Anyway, I shall leave you with all things historical again. A post from The Weaver of Grass, here:
http://weaverofgrass.blogspot.com/2009/11/biblical-kings.html
reminded me of something about the dim and distant past that I posted in the early days.
For poetry is like a glamorous mistress that I can give a few hours attention to; but I have a wife, and that is prose. Unfortunately I have no time for my wife at the moment, as she requires a far greater level of commitment from me. Once I sit down with her, I am there all night. The mistress allows me to drop by for a couple of hours and leave.
So here's some prose for a change.
The benevolent–faced winged bull
from the palace of Sargon II.
When you visit the British Museum run straight to room 10c, Assyria: Khorsabad. Here, in one object, the museum’s intention to “show the world to the world” is realised. Look at it. It will fill your eye, so gaze on it. It is the colossal winged bull (that much will be obvious) from the Palace of Sargon II.
Why this object? Why did I run to this very spot on every childhood visit, and why do I come to this spot still?
Well, it’s big. It’s the biggest thing in the museum. OK, so the Greek Temple (room 17: Nereid Monument) is actually the size of a ….. temple, but that’s built of separate stones. This is one solid object. Or rather, it was, before Henry Rawlinson, the British Resident in Baghdad, sawed it up so that the sixteen tons of alabaster could be transported to Bloomsbury. Now, every person in the world under the age of ten knows that the biggest is the best, just as the Americans do. Why, it could have been made in Texas. It’s the heaviest object in the museum as well! If Barnum could have got his hands on it, he would have – “Peerless Prodigies of Physical Phenomena featuring the Most Colossal Ancient Artefact known to man!” How well General Tom Thumb would have looked pictured between the bull’s great forelegs.
Should that event ever have occurred, and been sketched for the front page of The Illustrated London News, its novelty would not diminish one more shining fact about the winged bull. It is beautiful. The alabaster itself is a soft brown, darker, more burnished, at the bull’s legs from where ancient Assyrians passed by it daily and where the hands of awed visitors to the museum could not help but reach out to touch. Your hand will reach out, how could it not? Did you expect it to be warm too? Those massive legs, massively sculpted, and see the vein on the inner foreleg? Then follow the gracious line made by the outer foreleg and see how it continues into the wing, which sprouts from that point so low on the breast, then sweeps upwards and backwards so that the feather-filigreed limb seems ready to flap at any moment. Then step to the front and look up at that face. A human face, yes, but a face of benevolence, truth and beauty. Look and see. La belle et la bête combined. Who but the French could have dug this wonder up? And who but the French would have been content to fill their eyes and then leave it behind, as it was too much work to move it, and they would not defile it with saws.
Yes, wonder, but what exactly is it? To go further will, I’m afraid, require a history lesson, but have no fear, as the cat might say, “I can balance these books!”. The bull is Assyrian, and just over two and a half thousand years old. Oh, it has seen history, you will reply, but no, actually, it hasn’t. The city from which it came lasted little more than twenty years: alas for Sargon, who built Dar-Sharrukin (“Sargon’s fortress”) as his new capital, death in battle followed shortly after and his successor decided to decamp back to Nineveh. How resonant with its current resting place, for archaeology was born of man’s quest to discover the lost cities of legend. Those early searchers and excavators, filled with the stories of Homer and King James, filled this museum.
The bull is a lamassu, which is an Akkadian word. Akkadian was the language of Mesopotamia (cradle of civilisation, Tigris, Euphrates, you remember) and thus the language of the Assyrians and Babylonians. Lamassu itself comes from the earlier Sumerian word, lama: a lama is female. You may do a double take, understandably, for you see nothing of the feminine in those muscular alabaster flanks. And certainly not underneath them, for the lamassu is unquestionably a bull, moreover, a bull with a beard. However, this is no boy named Sue: the Assyrians did not seek to engender ferocity in their beast by use of a female appellation. Look up at the lamassu. He is comfortable with his name, for the Assyrians were no fools. An empire, occasionally interrupted, for nearly two millennia: their kings still hold the record for the longest lived dynasty in history. The Assyrians knew that the closest watchman, most vigilant guardian and fiercest protector of all she holds dear is the mother of the young. This was the lamassu’s job, to protect and guard an entrance from the forces of chaos and evil. Who is not weak before these two adversaries? Even the mighty Sargon II was as a child before them. So stand behind those great hind legs, shelter under that outstretched wing and remember the time you held onto another’s leg for protection. Return to the front of your guardian, look up again to his face. There is only love here for you. Yes, lamassu is fitting for this male demon.
Demon! When were demons ever benevolent! Relax, for Christianity will have its turn – just call it a spirit if you must, an intermediary. For it is as a spirit that the bull pulls off another continental shift. Perfect for the North Americans, who love size and venerate history, ideal for the Western Europeans because it combines beauty with learning, it is surely to the West Africans that the bull’s self means most. The Yoruba, who number a mere thirty million in Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and Togo, have a supreme being but their worship and rituals are centred on the Orishas, spirits and emissaries of their God, who rule the forces of nature and the fortunes of mankind. One of them is Eleggua, guardian of crossroads, doorways and gates: effigies of Eleggua are used to protect homes. In Africa there are people who live with spirits, people who can recognise the bull’s power for that which the Assyrians themselves intended. These people, this object, connect further yet, for the Yoruba have travelled as far as the lamassu from their home, with as little personal volition and with much violence too. The Yoruba made up the majority of the enslaved peoples of Africa, so Eleggua now guards gates and homes not only in that continent, but in Cuba, Brazil, Haiti, the Carribean and in the very Land of the Free itself.
An abomination, but a part of our world. And if the bull would turn his head and look to his homeland now, he would see complexity and tragedy just as surely as the black diaspora do: this too, our world.
But do not despair. Look up at this work of the mighty Sargon and you can see the glories, hopes, histories and humours of the world too. Just like demons, the lamassu is legion. Turn around. His twin is ten feet from you. Walk ten yards and there are two more (Room 6b, Assyrian Sculpture). The Louvre has the pair the French could be bothered to move. In fact, it’s hard to find a major European or American museum that hasn’t got a lamassu or two (they tend to come in pairs, being gatekeepers). The same was true for Iraq, of course. So Henry Ford’s process, adopted by every industrial nation, perfected by the Japanese, stands before us. Picture Special Grade Ashur-san at the quarry, the bull rough-hewn by the 3rd and 2nd grade workers after their mass exercise session and then shipped by river to Dar-Sharrukin, where more 3rd grade workers haul it into position (there is probably a Special Grade to supervise this, as it can’t have been easy, see “French”), to be finally finished by the 1st grade workers (minimum, six years experience). Again, and again and again. And again, for there were a lot of gateways in this civilisation. And after all that glorious, unified work? That final touch that shows us the bull really knows our world. Some ASBO’ed Assyrian youth or indolent gateman (the one’s presence deterring the other, obviously) graffittis a gaming board onto the plinth (yes, go and look, between the front and hind legs, it’s right there). How we relish the chance to take a chance on chance. It could be you!
Ah, humanity. But goodness, do we not have religion? Actually, Yoruba and Vodoo (N.B., not P.C., use Vodoun) are now classed as religions. Oh, you mean the Great Religions. Of course! The Jew, and all Boney M fans, will see a potent image of the Exile: the Christian, manna from heaven itself, as just when Darwinism was challenging their Creation, Khorsabad was unearthed, and with it the name of Sargon. Look, it’s there, incised in cuneiform, between the bull’s front and hind legs. Prior to the digging, this king was known only from the Bible, and thus discounted as merely fabulous. But Sargon was real, so the Bible was history. Soon after, cuneiform tablets that detailed the flood were found. Apes, indeed! And for the Muslim, here is their history prior to the Prophet (may the peace and blessing of Allah be upon him). Yes, the one God who resides in the hearts and minds of all these children of Abraham is here.
So you see, this single object in this singular museum can show you the world. But wait. Look again. Gaze at it, it will fill your eye. The great bull stands still, untroubled by association. It is what it is, a breathtaking masterpiece that can move your soul. For Shelley was as wrong as his imagined king, there is no despair or futility here. For this, look again, this wonderful thing, was created by man. From a lump of stone in a desert land made fertile by water, man has made this. Here is our divine spark. Here is the absolute.
Have a good weekend.
Finally, let's get one thing clear. I have never kissed Shane MacGowan. And if the boys from the NYPD choir start singing "Galway Bay", it's Fort Apache, The Bronx, all over again.
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