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What ideas about the afterlife ehb. The underworld according to the ideas of ancient peoples

But the history of the development of Assyrian art dates back to earlier periods. IN III millennium BC. e. Assyria was heavily influenced Sumerian culture. In one of the sanctuaries of this time, the sanctuary of the goddess Ishtar in the city Ashur- the ancient capital of Assyria, statuettes resembling those of Sumeria were found. In the XV century BC. e. Assyria became dependent on the state Mitanni in the northern Mesopotamia. The art of Assyria absorbed a lot from the Mitannian and Hittite art. But the art of Assyria reached its highest development only in the 1st millennium BC. e., when Assyria turned into a strong slave-owning state, subjugating almost all of Asia Minor as a result of aggressive wars.

The centralization of power in the hands of the Assyrian kings contributed to the fact that very specific requirements were imposed on art: to glorify the deeds of the king and the military power of Assyria.

Palace of Sargon II

A classic example of Assyrian architecture is the palace of the 8th century BC. e. King Sargon II Dur-Sharrukin(modern Khorsabad). It was built on an artificial terrace, part of the palace protruded beyond the city wall. The palace complex also included a sanctuary with a tower ziggurat from seven ledges. Entrances overlapped arches, and on their sides were placed monumental figures " shedu” or “lamassu” (as the Assyrian texts call them), gate sculptures in the form of lions and bulls with human heads and wings, executed in the technique of very high relief, turning into a round sculpture ( Paris , Louvre). An interesting technique is the image of five legs, so that both those who enter and pass by can see the "guardian" of the gate at the same time both at rest and in motion.

In some parts of the palace, columns with stone bases and wooden trunks were used as load-bearing supports.

In the decoration of the palace of Sargon II (for example, in the design of entrances) were introduced and tiles - glazed bricks with bright multicolor watering. Near the doors stood tall trees of life", chained metal, on the tops of which were fortified palm leaves of gilded bronze. The brilliance in the decoration of the palace was combined, apparently, with the skillful introduction of landscaping on the terraces.

Sculpture

The plastic of Assyria is dominated by relief. Round sculpture in the art of Assyria did not play a big role.

From time Ashurnasirapal II came a wonderful alabaster statue of Ashurnasirapal II himself ( London , British museum, height 1.06 m), depicting the king in the form of a high priest. It was installed in the temple, in a cult niche, and was an object of worship. Its composition is strictly frontal, the image of the king is idealized.

In the palace of Ashurnasirapala, very low, flat reliefs depicting battles and royal hunting have been preserved. They are rude, severe in style and represent a whole panorama of battle and hunting scenes. With general anatomical correctness, detailed study muscles legs and arms, images of people and animals are stiff. The general scheme of reliefs by the time of Ashurnasirapal II was already fully established.

painting

The murals that decorated some of the rooms of the palace of Sargon II depicted processions in which the king was accompanied by his entourage and soldiers.

In the king's palace Sennacherib(705-681 BC), son of Sargon II, in Til-Barsib, a city located on one of the main roads connecting Assyria with Syria, there were also paintings on the walls depicting the king and his deeds (fragments in Paris, in the Louvre and in the museum of the city Aleppo). Stylistically, these murals are heterogeneous and cover the period from the second half of the 9th century BC to BC. e. until the middle of the 7th century BC. e. They are executed in white calcareous plastering, which is applied in a thin layer on a mud wall over a layer of clay mixed with chopped straw. In some places you can even trace the technique of the artists' work, the successive stages of this work. First, the contours of the images were applied with black paint, and then paints were already superimposed: red-brown, ultramarine blue, black and white, less often - pink and blue. The coloring is conditional, planar, without shadows.

Ashurbanipal Palace

The last period of flowering of Assyrian art came during the reign of Ashurbanapala, in the second half of the 7th century BC. e. Excavations have uncovered the ruins of his palace in Nineveh(modern Kuyunjik), where, in addition to various works of fine art, clay tablets with cuneiform texts, which made up the famous library of Ashurbanipal which made it possible to get acquainted with the high level of Assyrian culture.

The reliefs, as before, glorify the king, depict war scenes and hunting scenes. They are executed differently: some works are made by first-class craftsmen, others - by artisans. The reliefs were conventionally painted. However, unlike the works of the previous time, they convey the movement of the figures with great skill. The reliefs show the successive development of the action.

Where is Assyria

“Out of this land came Asshur and built Nineveh, Rehobothir, Kalah and Resen between Nineveh and between Kalah; this is a great city"(Gen. 10:11,12)

Assyria is one of the greatest states of the ancient world, which went down in history thanks to its outstanding military campaigns and conquests, cultural achievements, art and cruelty, knowledge and strength. As with all the great powers of antiquity, Assyria can be looked at with different eyes. It was Assyria that possessed the first professional, disciplined army of the ancient world, a victorious army that made neighboring peoples tremble in fear, an army that sowed horror and fear. But it was in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal that an unusually large and valuable collection of clay tablets was preserved, which became the most valuable source for studying the science, culture, religion, art and life of those distant times.

Where is Assyria

Assyria, at the time of its highest development, owned vast territories both between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the vast eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. To the east, the possessions of the Assyrians extended almost to the Caspian Sea. Today, on the territory of the former Assyrian kingdom there are such modern countries as Iraq, Iran, part of Turkey, part of Saudi Arabia.

History of Assyria

The greatness of Assyria, however, like all great powers, did not manifest itself in history immediately, it was preceded by a long period of formation and emergence of Assyrian statehood. This power was formed from nomadic Bedouin shepherds who once lived in the Arabian desert. Although the desert is there now, and earlier there was a very pleasant steppe, but the climate has changed, droughts have come and many Bedouin shepherds, as a result of this reason, chose to move to the fertile lands in the Tigris River valley, where they founded the city of Ashur, which became the beginning of the creation of a mighty Assyrian state. The location of Assur was chosen very well - it was at the crossroads of trade routes, other developed states of the ancient world were located in the neighborhood: Sumer, Akkad, which intensively traded (but not only, sometimes fought) with each other. In a word, very soon Ashur turned into a developed trade and cultural center, where merchants played the leading role.

At first, Ashur, the heart of the Assyrian state, like the Assyrians themselves, did not even have political independence: at first it was under the control of Akkad, then it came under the control of the Babylonian king Hammurabi, famous for his code of laws, then under the rule of Mitania. Ashur remained under the rule of Mitania for a whole 100 years, although, of course, he also had his own autonomy, Ashur was headed by a ruler, who was a kind of vassal of the Mitanian king. But in the 14th century BC e. Mitania fell into decay and Ashur (and with it the Assyrian people) gained true political independence. From this moment begins a glorious period in the history of the Assyrian kingdom.

Under King Tiglapalasar III, who ruled from 745 to 727 BC. e. Ashur, or Assyria is turning into a real superpower of antiquity, active militant expansion has been chosen as a foreign policy, constant victorious wars with neighbors are being waged, bringing an influx of gold, slaves, new lands and related benefits to the country. And now the warriors of the militant Assyrian king are marching through the streets of ancient Babylon: the Babylonian kingdom, which once itself ruled the Assyrians and arrogantly considers itself their “elder brothers” (reminds nothing?) is defeated by its former subjects.

The Assyrians owe their brilliant victories to the very important military reform that King Tiglapalasar carried out - it was he who created the first professional army in history. After all, before, as it was, the army was made up mainly of tillers, who replaced the plow with a sword for the period of the war. Now it was staffed by professional soldiers who did not have their own land plots, all the expenses for their maintenance were paid by the state. And instead of plowing the land in peacetime, they improved their military skills all the time. Also, the use of metal weapons, which actively came into use at that time, played a big role in the victory of the Assyrian troops.

The Assyrian king Sargon II, who ruled from 721 to 705 BC. e. strengthened the conquests of his predecessor, finally conquering the Urartian kingdom, which was the last strong opponent of the rapidly gaining strength of Assyria. True, Sargon, without knowing it, was helped by those who attacked the northern borders of Urartu. Sargon, being a smart and prudent strategist, simply could not help but take advantage of such a great opportunity to finally finish off his already weakened opponent.

Fall of Assyria

Assyria grew rapidly, new and new occupied lands brought into the country a constant stream of gold, slaves, Assyrian kings built luxurious cities, so the new capital of the Assyrian kingdom, the city of Nineveh, was built. But on the other hand, the aggressive policy of the Assyrians bred the hatred of the captured, conquered peoples. Here and there rebellions and uprisings broke out, many of them were drowned in blood, for example, the son of Sargon Sineherib, after suppressing the uprising in Babylon, brutally cracked down on the rebels, ordered the remaining population to be deported, and Babylon itself was razed to the ground, flooded with the waters of the Euphrates. And only under the son of Sineherib, king Assarhaddon, this great city was rebuilt.

The cruelty of the Assyrians towards the conquered peoples was also reflected in the Bible, in the Old Testament Assyria is mentioned more than once, for example, in the story of the prophet Jonah, God tells him to go preach in Nineveh, which he really did not want to do, as a result he ended up in the womb of a large fish, and after a miraculous salvation, he still went to Nineveh to preach repentance. But the Assyrians did not appease the sermons of the biblical prophets, and already around 713 BC. e. The prophet Nahum prophesied about the death of the sinful Assyrian kingdom.

Well, his prophecy came true. All the surrounding countries united against Assyria: Babylon, Media, Arab Bedouins, and even the Scythians. The combined forces defeated the Assyrians in 614 BC. That is, they besieged and destroyed the heart of Assyria - the city of Ashur, and two years later a similar fate befell the capital of Nineveh. At the same time, the legendary Babylon returned to its former power. In 605 B.C. e. the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the battle of Carchemish finally defeated the Assyrians.

Culture of Assyria

Despite the fact that the Assyrian state left an unkind mark in ancient history, nevertheless, during its heyday, it had many cultural achievements, which cannot be ignored.

In Assyria, writing actively developed and flourished, libraries were created, the largest of them, the library of King Ashurbanipal, consisted of 25 thousand clay tablets. According to the grandiose plan of the king, the library, which served part-time as a state archive, was supposed to become not more, not less, but a repository of all the knowledge ever accumulated by mankind. What is there just not there: the legendary Sumerian epic and Gilgamesh, and the works of the ancient Chaldean priests (and in fact scientists) on astronomy and mathematics, and the oldest treatises on medicine giving us the most interesting information about the history of medicine in antiquity, and countless religious hymns, and pragmatic business records, and scrupulous legal documents. A whole specially trained team of scribes worked at the library, whose task was to copy all the significant works of Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia.

The architecture of Assyria also received significant development, Assyrian architects achieved considerable skill in the construction of palaces and temples. Some of the decorations in Assyrian palaces are excellent examples of Assyrian art.

Art of Assyria

The famous Assyrian bas-reliefs, which were once the interior decorations of the palaces of the Assyrian kings and have survived to this day, give us a unique opportunity to touch the Assyrian art.

In general, the art of ancient Assyria is full of pathos, strength, valor, it glorifies the courage and victory of the conquerors. On the bas-reliefs, images of winged bulls with human faces are often found; they symbolize the Assyrian kings - arrogant, cruel, powerful, formidable. That is what they were in reality.

Assyrian art subsequently had a great influence on the formation of art.

Religion of Assyria

The religion of the ancient Assyrian state was largely borrowed from Babylon and many Assyrians worshiped the same pagan gods as the Babylonians, but with one significant difference - the true Assyrian god Ashur was revered as the supreme god, who was considered the head even of the god Marduk - the supreme god of the Babylonian pantheon. In general, the gods of Assyria, as well as Babylon, are somewhat similar to the gods of ancient Greece, they are powerful, immortal, but at the same time they have weaknesses and shortcomings of mere mortals: they can be envious or adulterous with earthly beauties (as Zeus liked to do).

Different groups of people, depending on their occupation, could have a different patron god, to whom they gave the most honors. There was a strong belief in various magical ceremonies, as well as magical amulets, superstitions. Part of the Assyrians preserved the remnants of even more ancient pagan beliefs of those times when their ancestors were still nomadic shepherds.

Assyria - masters of war, video

And in conclusion, we suggest you watch an interesting documentary about Assyria on the Culture channel.

When we had an internship, our group, including me, was lucky, because we did not have to go to other faculties or take a general course in philosophy. Therefore, my choice fell on the incompletely familiar art of such a mysterious country as Assyria.
Actually, everything that I managed to compose for the lecture, I posted here. This is rather peculiar information, since practically no one in our country deals with this topic.

1. HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF ASSYRIOLOGY

Serious acquaintance with the monuments began in the second half of the 19th century, although the archeology of Western Asia became a true science only in the 20th century.

However, for the first time, Assyrian art, or rather writing, became interested 20 years before Champollion paid attention to the famous Rosetta Stone (at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries), when clay tablets were brought to England from the city of Basra, located not far from Babylon. The scientists who decided to decipher the clay tablets (since the expedition to Mesopotamia is too expensive) turned out to be two young teachers from the University of Göttingen. One of the scientists, Fiorillo, suggested that, judging by the description of the signs on the Babylonian bricks, they were similar to the signs of the so-called Persepolis inscription found on the ruins of the ancient capital of Persia. Another scientist Grottenfend, who decided to decipher, relied on the data of other researchers, and in his report on September 4, 1802 at a meeting of the Gottingen Scientific Society, where he spoke about his discovery, he deciphered the names of the kings, so that in total it turned out to decipher 13 characters. However, he could not go further than this discovery, since he did not know oriental languages. Therefore, research in this area was postponed for almost thirty years, until in 1836 the French scientist Burnyuf and the German Lassen deciphered almost all the signs of the Persepolis inscription. In 1847 the first Bisutun inscription was deciphered, and in 1853 Norris deciphered the 2nd Bisutun inscription, in the language of Elam.

In 1849, the historian Layard, during excavations on the Kuyunjik hill, located opposite Mosul, on the other side of the Tigris, discovered the palace of Sennacherib, one of the most powerful rulers of Assyria. In four weeks of work, he opened 9 rooms, numerous drawings, reliefs, mosaics, white bas-reliefs on a turquoise background. Unfortunately, in those years, the excavations were carried out incorrectly, so many monuments were ruined.

History of the Assyrian Empire

The Assyrian state was formed from the Akkadian Semitic tribes living in Asia Minor. In ancient times, it was customary to call Assyria the region located in the middle part of the Tigris Valley. Now here is the north-eastern part of Iraq. From the northeast, the country is surrounded by the spurs of the Zagra mountains, from the southeast - by the tributary of the Tigris, the Small Zab. To the west lies the boundless steppe. Despite the fact that the population has used artificial irrigation since time immemorial, in terms of fertility, this part of present-day Iraq is in many ways backward.

Much in Assyrian culture helps to reveal its geographical location. All the cities of Assyria, except for Ashur, the historical center of Assyria, are located beyond the Tigris at the foothills of Zagr and were accessible to the invasion of the highlanders. The narrow channels of the Euphrates and Tigris are poorly defended, so the Assyrians must always be ready for battle. The earliest inhabitants of Ashur, the capital and the most important stronghold on the Tigris, were usurers, but the trade routes were not safe, and the most important routes passed so close to Ashur that the rulers were easily tempted to seize them. So the state early became military, where war became an end in itself and the main art.

During the reign of Sargon the Ancient and his dynasty, the population of northern Mesopotamia enters into a lively trade exchange with Asia Minor and the hill tribes of the Hurrians, which becomes especially noticeable in the 6th - 5th centuries. BC e., when they rallied into the state of Mitanni.

The Assyrians borrowed horse-drawn chariots from the Hittites, introduced battalions of engineer troops that destroy fortifications, thus learning to take cities by storm. The Assyrians saw the goal of their military campaigns in the complete destruction of the enemy, total war, when all adult men who could hold a sword in their hands were killed, and women and children were taken into slavery. In their cruelty and bloodthirstiness, the Assyrian kings surpassed all other ancient Eastern armies, which were by no means distinguished by their humanity in war. For the Assyrians, sophisticated torture and mockery of defeated enemies, such as skinning living people, gouging out eyes, threading ropes through perforated lips and chins, and the like, were considered quite normal and even legal. All such sophistications were considered natural methods of reprisal and intimidation of the conquered peoples.

The Assyrian army was invincible, since the property qualification was lowered in it, which allowed the poorest class to live off the war. Other peoples were also recruited into the army. At the same time, the state did not care about the maintenance of the army, since it was fed by looting. At the same time, expensive trophies were transferred to the King and the Gods.

Huge texts were written about all the victories, devoted to a clear accounting of trophies, while the number of people was rounded off.

The emergence of Assyrian art, the formation of the canon

Already with the appearance of the first monuments of Assyrian art in the Louvre and the British Museum, researchers immediately drew attention to the differences from the Egyptian. Egyptian monuments, despite the canonical image, were more direct and easy to understand. In contrast to the complex language of the Assyrian monuments, gigantic dimensions are an oppressive heavy form. Clothing is not perceived as such, it is a fabric that hides the figure. Also, most of the museum exhibits were not painted, although in Assyria it was customary to paint the monuments. The main features of Assyrian art were monumentality, decorativeness, ornamentality, and mathematical emphasis on architecture.

Since even the images of kings, unlike the Egyptian ones, do not convey portrait features, it is possible to determine who the owner of this or that palace is due to the fact that lists of royal names were found on the walls of the palaces.

The excavations of Ashur revealed the temple of Ishtar dating back to the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. In it were found figurines of worshipers dedicated to the goddess, reminiscent of Sumerian sculptures from the time of Lagash: shortened proportions, heads sitting directly on the shoulders, most of them devoid of portrait features, heavy Sumerian robes. However, unlike the Sumerians, the Assyrians shaved their heads and trimmed their lips, but left a lush, short beard. On some images, the sculptor created the illusion of movement - he depicted the legs of the figure in a step. These attempts were also reflected in the sculptures of Mari and Eshnunna.

Typical Assyrian features in the field of art should be discussed no earlier than the 13th century. BC, when Tukulti-Ninurta 1, the king of Assyria (c. 1250 - 1210 BC) transfers his capital from Ashur to the new city of Kar-Tukulti - Ninurta, on the other side of the Tigris. Excavations have unearthed magnificent murals of the palace, which has a pronounced decorative character. Both reliefs and murals were closely associated with architecture. As in ancient times, the mud wall was decorated with mats; now the walls were decorated with orostats with relief images - a direct influence of the Hittite-Hurrian circle, but the relief, according to the tradition of Mesopotamia, was placed inside the building, and not outside.

For facing the lower walls of the palace, glazed brick was used, earlier than Babylonian by 600-700 years. Also, for the first time, it was in the murals of the first Assyrian palace that the motif of the “sacred tree” with guardian geniuses standing on its sides was used. The history of the appearance of this motif also refers to the Hittite-Hurrian circle, where the motif of a sacred tree crowned with a human head appears - a symbolic image of a deity of resurgent spring nature, characteristic of the rituals of Syria, therefore, it is not the pollination of this tree that is characteristic, but sprinkling. And = > geniuses do not keep baskets for leaves, but sprinklers with pure holy water.

AN ALTAR WITH THE IMAGE OF THE PRAYING KING TUKULTI-NINURA I

Features extremely important for Assyrian art:

The introduction of the correct image on the plane of the human figure entirely in profile and a kind of attempt to convey a consistently unfolding action. On a small stone stand, probably an altar, the king is twice depicted in flat relief: approaching the altar from the left, he prayerfully raises his right hand, as if shielding himself from the radiance of the deity, and clutches a mace in his left hand, coming closer, he kneels down, continuing to block himself right hand. In both cases, the figure of the king is depicted quite correctly in profile.

BATTLE. PART OF A ROUND PLAQUE WITH A RELIEF IMAGE. ASSHUR

The relief of the same time on a fragment of a plaque made of black stone has a different character. At the bottom of the fragment, the heads of two horses and human figures are visible; in the upper part, an extremely lively battle scene unfolds. One of the fighters, the winner (only an arm and a leg survived), grabbed the hair of the vanquished, who was falling to his knees in front of him. With the foot of the winner, he strikes the defeated man in the solar plexus - a method of struggle that has not been depicted anywhere before. Behind this group, the dead are visible, lying prone and face up. Great anatomy, transfer of details, plasticity. The heads of the warriors and their upper half of the body are turned in profile, and the lower half by three quarters with a gradual transition to the full profile of the legs - the Egyptian canon.

The murals of the palaces were decorative, as were the reliefs: on a white background, stylized trees, rosettes and palmettes are given in red and blue colors, inscribed in a frame of red and blue stripes.

The appearance of Egyptian motifs in the Assyrian ornament - for example, a lotus - is a characteristic feature of the paintings of that time. These motifs may not have come directly from Egypt, but from Syro-Phoenicia.

Classic Assyrian heyday:

It begins with the accession of Ashurnasirapal 2 (884-859 BC). Assyria under him goes into wars of conquest, cartel expeditions to the centers of the uprising. A special chapter can be called the creation of new military equipment. From that moment on, the victorious war and the greatness of the victorious king became the main theme of art.

The main form of art, in addition to military skill elevated to this rank, is architecture and the relief closely associated with it. Construction, as a means to exalt the power of kings, takes on an extraordinary scope.

Palace in Kalhu

Ashurnasirapal transferred the capital of Assyria to Kalha, which was then renamed Nimrud, where a grandiose palace was built. It had a large number of residential and utility rooms, grouped around a square courtyard 30x30m. The rooms were located in 2 rows and were connected with each other by doors cut in the end walls of these coredor-shaped halls. The builder of the palace never used the opportunity to create spans of doors located along a straight axis, to create the prospect of a long enfilade - the gaze of the incoming person meets walls everywhere covered with relief images 2.5 m high, the main content of which is the hunting and military exploits of the king, winged geniuses, sprinkling the king, a stylized "tree of life".

The citadel in Nimrud - Kalhu was the embodiment of fear, since strength is the hatred of half the world.

Unlike early art, which was only decorative, the art of Ashurnasirapal's era set itself new challenges.

Sequential unfolding of the action: first, the visitor was met by the guards of the doorposts - Shedu, who move along with the walker, since they have 5 legs (the canonical arrangement of the figures is not violated). On the walls are people-eagles - the guards of the king. In the corner is the motif of the Tree of Life, which always adorns royal palaces.

An image of a beautiful person was created - the ideal of Assyrian beauty, one of the conditions of which was physical strength, strength and health, expressed in the extraordinary development of muscles, restraint in the transmission of movement in the most lively scenes. Also, one of the conditions for ideal beauty was beautiful, long curly hair. This was due to the fact that in Assyria it was considered a sign of bad taste to have unkempt hair and beards. A square beard was considered a sign of the succession of royal power. Therefore, the kings were depicted with a perfect beard. Only eunuchs were depicted without beards, but with long hair.

ASSHURNASIRAPAL HUNTS LIONS

A chariot drawn by 3 horses is driven by a bearded charioteer. The dying LION, struck by 4 arrows, lies under the feet of the horses. The horses and the lion are given in a strictly profile image, the viewer can see only the sides of the animals. An enraged wild lion stood with his front legs on the chariot, the king strikes him with a mortal blow and turns around to the soldiers following behind.

The artist has chosen the most poignant moment, but the relief, nevertheless, is full of peace, as the figures of people and animals are full of numbness, as if time has stopped.

In this kind of relief, the image of the king is presented, who defeats the power of Chaos and thus the king becomes the owner of order.

For the first time in ancient Eastern art, elements of aerial perspective appear on the reliefs of Ashurnasirapala. On one of the reliefs in Kalha, the siege engines of the king with his standards drive up to the walls of the fortress, where the defenders, peeking out from behind the battlements of the fortress, repel the attack. In the foreground, the figures of the king and his warriors are much larger, with careful study of all the details. The fortress and its defenders are given in a flatter relief and reduced sizes.

All the art of Assyria known to us is associated with a temple or a palace, so everyday scenes cannot be expected here, they are possible only as part of military and palace plots: for example, the relief of the palace of Sennacherib is an image of a camp with tents in which servants are bustling about, making beds and preparing food . On the relief of Sargon 2, grooms clean, water and feed the horses in the stable.

(The scene of the capture of the fortress is full of drama and inner content.

Assyrian wars are driving herds of cattle, wagons with prisoners of war are driving, followed by a string of captive women with children. An Assyrian warrior, running his hand through the hair of one of them, urges her on, the other defends herself with a mournful gesture at the head of a child walking in front of her. This drama does not run counter to the understanding of beauty as rhythm and peace - all women raise their hands to their heads with the same gesture as a sign of despair, the warriors and the captive being dragged by the hair are completely calm.)

The impression of decorativeness was enhanced by the finest ornaments depicting embroidery of heavy fabrics, fringes, wrists, as well as bright colors, from which only faint traces of black and red paint survived.

The scheme of reliefs by the time of Ashurnasirapal had already been established, all images associated with palaces and temples, intended to exalt the glory of the king and god, were considered sacred, possessing magical powers, so the scheme remains, the style changes.

Compared with the Hittite-Hurrian orthostat, the Assyrians take a big step forward, since the Assyrian reliefs give huge panoramas of battle scenes, and the action usually unfolds in the direction from the entrance to the depths of the main hall to the location of the king. A connected story in drawings and reliefs is the main difference from the Hittite-Hurrian orostat not connected by a common plot.

KING ASSHURNASIRAPAL IN THE IMAGE OF THE HIGH PRIEST

Round sculpture in the art of this time does not play a role. She, like the relief, are a decorative element in architecture. Such are the monumental images of good geniuses, guardians of palace chambers and temple gates in the form of a powerful bull or lion with a human face and wings of an eagle. The front part was made round, the rest is given in high relief. They usually decorated the entrances to the palace in pairs, as if going out to meet the visitor of the palace from the span of the door. The figures of these kind geniuses also amaze with a witty trick to simultaneously show both swift action and peace - shedu were with 5 legs - while the basic principle of ancient Eastern art was not violated - not to give an image in reduction or foreshortening.

Sculptures of Ashurnasirapala himself have been preserved. The statue from the collection of the British Museum depicts the king in the form of a high priest, barefoot, girdled with cord, with his head uncovered. The statue occupied a central place in the temple, in a cult niche, being for the deity a reminder of his priest and servant, and for the worshipers - an object of veneration.

Technically carefully executed, this sculpture represents an almost regular, undivided cylinder, strict symmetry is broken only by the bent left hand, in which the king holds a mace, while the figure of the king is designed to be viewed from the front.

The interior of the palace was distinguished by extraordinary splendor and wealth, as evidenced by the fragments of ivory plates found in Kalhu with the finest carvings depicting the king and the geniuses around him.

BOARD OF TIGLAT-PILASAR 3

A new brilliant flowering of art comes from the reign of Tiglath-pileser 3 (745-727), during which Assyria, after inter-political strife, again begins to occupy a leading position in Western Asia. Under Tiglathpolasar, conquered lands become provinces. Also under Tiglathpalasar, Phenicia was conquered, which was hated even more than Assyria. The armies of Assyria reached Damascus, while the Arabs helped in expeditions to the East. The Phoenicians were the main navigators of the entire ancient world. But, despite the fact that in the ancient world religious cults were close, in Phoenicia there were the most cruel features of this cult - child sacrifices. Therefore, for example, the Punic Wars were held under the slogan that they eradicate the most cruel pagan religion (according to Chesterton)

To break the uprisings, they introduced a policy of eradicating the indigenous population or resettling peoples in new lands.

REIGN OF SARGO 2

The residence remains Kalhu, but the successor T., Sargon 2 (Sharrukin, 722-702) moved the capital from Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad), not far from Nineveh. His successor, Sennacherib, who devastated and destroyed Babylon, made Nineveh the capital.

Nineveh stretched for 4 km along the river, i.e. was larger than Babylon in extent within its inner walls. At this time, there is building supervision: any builder who moves his house beyond the allowable line will be impaled on the roof of his own house.

DUR-SHARRUKIN PALACE

The classical plan of the palace of that time was considered Dur- Shurrukin. It was built on a powerful terrace to protect against soil water on the smoothed surface of the hill, while clay and sand were dragged by hand. Dur-Sharrukin is a rectangle city with 8 gates and 3 temples. The palace was surrounded by ramps for chariots, prisoners and trophies.

The palace, as it were, was inscribed in the city, dominated it, facing it with a facade. A wide city wall with loopholes, level with the terrace, approached the palace from 2 sides. Part of the palace, where the king's living quarters were located, acted as a huge bastion outside the city walls. On this side, the palace was perfectly fortified by a steep hillside.

From the royal chambers there was a view of the river, one of the tributaries of the Tigris, and the hilly expanses of the steppe.

The dwelling is divided into three parts: seraglio- front part with reception rooms ( selamlik), harem- private quarters of the king and his family, and khan- service premises. Also next to the chambers of the palace was a temple - ziggurat. To the left of the entrance to the large courtyard was a part of the palace, completely isolated from other rooms, with a small number of passages and an unusual pomp of decoration even for this palace, which turned out to be a complex of sanctuaries of 6 deities, and the alcoves were cellami where the images of deities stood.

The bottom wall of the central courtyard of this sanctuary was lined with glazed bricks: on a blue background, images of fertility symbols (a fig tree with green leaves and yellow fruits, a plow, a bull) were given. In some parts of the courtyard, columns with stone bases and wooden trunks were the supporting pillars.

There were also 2 main entrances - one in the depths of the vast courtyard, which overlooked the royal chambers, the other - along the facade of the palace facing the city, with a wide central passage intended for the king and 2 side ones. The facade was decorated with 6 genii, and 2 giant figures of Gilgamesh defeating the lion stood at the central passage.

The same impression of majesty was given by the arch of the entrance gate, the characteristic form of the Assyrian, still reed dwelling.

The seraglio had 10 courtyards and more than 60 rooms and passages. And the palace itself occupied a space of 10 hectares and was one of the most magnificent buildings in Assyria.

One of the most important motifs of the reliefs in the palace was the motif of the capture of Lakesh.

Some rooms of the palace of Sargon 2, in addition to reliefs, had murals, the main subjects of which were processions in which the king was accompanied by eunuchs.

PALACE murals in Til-barsiba

Thanks to the excavations of the palace in Til-Barsib, the most interesting paintings were found, which were stylistically divided into 2 large groups: the earlier ones date back to the time between the middle of the 9th and the first quarter of the 8th centuries. BC, the latest dates back to the time of Ashurnasirapala. The background of the murals is a white lime plaster, a thin layer superimposed on a mud wall, previously covered with a layer of clay with chopped straw. It is curious that the palace originally belonged to the king, so the paintings showed the procession of the king with eunuchs. However, when the palace passed into the possession of the commander - turtan, the retinue was supposed to portray warriors. The master smeared over the shaved chins and added on the beards, although the artist left the rest of the eunuchs' decoration, except for a few little things, untouched.

From the sketches of the riders, it became clear that the artist initially drew the outline with black paint, and then applied other colors, the set of which was not rich: reddish-brown, ultramarine blue, black, white, sometimes pink and blue, the latter is easily sprayed and disappears.

Neither yellow nor green is ever found in the paintings, but in the palace of Sargon2 they are found in colored glaze. The painting is always flat, without chiaroscuro, all images can be considered conditionally painted drawings - horses can be pink and bulls are blue.

The motif of geometric ornament prevails.

Palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh

New features are given by the palace of the heir to Sargon 2 Sennacherib in Nineveh, where the doors were located along a straight axis, enfilades of halls lined with stone slabs depicting scenes of hunting, wars and palace life were created. The facades were decorated with images of Lamash, but for the first time the 5th leg was no longer carved, probably under the influence of a more realistic style in art. Sennacherib ceased to be afraid of enemies and assassins. Sennacherib, according to historians, was the first emperor on the Assyrian throne of Nineveh, which became the center of civilization, as, for example, Nero in Rome. Nineveh became a symbol of murder, plunder, oppression, violence against the weak, war, a bloody change of rulers who kept on the throne only through terror and who almost never managed to get away with their own death.

The walls of Nineveh were said to be "the one that, with its terrible radiance, casts off enemies." She stood on a foundation of 4 slabs at her corners. It was 40 bricks wide (10 m), 24 m high. There were 15 gates in it, around it there was a moat 42 m wide. A real miracle of architecture of that time was the bridge across the river leading from the Garden Gate.

In the western part of the city was the palace of Sennacherib. He ordered to tear down the old buildings that interfered with the construction, as he was overwhelmed by the construction fever. This was especially evident in Ashur during the construction of the temple of the main deity of the city. Around the temple, on an area of 16,000 m², huge pits were punched in the rocks, interconnected by underground channels. The pits were filled with earth, as the king wanted to see a garden here.

The same changes occurred in the canon of the image. On the reliefs of Sennacherib, the figures become smaller, the master moves from frieze construction to unifying the entire wall composition with a landscape, which distinguishes him from the early colossal reliefs, although even now they are not interested in an individual person.

Ashurbanipal Palace

The time of the last heyday of the Assyrian kingdom is the reign of Ashurbanipal (668-633 BC), who was not only a typical eastern tyrant, but at the same time was an intellectual, patron of the arts and simply an enlightened person. He was a passionate collector of clay books, for which he sent his associates to buy wherever possible, or to copy if there was such a need. On the other hand, Nineveh is a den of lions, which is largely due to the fact that in the palace of Ashurbanipal, a passionate hunter, there were many images of his fights with lions, which will be discussed later.

He also continued the aggressive policy of his predecessors, despite the fact that the struggle to maintain unity in the state cost him a lot of work. All uprisings were put down with brutality.

When the Ashurbanipal Palace with its extensive library was opened, the unsystematic excavations did not allow to restore the plan and details of the palace, so the most complete study can be carried out with works of easel art - reliefs, sculptures.

The extensive library of Ashurbanipal was moved to the British Museum. Most of the tablets were broken, so Layard, who discovered the library, assumed that they were on the 2nd floor, which collapsed. A total of more than 30 thousand tablets were found, which the Assyrian kings forced to copy in all the famous centers - in Uruk, in Sippar, Babylon. These tablets contain all the works, summaries of knowledge of previous times. The "books" were systematized, there were dictionaries and subject indexes, individual series were stored in wooden boxes - proof of the high value and care for the work. There is a text that puts the book under the protection of a deity: “A copy of such and such. Whoever fears the god Naboo, let him not harm or carry her away.”

The British Museum was actively working to decipher the Ashurnasirapal library. Particularly interesting was the deciphered text "About All-Seeing", which told the story of the flood, discovered by the young scientist J. Smith. Thanks to the wide interest of the public, Smith was able to go to Persia and in 1873. found the missing parts of the "book", which was recognized as a great monument of literature and poetry. The name of the hero of the story is Utnapishtim. The first 10 tables are dedicated to Gilgamesh, who meets the immortal Utnapishtim on his wanderings and asks him about immortality, the same one speaks of the impending flood. Utnapishtim is warned of a flood, and Ea, the god of reason and the deep sea, advises him to build a ship. When the flood began, the gods themselves were the first to regret it. The ship landed on the summit of Mount Nisir, southeast of Nineveh, beyond the Tigris and the Lower Zab. On the seventh day, a dove was released, but he returned, then a swallow, the last to be sent was a raven: “Having set off, the raven saw the decline in water, did not return: it croaks, eats and shits.” An altar was set up there, with 7 and 7 incense burners filled with cedar, reed and myrtle. The gods came to the sacrificer. However, the head of the gods Bel-Enlil was outraged that any of the people remained alive, since none of the mortals should have survived. But Ea, the god of reason, defended Utnapishtim, after which he and his wife became godlike. Other peoples also have a legend about the flood, but the most expressive is the legend “About the One Who Seeed Everything”. The fact that the flood was real is also evidenced by the fact that the Babylonian chronology is divided into "before the flood" and "after the flood". the biblical myth appeared much later, is a rehash of the Babylonian.

Ashurbanipal was a passionate hunter, so it is important to familiarize yourself with the reliefs depicting hunting, as they give the best idea of Assyrian art.

We can distinguish several significant steps in comparison with the time of Ashurnasirapala.

1. Realism in the depiction of animals was brought to a high perfection, in the depiction of lions there is more humanity than in humans;

2. An unusually richly developed device for the narrative development of the plot (for example, the image of a lion released from a cage);

The scene of the horsemen hunting the lion was built with great skill. The central place is Ashurbanipal on horseback and his spare horse. They are surrounded by lions on both sides, but their fate has already been decided - Ashurbanipal plunges a spear into the mouth of the first lion, the second is pierced by several arrows. Thus, successive moments of action are given.

Unusually expressive individual figures of animals on different reliefs (a dying lioness, dogs, a herd of gazelles in the steppe, etc.)

Wounded Lioness

This relief was found in Kuyundzhik. Arrows pierced the body of the lioness, her spine was broken, but, dragging her paralyzed hind legs, she lifted her upper body with the last effort and, stretching her muzzle, froze in a death jerk. In terms of depth of expression and penetration, this relief can be safely placed next to the best works of world art.

PIR IN THE GARDEN

There is an image of a woman - Ashurbanipal's wife. And on the tree hangs the head of the Elamite king Theolam.

After the death of Ashurbanipal, a huge uprising began in Assyria, in July 612 BC. Nineveh was taken by the king of Babylon Nabopolassar in alliance with the king of Media and subjected to complete destruction. There is a description of the destruction of Nineveh in the Bible, given by a contemporary of the events - Nahum: “A destructive hammer rises against you, Nineveh, guard the strongholds, guard the road, gird yourself, strengthen yourself with all your might ... the shield of his warriors (the Assyrian king) is bloodied; his warriors in purple robes (...); Woe to the bloodthirsty city, robbery does not stop in it. You only hear the slap of the whip and the sound of spinning wheels ... ". Nineveh was plundered and burned, but the Assyrians were so hated by all the peoples around them that they destroyed the city without a trace. This was due to the fact that the Assyrians took away the captive peoples, planting them on their lands and dooming them to lifelong slavery. This is reflected in the reliefs depicting the wars and robberies of the Assyrian kings.

The country was devastated, the conquerors destroyed the Assyrian priests and scribes. Along with them, cuneiform writing in Assyria also perished, and Phoenician-Aramaic writing came into practice. However, the period of 2 heyday of Babylon was not long. In 538 B.C. Babylon was taken by the Persian king, who defeated Belshazzar, the last Babylonian king, Cyrus 2.

Assyria's own contribution to the culture of the ancient world was still insignificant. It is known that in literature she owns nothing of her own, except for the royal military annals, although even they were wonderful works, vivid in their expressiveness of the rhythmic language, with an amazing system of images.

Their characteristic feature was that they were always written not in the dialect native to the Assyrians, but in the Akkadian literary language - Babylonian.

At a fairly high level of development were military equipment and related industries - the construction of bridges, roads, aqueducts, fortresses, etc.

Architects have achieved unprecedented success. The buildings had blank walls, the rooms opened onto the courtyard. Light entered the room through small holes made either directly in the ceiling or in the walls above the ceiling. Since the buildings were built of raw brick, which does not allow complex architectural forms, the architects used straight lines, alternating ledges and niches, an open portico with pillars and 2 towers on the sides - "Hittite bit-khilani".
As mentioned earlier, the ziggurat usually had a stepped design.

However, despite the fact that the achievements of Assyrian art were relatively small, it still largely influenced the official art of the next great power - Persia, in which the elements of stencil and decorative images were only strengthened.

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The largest role in the history of the Ancient East in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. played by Assyria. The origins of Assyrian art date back to the 3rd millennium (Ancient Ashur), but it received its highest development only in the 1st millennium BC, from which the largest number of monuments have survived. At this time, Assyria became a major military-despotic slave-owning power, claiming dominance in the entire Ancient East. The dominion of Assyria, which waged great predatory wars, spread to Western Asia from Iran along the Mediterranean Sea and reached the capital of Egypt - Thebes. 9th - 7th centuries BC. - the time of the highest rise of Assyrian art, which absorbed and in a new way transformed much of what was found in the previous time. On a large scale, during this period, Assyria's cultural relations with other countries were carried out. Around the 7th c. BC. The Assyrians are in direct contact with the Greeks. The latter, through Assyria, adopted many of the cultural achievements of the Ancient East; in turn, the Assyrians got acquainted with a new, previously unknown world.

The socio-economic system of Assyria was based on cruel exploitation and enslavement of a huge mass of the population. All power (both civil and priestly) was concentrated in the hands of the Assyrian kings; art was required to glorify military campaigns and sing of royal prowess. This found its most consistent expression in the reliefs of the Assyrian palaces. Unlike the more ancient art of Mesopotamia and the art of Egypt, Assyrian art was predominantly secular in nature, despite the connection between art and religion that existed in Assyria, typical of all ancient Eastern cultures. Architecture, which continued to be the leading form of art, was dominated not by cult, but by fortress and palace architecture. The architectural complex of the palace of Sargon II in Dur-Sharrukin (now Khorsabad) has been studied better than others. It was built in the 8th century. BC, simultaneously with the city, built according to a specific plan in the form of a square with a rectangular grid of streets. The city and the palace were surrounded by a fortress wall. An interesting feature of the planning was the construction of the palace on the line of the city fortress wall in such a way that one part of it turned out to be within the city, and the other went beyond it. A number of buildings adjoined the palace from the side of the city, constituting an official and sacred area, which included a temple and other structures. This whole complex, including the palace, was in turn surrounded by a fortress wall, forming a citadel, separated from the city and thus protected not only from external enemies, but also from internal ones, in case of an uprising in the city.

The palace stood on an artificial embankment, the construction of which required 1,300,000 cubic meters of alluvial earth and the use of a huge amount of slave labor. The embankment consisted of two terraces located side by side in the form of the letter T, 14 m high and occupied an area of 10 hectares. With its layout, the palace went back to the usual residential building in Mesopotamia, but, of course, it was many times larger. Enclosed rooms were grouped around numerous interconnected open courtyards, and each courtyard with adjacent rooms formed, as it were, a separate isolated cell, which could also have defensive significance in the event of an attack. A feature of the palace was the asymmetry of the general layout. Nevertheless, the palace was clearly divided into three parts: a reception room, extremely richly decorated, residential, connected with service premises, and a temple, which included temples and a ziggurat.

Unlike the ancient ziggurat of Ur, the Khorsabad one consisted of seven tiers. The lower tier had 13x13 m at the base and 6 m in height, the subsequent ones, decreasing in size, ended with a small chapel. It can be assumed, although the ziggurat has come down to us in ruins, that the total height of the building was about a ten-story building. Thanks to the decorative treatment of the wall, which had vertical protrusions, and the line of the ramp, decorated with a parapet, the mass of the building acquired a certain lightness, without violating the general monumental character of the architecture.

Long ribbons of relief stretched at the level of human growth through the halls of the Assyrian palaces. In the Khorsabad palace, 6000 square meters were occupied with relief. m. Researchers believe that there were cardboards on which artists applied the general contours of images, while countless assistants and students copied individual scenes and performed the details of the compositions. There is also evidence to suggest the presence of sets of stencils of hands, feet, heads, etc., both for depicting humans and animals. Moreover, sometimes, apparently in a hurry to complete the task, the figures were composed of arbitrarily taken parts. This assumption becomes especially probable when one recalls those huge areas that were occupied by relief compositions, and those small lines that were provided for decorating palaces. Working on large planes of the wall required to some extent a broad manner and generality. Sculptors carved figures that hardly stood out from the background, but with sharply defined contours. Details were usually rendered in incised, deep relief (en creux), while decorations were engraved rather than carved (embroidery on clothes, etc.).

The plots of the compositions were mainly war, hunting, scenes of everyday life and court life, and, finally, scenes of religious content. The main attention was focused on those images where the king was the central figure. All the work of Assyrian artists was directed to his glorification. Their task was also to emphasize the physical strength of the king, his warriors and retinue: we see in the reliefs huge people with powerful muscles, although their bodies are often shackled by a conditional canonical pose and heavy, lush clothes.

In the 9th century BC, under Ashurnasirpal II, the Assyrian state reached its greatest exaltation. Distinctive features of the art of this period are simplicity, clarity and solemnity. In the transfer of various scenes on reliefs, the artists tried to avoid overloading the image. Almost all the compositions of the time of Ashurnasirpal II lack landscape; sometimes, as, for example, in hunting scenes, only a flat line of soil is given. One can distinguish here scenes of a historical nature (images of battles, sieges, campaigns) and images of palace life and ceremonial receptions. The latter include the most carefully executed reliefs.

The figures of people, with rare exceptions, are depicted with the conventionality characteristic of the Ancient East: shoulders and eyes - straight, legs and head - in profile. The models of the masters of this time seem to be reduced to a single type. The diversity of scale is also preserved in the depiction of persons of different social status. The figure of the king is always completely motionless. At the same time, the greater observation of the artists is reflected in these reliefs. The naked parts of the body are executed with knowledge of anatomy, although the muscles are exaggeratedly emphasized and tense. Great expressiveness is given to the poses and gestures of people, especially in mass scenes, where the artist, depicting warriors, foreigners, servants, did not feel bound by the canon. An example is a relief with a scene of a siege by Assyrian troops of a fortress, which is one of a whole series of reliefs that tells about the victorious campaigns of Ashurnasirpal and glorifies his power. In execution, these reliefs, like the literary works of that time (the royal chronicles), are somewhat dry and protocol, they carefully list the small details of weapons, etc., depicting the most cruel and bloody scenes with dispassionate monotony. assyrian art architecture

In the 8th c. BC. some new features appear in Assyrian art. The reliefs and murals from the palace of Sargon II (722 - 705 BC) are related to the previous ones by the severity of manner, the large size of the figures and the simplicity of the composition. But artists show great interest in the appearance of people. The musculature becomes less exaggerated, although its processing is still very strong and sharp. The performers of the reliefs also try to convey some individual features of a person's appearance, which is especially noticeable in the image of Sargon himself. A more thorough study of the model forces the artists to dwell on such details, for example, as skin folds on the neck, etc. In reliefs with images of animals, movement is well and correctly conveyed. Artists begin to observe nature more closely, a landscape appears. With great reliability, the features of the areas and countries through which the Assyrian troops passed in their numerous campaigns are transmitted. The same can be observed in literature, the best example of which is the annalistic description of the eighth campaign of Sargon. According to the interpretation, the relief remains as flat as in the previous time, but dryness disappears, and the contour of the figure becomes smoother and more rounded. If earlier, in the reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II, the artists tried to convey power and strength by the size of the depicted or exaggerated muscles, now the same theme is revealed in a different, more complex way. For example, singing victories, the artists show the difficulties overcome by the Assyrian army, carefully conveying the landscape in every detail.

At the end of the 8th - beginning of the 7th c. BC. further development of the relief can be noted. Compositions become much more complicated, sometimes overloaded with details that are not directly related to the plot. For example, in the scene "Construction of the Palace of Sennacherib", along with a detailed depiction of the work being done, the surrounding landscape is depicted, which includes scenes of fishing, rafting, and even a herd of wild boars wandering in the reeds. The same is now characteristic of reliefs depicting scenes of battles and campaigns. Wanting to diversify the long rows of walking figures in mass scenes, the artist resorts to various techniques, showing the different positions of the heads and the movement of the hands, the different gait of the depicted. The abundance of details and a large number of figures increase simultaneously with a decrease in their size. The relief is now divided into several tiers.

The Assyrian relief reached its highest development in the 7th century BC. BC, during the reign of Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (668 - 626 BC). The content of the images remained the same: they all glorified the king and explained the phenomena of life by the divine will of the lord. The central place in the reliefs that adorned the palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh was occupied by battle scenes telling about the military victories of the Assyrian king; scenes of royal hunting are also numerous. Motives become very diverse. In the visual arts, the tendencies of the previous period are developing with great force, and the features of realism are significantly enhanced. In constructing complex scenes, artists strive to overcome difficulties in depicting movement and foreshortenings. All compositions are very dynamic. In this regard, hunting scenes are best performed, more than others saturated with life and movement. The scenes of hunting for gazelles and wild horses are remarkable for their laconicism and power of expressiveness. The naturalness of the poses of the animals, the feeling of the steppe expanse, achieved by the free and at the same time superbly rhythmically organized placement of figures on the plane and large fields of unoccupied space, make these reliefs be attributed to the heights of Assyrian art. The relief technique has also reached great perfection. But at the same time, in the art of Ashurbanipal's time there are also features of stagnation, manifested in the growth of decorativeness, a kind of heraldic abstraction, leading away from the truth of life, in a certain refinement of execution, which becomes an end in itself.

In round sculpture, the Assyrian craftsmen did not achieve such perfection as in relief. Assyrian statues are few in number. Depicted usually in strictly frontal frozen poses, they are dressed in long clothes that hide the forms of the body under a carefully ornamented costume - a feature that makes these statues related to many figures on reliefs, where clothes also served as a plane for drawing the smallest details of embroideries and other decorations. An example of Assyrian round sculpture is a small limestone statue of Ashurnasirpal II, dressed in heavy long clothes (9th century BC), extremely flatly interpreted, it looks more like a board than a three-dimensional figure. The statues of secondary gods originating from Khorsabad and holding magical vases with flowing water in their hands have the same character. The flat character of such statues can be explained by their dependence on architecture, since they are undoubtedly designed to be perceived against a wall. A somewhat different type of statue of the god Nabu (8th century BC, British Museum), distinguished by massiveness and volume.

In the history of the culture of the ancient world, Assyria, during the period of its power, united most of the countries of Western Asia, played an important role. The Assyrians took over from the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia and enriched the system of cuneiform writing, scientific knowledge, literature and art. The famous library of Ashurbanipal, found in the ruins of his palace, testifies to the significant height of Assyrian culture for its time. In architecture and fine arts, the Assyrians developed many of the main features developed by the preceding cultures of Mesopotamia. Full of originality, having high artistic merit for its time, the art of Assyria represents a bright page in the history of the art of the Ancient World. It had a great impact on the art of a number of neighboring countries and, in particular, on the art of Urartu, its closest neighbor and rival in the 1st millennium BC

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