholden to those in Ashurnasirpal II’s, while also evidencing significant developments in style, though such developments had been made with each successive king, culminating in Ashurbanipal.[12]

Summary

The use of writing was certainly essential to the decorated Neo-Assyrian palaces, but the question is how it was used. As has been argued above, literacy was quite limited, and it is not clear who would even have access to these palace displays outside of the royal retinue and their guests. Moreover, if one were to attempt to read the text of Ashurnasirpal II’s wall reliefs, it would become apparent that the same text was repeated over and over again. The combination of this repetition of the text with the above limitations to its audience, suggest that the text was mainly included not for its verbal contents, but as an abstract visual that can be juxtaposed with the representative visuals. This is thoroughly explained by Russell:

Royal inscriptions [considered elite display inscriptions here] are the physical images of the royal word and are therefore a form of imagery—in fact, the most fundamental and widespread form of royal imagery. According to this hypothesis, the carving of inscriptions is not a matter of choice, but rather an imperative: royal monuments must carry royal inscriptions. Just as royal stele have [sic] an extensive text carved directly across the image of the king, so too every image and every slab in the palace carries a royal inscription, simply because it is a royal monument. … We make the modern mistake of trying to imagine an audience for the content of these inscriptions when in fact what seems to have been of greater importance is their presence as visual icons of kingship; to Assyrian eyes, sculptures and palace inscriptions are both “pictures” of the king.[13]

Though this use of text as an abstract visual representing the king is most clear with the Standard Inscription, the concept likely continued, especially since literacy in cuneiform writing did not rise over time. By the reigns of Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal, there is a significant decrease in the use of writing, which may be linked to the more accessible nature of representative visuals at a time when the empire is become more international and Aramaic in nature.[14] Winter offers a similar argument for the rise in historical scenes in lieu of mythic and cultic ones, which would have also been more accessible to a more international audience.[15] What captions are used, however, can still be considered for their visual function in focusing the attention and suggesting a narrative, even when a viewer is unable to access it. Thus, the visual triumphed over the verbal in these Neo-Assyrian elite display inscriptions.