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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2014
During the 1993 season of excavations at Tell Ahmar, three pieces of a life-size basalt statue were found in a pit dug into one of the large walls surrounding an Iron Age vaulted tomb (Fig. 1). The head, the tors o and the lower part fitted together perfectly. When correctly assembled, these three pieces formed the figure of a standing beardless man with clasped hands (Fig. 2a−b). Only the feet were missing. The maximum height of the reconstructed statue is 1.45m. It was clear from the damage to portions of its body that the statue had been deliberately broken in antiquity. Details, such as a large hole on the right side of the chest, a smaller one on the top of the head and, above all, the defacement of the head suggest that the statue may have actually been “killed”.
All three pieces of the statue, which was carved out of a blue greyish basalt of medium texture, were found lying on their backs (Fig. 4). The head lay next to the lower part of the statue, but was buried in a slightly deeper position. The relative placement of these fragments seems to be a clear indication that the statue was not knocked down at this particular spot, but was brought to this location in separate pieces, perhaps with the deliberate intention of burying them.
The head was cut off as if the statue had been decapitated. The torso was separated from the lower portion of the statue by an oblique cut that divided the figure just below the waist. The cut runs downwards from the back and continues underneath the clasped hands at the front, leaving the hands almost completely undamaged. The lower part of the statue seems to have been separated from the missing feet by a horizontal cut. This may indicate that the base of the statue was left in situ, probably because it was solidly set in the ground.
The statue has been on display in the Aleppo Museum since June 1994. I would like to thank Mr W. Khayyata, Director of the Antiquities of the Aleppo region, and Mr H. Hammade, keeper of the Near Eastern Antiquities of the Aleppo Museum, for their efficient assistance in this matter.
1 The height of the pieces is as follows: head: 0.37 m; torso: 0.34m at the back, 0.52m at the front; lower part: 0.62m at the back, 0.56 m at the front. The total preserved height is thus 1.33 m at the back and 1.45 m at the front.
2 See below.
3 See below.
4 Assaf, A. Abou, Bordreuil, P., Millard, A. R., La statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-araméenne (Paris 1982), p. 5 Google Scholar and Pl. I.
5 See Strommenger, E., Die neuassyrische Rundskulptur (Berlin 1970)Google Scholar; Spycket, A., La statuaire du Proche-Orient ancien (Leiden-Cologne 1981), pp. 359–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Abou Assaf et al., La statue de Tell Fekherye. Adad-Yis'i is called “governor” in the Akkadian inscription and “king” in the Aramaic one.
7 Spycket, , La statuaire, pp. 370–1Google Scholar.
8 Ibid., p. 371 and fn. 54.
9 On stylistic grounds the statue from Fekheriyeh has been dated to the 8th century BC and probably the reign of Tiglath-pileser III by Spycket, A., “La statue bilingue de Tell Fekheriyé”, RA 79 (1985), 67–8Google Scholar, although the epigraphic and historical evidence seem to favour a date in the second half of the 9th century BC (Abou Assaf et al., La statue de Tell Fekherye, pp. 103–13).
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14 Cf. BM 124553 ( Barnett, R. D. and Forman, W., Assyrian Palace Reliefs [London, n.d.]Google Scholar, Pl. 28).
15 BM 118882 (Barnett and Forman, op. cit., Pl. 36).
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24 For example, the wall-paintings from Room XXIV of the palace at Til Barsib (Thureau-Dangin and Dunand, Til-Barsib, Pl. LI [XXIV i]; Pl. XLIX [XXIV abc]: Pl. L [XXIV d] and Pl. L [XXIV gh]); the wall-paintings of the throne-room at Fort Shalmaneser ( Mallowan, M., Nimrud and its Remains II [London 1966], pp. 379–80)Google Scholar.
25 Spycket, La statuaire, Fig. 231.
26 Abou Assaf et al., La statue de Tell Fekherye, Pls. I, IV.
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28 Thureau-Dangin and Dunand, Til-Barsib, Pls. XLIX, L, LI, LII.
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30 Ibid., p. 111. The identification with Hazael, king of Damascus, which is often suggested, does not seem very convincing.
31 Assaf, Abou et al., La statue de Tell Fekherye, p. 7 Google Scholar and Pls. I–II.
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36 Thureau-Dangin and Dunand, Til-Barsib, Pls. XLIX, LI and LII.
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40 According to Albenda, op. cit., p. 94, “Bracelets with rosette decoration are restricted to the Assyrian king, the high-ranking Assyrian officical, winged and wingless génies.”
41 Mallowan, , Nimrud and its Remains I Google Scholar, Fig. 28 on p. 65.
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