The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced

Home > Other > The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced > Page 9
The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced Page 9

by Stephanie Dalley


  A further ambiguity in the wording is nalbaš ṣēni which Luckenbill translated as ‘sheepskins’; Heidel translated ‘wool’, despite its unsuitability in the context. The expression means literally ‘clothing/cloak of flocks’, and is not found in any other text. Since the common word for sheepskin or fleece was itqu, presumably nalbaš ṣēni had a different, metaphorical meaning which should fit the context of casting copper or bronze. If one skins a sheep, one detaches the leather-to-be from a whitish layer of fat which clings to the flesh like cloth. By scraping it off and melting it in a pan, one renders it into tallow, a useful and abundant substitute for beeswax in the casting process.

  The duplicate prism showed a sign, badly damaged on the first prism, clear enough to show that the ‘great tree-trunk’ and the ‘date-palm’ were made of copper or bronze, so they were metal castings, and not, therefore, living trees or timber from a real tree. But the crucial understanding of meanings for the copper objects gišmahhu and alamittu still eluded Heidel. He thought that the words were to be understood literally as ‘great tree’ and ‘(type of) palm-tree’, supposing that the castings were purely decorative, designed in some way to embellish whatever water-raising mechanism was involved. He presumably relied by then on the understanding of alamittu as Chamaerops humilis, the decorative fan-palm (which is now often planted outside hotels and airports around the Mediterranean). The identification of the Akkadian word had been made in 1924 in a study of ancient flora,12 and forty years later was still favoured by the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. There must have been a very specific reason for the choice of words. gišmahhu and alamittu are not a matching pair of items—the one used for a general category of large tree-trunks and the other a specific type of palm tree. For these reasons it is very unlikely that they refer to a purely decorative superstructure erected above a water supply.

  An understanding of the gišmahhu—literally ‘tall tree-trunks’—and alamittu-palm-trees still requires explanation, based on a metaphorical use of each word. gišmahhu is a compound noun, a Sumerian loanword in Akkadian which literally means ‘big log, tall tree-trunk’ according to its parts GIŠ ‘wood, tree’ and MAH ‘big, high’. It is a rare word, elsewhere found meaning a solid tree-trunk with the type of timber, such as cedar, added to qualify it. In the prism inscription the word gišmahhu lacks such a qualification. Its first component iṣu (corresponding to Sumerian GIŠ) is used in a much earlier text giving a mathematical problem for calculating the capacity of a cylindrical container, as ‘log’ with the meaning ‘cylinder’.13

  Since the cylinder is one of the two component parts of the water-raising screw, I decided to investigate whether the ‘alamittu-palm-tree’ could be understood as a screw. On discovering that the alamittu tree had been identified as the fan palm, I found two mature examples in Oxford’s Botanic Gardens, and to my delight their trunks displayed a spiral pattern where the fronds had dropped off as the tree grew taller (see Plate 4). This seemed to be the answer.14 Later, however, a severe critic wrote to tell me that Chamaerops humilis is not native to Iraq; in fact, it is largely restricted to the western Mediterranean. This had not been noticed by the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary when its editors accepted the identification. At about the same time I was beginning to understand how few Linnaean classifications correspond to ancient ones—naturally enough, since Linnaeus was reforming old systems along different, more analytical lines. Having ascertained from other cuneiform texts that alamittu grew on waste ground and had hard, inedible black fruit, I tried again, and established with the help of John Dransfield of Kew Botanical Gardens in London—a world expert on all kinds of palm trees—that it was almost certainly the wild, male date palm.15 The date palm is dioecious: to pollinate the fruit-bearing female tree, spathes from the male tree are sometimes tied on to the female in order to obtain the maximum of fruit. The Babylonians and Assyrians described this process of pollination with the verb rakābu ‘to ride’ which is also used of human and animal copulation.16 The relevance of its gender is shown below.

  No explanation has been found in previous studies of the word alamittu used in this context; the translation ‘crosspiece’ was given in the G volume (1956) of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, without justification, based entirely on the imagined structure, but abandoned for the A/1 volume that was published ten years later.17

  The identification, connecting a type of column to a gendered tree, had an unexpected application which links a feature of early Mesopotamian architecture with a Graeco-Roman concept. Several brick-built Mesopotamian temples of the Middle Bronze Age have a mud-brick façade on which spiral- and scallop-patterned tree trunks alternate as semi-engaged columns. Seldom do archaeologists find mud-brick buildings preserved to a height sufficient to show the external decoration of façades. But there are several examples of well-preserved temple façades of the early second millennium BC which display this feature. Both patterns result from the frond scars that are left when a palm frond drops off the tree as it grows higher (see Plate 4). The patterned façades have been found both in southern and northern Mesopotamia: at Ur, on the so-called Bastion of Warad-Sin,18 at Larsa on the temple of the sun-god, at Tell Basmusian in north-eastern Iraq,19 and at Tell al-Rimah in north-western Iraq as well as Tell Leilan in north-eastern Syria (see Figures 18 and 19). The distribution is particularly interesting because it shows that even in the north where the date palm does not produce good fruit, a temple was envisaged as a palm grove enclosing a sacred place.

  Fig. 18 A group from the 270 engaged columns of mud brick laid in a spiral pattern in a temple façade at Tell al-Rimah, NW Iraq, early second millennium BC. Similar columns have been excavated on other temples in ancient Mesopotamian cities.

  Fig. 19 Spiral-patterned engaged columns of mud brick in a temple façade at Tell Leilan in NE Syria.

  If the wild, male palm tree alamittu is represented by the spiral, and the cultivated female palm gišimmaru by the scallop pattern, that type of architectural façade represents the symbiosis of the wild and the cultivated. And since the tree has separate male and female forms, the two types may also have represented male and female principles, as forerunners of the Classical column types called male and female by Vitruvius, a Roman architect and engineer living in the time of Julius Caesar. He wrote that temples built in the Corinthian order were most suited to gentle goddesses, for the Corinthian column ‘imitates the slight figure of a maiden … whose ornaments should be unobtrusive’, ideal for a temple dedicated to the goddess Diana; whereas the Doric style, which ‘obtained its proportion, its strength, and its beauty, from the male figure’, is suited to mighty gods such as Mars and Heracles. He compared the fluting on Ionic columns with the folds of a woman’s garment, and the volutes on its capital with ‘graceful curling hair hanging on each side’.20 This gender distinction of column types is recognizable 2,000 years earlier on Mesopotamian temples. At Tell al-Rimah in northern Iraq, two stone sculptures were found, the one carved with a bearded male god flanked by spiral-patterned trunks, the other carved with a female goddess flanked by scallop-patterned trunks (see Figure 20). They date early in the second millennium BC.21 Some designs carved on early stone cylinder seals seem to show the same gender differentiation.22 Sennacherib’s grandson addressed Ishtar of Nineveh in the opening line of a hymn: ‘Oh palm tree, powerful one of Nineveh!’23 These details show that the two types of palm trunk are linked to male and female genders as deities. In other ancient representations of palm trees in their natural habitat—for instance late Assyrian sculptures showing landscape in southern Babylonia—date palms are shown either with spiral or with scallop patterns on their trunks (see Figure 21).24

  On many archaeological sites throughout the Levant ‘proto-Ionic’ or ‘Aeolic’ capitals and column bases have been found, and both Sargon and Sennacherib had a garden pavilion with columns of that kind, shown on the panels of palace sculptures. Careful research of the details has shown that the design of the volutes in that area is based upo
n the sprouting of shoots at the base of a date palm as well as the upper foliage.25 This understanding is obviously Near Eastern, and does not preclude a re-interpretation of the form as ram’s horns in Greek architecture. But it fits Vitruvius’ description of gender in column types, because the date palm has separate male and female forms.

  Fig. 20 (a) Stone sculpture of a bearded god with a palm tree showing a spiral-pattern trunk, impost block from the main temple at Tell al-Rimah, mid-2nd millennium BC. (b) Stone sculpture of a goddess with a palm tree showing a scallop-trunk palm, impost block from the temple at Tell al-Rimah, mid second millennium BC. Ht. of block 58cm.

  Plausibly, then, Sennacherib’s wonderful new casting, designed to lift water all day long, was some form of screw which he named with a metaphorical term. However, several problems were pointed out by critics. A screw cast separately from a cylinder and then fitted inside it, as I had understood the inscription, would not be feasible because water and debris would slip through the gap between them. Not until 1999, when I became involved in a BBC television programme Secrets of the Ancients, designed to cast a screw in bronze replicating Sennacherib’s work, did the solution become plain thanks to a discussion with the bronze-caster Andrew Lacey. He fully understood the practical advantages and the snags of different possibilities. To him it was clear: one made the mould in two pieces, but the casting came out as a single piece with the screw as an integral part of the cylinder. Clay rather than wax was used, extracted by poking and bashing after the firing.26 There was no need to fit two separately cast pieces together, with the problems of fitting, attrition and leakage that such a design would entail. The whole machine would have a hollow centre for inserting a pole, probably made of timber, which would take the wear and tear of rotation and could easily be replaced. Our bronze-smith used that method under very primitive conditions to cast a small screw—a modest one metre or so in length—and it worked (see Plates 5–7).

  Fig. 21 (a) Impression from a limestone cylinder seal showing spiral columns around the temple of the sun-god. The seal may be several centuries earlier than the excavated mud-brick temples with spiral columns. Ht. 2.5cm.

  Fig. 21 (b) Drawing of part of a design incised on an ivory pyxis found at Ashur, showing a tree with spiral trunk, marked as male by perching cockerels. Dated c.1400 BC. Ht. (whole pyxis) 9 cm.

  But, argued the critics, a full-size screw cast in this way would be a very different matter, and they suggested that such a casting would have been impossible at that period. Luckily the answer to this objection can be found in Paris, at the Louvre, where a huge pair of cast bronze, cylindrical, hollow ‘barriers’, rather like modern barriers for road-blocks and car parks, are on display (see Figure 22). They were excavated in western Iran at Susa, and firmly dated, by an inscription engraved on them, to the 12th century BC, some 420 years before the casting authorized by Sennacherib.27 The length of each is 4.36 m, diameter 0.18 m, thickness around 1.5 cm, and the weight is estimated at 125–130 kg.28 This demonstrates that large castings were made successfully long before the lifetime of Sennacherib, and that a huge hollow cylinder cast in a single operation was feasible.29

  Fig. 22 Barrier of cast bronze found at Susa, dated 12th century BC from the royal inscription on it.

  Other objections were raised about difficulties with bearings, but these are obviated when one points to the enormous doors in Assyrian palaces which had no hinges, but were attached to a vertical pole that swivelled in a socket. Administrative records show that doorkeepers were regularly allocated oil to keep the socket well lubricated, allowing the doors to open easily.

  The close match of details with various textual sources meets the objections, so it becomes harder to maintain a sceptical stance. The television programme showed that the screw raises water far more efficiently than a shaduf. The screw, which raises water imperceptibly in contrast to other machines, accords with Diodorus Siculus who wrote in the 1st century BC: ‘There were machines raising the water in great abundance … although no-one outside could see it being done’,30 and with Strabo who wrote in the same century that there were stairs rising up the slopes of the garden as in a Greek theatre, and ‘alongside these stairs there were screws through which the water was continually conducted up into the garden’,31 and Philo who described the screws in a more poetic way:

  Aqueducts contain water running from higher places; partly they allow the flow to run straight downhill, and partly they force it up, running backwards, by means of a screw; through mechanical pressure they force it round and round the spiral of the machines.

  Sennacherib’s new technique for casting bronze improved on the lost-wax process that had sufficed for all sizes of objects for at least 2,000 years, and would continue to be common for centuries to come. With that traditional method, the object required is modelled in wax or tallow, and then coated with clay, then baked so that the wax runs out through one or more holes left in the clay. As a result the mould turns from clay to terracotta. In a second operation, the mould is filled with molten metal and then left to cool before the mould is detached, often by breaking it. Sometimes a mould made of stone in two parts could be recovered intact and re-used; such have been found for small items such as jewellery and arrowheads.32 In the new technique, however, the inner contours of the desired object were modelled in reverse in clay, and a second clay mould modelled the outside surface, with a gap in between the two moulds which were linked by means of carefully placed pegs. A thin application of oil to the surfaces would help the molten metal to flow smoothly without sticking to the sides of the mould or allowing bubbles of air to form. There are two major advantages to this process: only a single firing is required; and large quantities of wax or tallow are not required.

  The method is quite similar to the one which people throughout China had practised since the Shang period, c.1500–1200 or earlier, although there is no suggestion that the beautifully made ceramic moulds of Chinese castings were imitated in Assyria. But news of the casting method, if not independently invented, could have reached Assyria, at least indirectly, by the time of Sennacherib, because soon after the Western Zhou period of Chinese history, c.1150–770 BC, chariotry and archery had become common in China.33 This was a result of close contact with Central Asian peoples, presumably nomadic, who lived north and west of the Yellow River, and whose activities extended across Central Asia into Iran and the Caucasus. These possibilities of influence make it less likely that the new method of casting in Assyria was really an independent discovery. Sennacherib’s adoption of a foreign technique for casting may be an example showing how open the Assyrians were to new ideas and technologies, especially when the king could outdo his predecessors in the size, weight and performance of his own inventive manufactures. Whereas each of Sargon II’s cast lions had weighed 17 tons, his son Sennacherib outperformed him with cast lions weighing 43 tons.34 A characteristic feature of royal inscriptions at that time was the claim that the new ruler was even more successful than his ancestors.

  Incidentally, the words which Luckenbill translated as ‘I built a form of clay and poured bronze into it, as in making half-shekel pieces’ were thought to be evidence that coinage had been invented by this time. But as the next part of the inscription makes clear, the passage is intended as a boast, that the king could cast the metal perfectly whether the casting was huge or tiny. Coinage was a much later invention, as is now generally accepted, although the wrong understanding of Sennacherib’s words still lingers.35

  In any case it is not necessary to deduce that Sennacherib’s engineers invented the water-raising screw and shortly afterwards cast it in bronze. It is much more likely that the mechanism was first manufactured in timber, a prototype modified and refined until casting a similar machine in bronze was envisaged as a daring and prestigious imitation of the original, wooden machine. Only then would Sennacherib’s bronze-smiths have cast one full-size in bronze.

  Excitement in Assyria over the new use of the spiral form may
have spilled over into other uses. The most obvious possibility is the design of a spiral staircase or ramp for the ziggurat built by Sargon at Khorsabad (see Figure 23). All other known ziggurats have straight stairways rising centrally up each stage of an essentially rectangular brick structure. But the Khorsabad ziggurat has its rectangular core encircled by a spiral ramp.36 Two minarets with external spiral ramps encircling a round core were built in the Abbasid period at Samarra in central Iraq, at a time when more of the temple tower at Khorsabad would have been preserved, so imitation is very likely.

  Sennacherib’s personal enthusiasm for the processes of bronze-casting is evident in a different context, in the inscription that records the building of his temple of the New Year festival in the city of Ashur. In an exceptional passage he boasted about his own skill and participation:

  Fig. 23 (a) Reconstruction drawing of ziggurat at Khorsabad with an external spiral staircase. (b) Minaret with external spiral staircase at Samarra, near Baghdad.

  I am capable of undertaking the casting of objects in silver, gold and bronze … melting from more than 1,000 talents to (as little as) one shekel, fusing them together, fashioning them skilfully. If you do not believe the (account of my) smelting that bronze, I swear by the king of the gods, Anshar, my creator, that I myself smelted that casting where this inscription is written, and the emplacement where the figure of Anshar and the figure of the gods who are with him—they march to battle against Tiamat—are depicted. For the standards (of the gods) let it be known that I smelted that casting by adding more tin to it. Understand from this that I myself smelted that casting.37

 

‹ Prev