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Proportions of Standing Figures in the North-West Palace of Aššurnaṣirpal II at Nimrud

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Gay Robins
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Extract

My purpose in this paper is to examine the proportions of standing figures in Neo-Assyrian art using methods similar to those that have proved effective on the art of ancient Egypt. In Egypt artists developed a canon of proportions for the human figure during the Old Kingdom, and by the 12th dynasty they had introduced a squared grid system as an aid to obtaining these proportions. Standing figures were drawn on a grid consisting of 18 squares between the hairline and the baseline, and key points of the body lay on or near particular lines. The junction of the neck and shoulders related to horizontal 16, the breast to 14, the elbow of the hanging arm to 12, the small of the back to 11, the lower border of the buttocks to 9 and the top of the knee to 6. The width across the shoulders was six squares and between the armpits four squares, so that the upper arm was a square wide.

Standing figures continued to be drawn on an 18-square grid at least into the 19th dynasty and probably throughout the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period. By the 25th dynasty the grid system had altered, and the 18-square system was replaced by one in which the squares were five-sixths of their size in the early system, so that there were now 21 squares between the base and top of the eye. Before this, however, from the mid-18th dynasty onwards, bodily proportions began to change, and this process can be charted by the changing relationship between some of the key points of the body and the lines of the grid. The levels of the small of the back, the lower border of the buttocks and the top of the knee all rise above their original positions, while the width across the shoulders was often reduced by roughly half a square and the width of the upper arm became less than a square wide.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 52 , 1990 , pp. 107 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1990

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References

1 Lepsius, C. R., Die Längenmasse der Alten (Berlin, 1884)Google Scholar; Mackay, E., Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 4 (1917), 74–85Google Scholar; Robins, G., Göttinger Miszellen 59 (1982), 61–75Google Scholar; Robins, G., Göttinger Miszellen 61 (1983), 17–25Google Scholar; Robins, G., Egyptian Painting and Relief (Aylesbury, 1986), 27–32Google Scholar.

2 Robins, G., Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 12 (1985), 101–116Google Scholar.

3 Robins, G., Egyptian Painting and Relief 34–37Google Scholar.

4 Paley, S. M., King of the World, Ashur-nasir-pal II of Assyria (883–859 B.C.) (New York, 1976), 12Google Scholar, postulated ‘a minimum number of guidelines’, consisting in the case of a particular eagle-headed figure of a bisecting horizontal and vertical, the latter passing through the ear. This method of analysis cannot be applied generally since in many eagle-headed figures the ear is absent or its position not clear. The Egyptian feature of an axial vertical through the ear bisecting the neck and upper trunk is certainly not characteristic of human-headed Assyrian figures.

5 Meuszyński, J., Die Rekonstruction der Reliefdarstellungen und ihrer Anordnung im Nordwestpalast von Kalhu (Nimrud) (Mainz, 1981)Google Scholar; Paley, S. M. and Sobolewski, R. P., The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations and their Positions in the North-West Palace at Kalhu (Nimrud), 2 (Mainz, 1987)Google Scholar.

6 These are: B-16, -23 (left), -23 (right), -26, -30 (left), -30 (right), -32; C-3, -4, -11, -b-2; F-1, -2, -3, -4, -6, -9, -14c, -16, -17; G-2, -4, -6, -7, -11, -12, -14, -15, -18, -27, -30, -31, -a-1, -c-4, -d-1, -d-2, -e-1, -e-2; H-1 (left), -1 (right), -2, -3 (left) -3 (right), -4, -5, -6, -10, -14, -23, -27, -30 (left), -30 (right), -31, -32 (left), -32 (right), -33, -34, -35, -b-1, -b-2; I-1 (right), -3 (right), -4, -12 (left), -12 (right), -13 (left), -13 (right), -17 (left), -17 (right), -18 (left), -20 (left), -23 (right), -24 (left), -24 (right), -26 (left), -26 (right), -27 (left), -27 (right), -28 (right), -29 (right), -30 (left), -30 (right); L-5, -6, -7, -8, -10, -11, -17, -18, (left), -18 (right), -33, -34, -35, -36; N-3, -5, -8, -13, -15, -16, -17, -19; S-6, -7, -8, -11, -12, -15, -17, -d-1; T-2, -6, -7, -8; Z-2 (upper), -2 (lower), -3, -6 (upper), -6 (lower), -8 (lower), -9, -a-1, -b-2.

Most of the photographs used are to be found in: Budge, E. A. W., Assyrian Sculptures 1 (London, 1914)Google Scholar; Meuszyński, J., Archäologischer Anzeiger 1976Google Scholar; Meuszyński, J., Etudes et Travaux 6 (1972), 27ff.Google Scholar; 8 (1975), 34 ff.; 9 (1976), 30 ff.; Ravn, O. E., Archiv für Orientforschung 16 (1952/1953), 231 ff.Google Scholar; Reade, J. E., Iraq 27 (1965), 119 ff.Google Scholar; 34 (1972), 87 ff.; Stearns, J. B., Reliefs from the Palace of Assurnasirpal II (AfO Beih. 15 Graz, 1961)Google Scholar; Weidner, E. F., Die Reliefs der assyrischen Könige (AfO Beih. 4 Berlin, 1939)Google Scholar.

For bibliography of individual orthostats, see Meuszyński, Reliefdarstellungen and Paley and Sobolewski, Relief Representations. In some cases, I have used my own or unpublished museum photographs.

7 In most cases there is a distinct junction between the line of the buttocks and the line of the back, and the measurement was taken where the two lines meet; occasionally they run into each other in a continuous curve, so that it is impossible to tell where the top of the buttocks lies; these examples could not be measured.

8 I would like to thank Roger Moorey and Janine Bourriau for allowing me to make these measurements.

9 Within a normal distribution curve approximately 68% of the items in the distribution fall within one standard deviation on either side of the mean, approximately 95% within two standard deviations in either side of the mean and approximately 99% within three standard deviations on either side of the mean. However, the more a distribution diverges from a normal curve, the harder it becomes to interpret the standard deviation precisely. But it remains true that the larger the standard deviation, the greater the dispersion.

10 Reade, , Iraq 27 (1965), 124–5Google Scholar; see also Meuszyński, , AA 1976, 477Google Scholar.

11 Reade, , Assyrian Sculpture (London, 1983), 18Google Scholar. Paley, , King of the World, 13Google Scholar, considered the slimmer figures to be of earlier date, possibly reflecting a time when the king himself was slim.

12 Reade, , Iraq 27, 123Google Scholar; Paley and Sobolewski, Relief Representation, 3 with note 7.

13 Another link between rooms H and L is the unique presence of long (26 line) inscriptions; see Reade, , Iraq 27, 121 and 124Google Scholar.

14 E.g. Meuszyński, Reliefdarstellungen, pls 8, 11, 12.

15 E.g. H-30, Steams, Reliefs, pl. 75; I-12, Meuszyński, , Etudes et Travaux 8 (1975), 51Google Scholar fig. 15; 1-27, Budge, Assyrian Sculptures, pl. 44; 1-30, Porada, E. and Hare, S., The Great King of Assyria (New York, 1946)Google Scholar, pl. 7.

16 Reade, , Iraq 27 (1965), 126CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 ibid.