Ashurbanipal, King of the World, Slayer of Lions -- and a Lot of People

The Assyrians seem to have been remarkably ahead of their time. It was the 7th century BC; Ancient Rome had hardly got going, but Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria, expanded his empire to stretch across today's Middle East and into Egypt, and he was able to communicate with its farthest reaches in a few days by express mail along royal roads. He had a vast library and a cabinet of senior officials to help him govern (though they did tend to be eunuchs). 

And then there's the art. There's a brilliant vibrancy and plasticity about many of the reliefs and sculptures in I Am Ashurbanipal, King of the World, King of Assyria in the British Museum, a stunning show that brings the Assyrian Empire to life. It illustrates how Assyria was a very sophisticated and civilised society. But it was also an extremely violent and warlike one, and the Assyrians didn't cover up their brutality; they recorded it in writing on clay and in pictures on stone. 

To Assyrian eyes, it was the king's duty to expand the borders of the empire to create order in the world. "I flattened the land of Elam to its full extent,'' we find Ashurbanipal saying. "I deprived its fields of the clamour of humans, the sound of the treading oxen, sheep and goats, and the cries of pleasant work songs." 

We get many depictions of battle as we go through this show. Ashurbanipal, who ruled from 669 to 631 BC, had them on the walls of the splendid new palace he built in Nineveh and decorated to glorify his rule. But our first sight of him is at another typically royal pursuit: hunting.

Ashurbanipal is dressed in a richly embroidered garment, and his full beard symbolises his virility. He has a sword on one side of his belt and a writing stylus on the other. So he's ready for action, both mental and physical. He could be Henry VIII.

Of course, that arrow is heading straight for its target.

These panels depicting the king hunting are the first objects you encounter on your tour. It's astonishing how muscly and sinewy the animals are; this is no mere stylised depiction. This is one of the most impressive things you will get to see in this show, right at the outset. 

Just like making war was a duty for the king, so was hunting. To recreate the perfection of the world fashioned by the gods at the beginning of time, Ashurbanipal had to defeat the lion, the creature of the untamed wilderness. We see a panel later on in which he seizes a lion by the tail, and, as he relates, "through the command of the gods.... shattered its skull with the mace that was in my hand." 

Traces of pigment are evidence that the wall panels in Ashurbanipal's palace would originally have been brilliantly painted. One excellent feature of the British Museum show is the way coloured light is projected on to a couple of the reliefs to reproduce that effect. This one depicts lush parkland near Nineveh watered by an aqueduct. 

But Assyrian art wasn't just relief sculpture. This enigmatic -- and brilliantly lit -- face belonged to a sphinx that was part of the base of a palace column. Such sphinxes were thought to have magical protective powers. 

The British Museum has put together some amazing artefacts, virtually all from its own collection, but the show loses direction a little in the middle as it meanders through the artistic output of some of the kingdoms and peoples the Assyrians conquered. The compelling sculptural records of those military victories that you'll be coming back to shortly are the real stars of the show, however. The area in pink on the map shows the extent of the territory Ashurbanipal ruled over.

Early on, the curators furnish us with a who's who of the Assyrian royal family. It's perhaps best not to get too bogged down in the unfamiliar names and to concentrate on the actual exhibits, but there's one name you'll be meeting again after your tour of the colonies, and that's Ashurbanipal's big brother, Shamash-shumu-ukin.

Shamash-shumu-ukin was passed over in the royal succession stakes and was left to rule just Babylonia instead of the giant empire he might have felt entitled to. He lost patience with his younger sibling's interference and assembled a secret coalition against him. Ashurbanipal discovered the plot; war ensued and the king besieged Babylon for two years, culminating in the death of Shamash-shumu-ukin in a fire.

On the wall opposite this story of disease, starvation and fratricide, there are more bloody tales in stone, relating how Ashurbanipal defeated Teumman, the usurper who'd seized the throne of the neighbouring kingdom of Elam and had invaded Assyrian territory.

Clever use of lighting picks out sections of the story on the reliefs that are explained in projected captions. With sound effects! Think of the Battle of Borodino from a TV adaptation of War and Peace, just bloodier. A whole lot bloodier. Prisoners are flayed alive, tongues are cut out, rivers are filled with dead soldiers. And Teumman's severed head is paraded through the streets.

It's one constant round of death and destruction. But the images are fascinating. Here the Assyrian army captures an Egyptian town, using ladders to scale the walls while archers provide covering fire from behind protective shields.

In another scene, the Assyrian cavalry takes on Arab rebels on their two-man camels, with an archer at the rear and a driver who looks as if he can shoot and steer at the same time.

But after all this warmaking, a king needs to relax and enjoy the fruits of his triumphs. The reliefs of Ashurbanipal's victory over Elam culminate in the scene of a banquet in an idyllic palace garden in Nineveh. The king reclines on a carved couch, drinking from a bowl and holding a lotus blossom. His queen sits opposite him. Food is brought, music plays, birds flutter. But there are war trophies too, including a severed head, probably Teumman's, hanging from a tree.

This is a most engrossing exhibition; among the best we've seen in 2018. There is a coda too, relating how Islamic State fighters in Nineveh destroyed Assyrian remains, and how the British Museum is training Iraqi archaeologists to preserve what is still extant and make new finds. In the lands that were Assyria, brutality continues.

Practicalities

I Am Ashurbanipal is on at the British Museum in London until February 24 and is open daily from 1000 to 1730, with lates on Fridays to 2030. Closed December 24-26 and January 1. Full-price tickets are £17 and are bookable online here. The museum entrance is on Great Russell St, with Holborn and Tottenham Court Road the nearest Tube stations.

Also on at the British Museum 

It's not by any means in the same league as the Ashurbanipal show, but you can spend an amusing and informative hour or so in an exhibition curated by Private Eye editor Ian Hislop looking at dissent down the ages and around the world. I Object runs through to January 20.

Images

Relief detail of Ashurbanipal hunting on horseback. Nineveh, Assyria, 645–635 BC, British Museum. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
Detail of lion from same relief, British Museum. Photo: Art Exhibitions Blog
Relief panel from Nineveh showing parkland and watercourses, 645–640 BC, British Museum. Photo: Art Exhibitions Blog
Sphinx from Nineveh, 700-695 BC, British Museum. Photo: Art Exhibitions Blog
Map showing the extent of the Assyrian empire (in pink). Produced by Paul Goodhead. Courtesy of British Museum
Detail from relief from Nineveh showing Assyrian victory over Elamites, 645–640 BC, British Museum. Photo: Art Exhibitions Blog
Detail from relief from Nineveh showing Assyrian capture of Egyptian town, 645–640 BC, British Museum. Photo: Art Exhibitions Blog
Detail from relief from Nineveh showing Arab fighters on camel, 645–640 BC, British Museum. Photo: Art Exhibitions Blog
Relief of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh palace garden, 645–640 BC, British Museum. Photo: Art Exhibitions Blog