Ain Dara

By Carol Miller^*

"Do not bargain for fish that are still in the water."
Chinese Proverb

"This wooded land, of pomegranates and olive groves, Kurdish farms, and the ruined cities of long-forgotten people, all the way to the Euphrates," goes the legend, "is the land of Adam, the beginnings of civilization on the earth."

To judge from its archaeology this green and fertile region, with its pasturelands and luxuriant crops in the valley of the Afrin River -- a tributary of the Orontes flowing toward the plain of Amuq - has been disputed since time began. Hundreds of ceremonial sites on hilltops - one coveted "tel" after another - stretch from the Mediterranean all across to the Khabur-Euphrates watershed.

One of these is a very broad tel 40 kilometers northwest of Aleppo along the once-vital trade lanes between Antioch and Cyrrhus, with its vast lower city spreading around the foot of the rounded main mound. The hilly, wooded site was excavated principally by Syrian archaeologist Ali Abou Assaf in 1976, 1978, and again from 1980-85, revealing occupation that dates from Suleiman's l6th century Ottoman expansion, back through the Byzantine, Roman, Hellenistic, Persian, Iron and Late Bronze Ages.

The key discovery, however, crucial to any comprehension of the site, consisted in the celebrated neo-Hittite temple at Level VII, dated from 1300-740 B.C., a lovely conjunction of courtyards, one with its sacred well, the whole divided into three phases, or dimensions, the last of these piercing the nucleus, or the "holy of holies", on a plan similar to that of the Late Bronze Age "Area H" at Hazor or the Iron Age site at nearby Tell Tayinat.

Access to the interior of the temple is gained through a porch, flanked by typically Hittite gated towers and imposing rows of implacable carved stone animals, sculpted in the characteristically Hittite style. The floors were paved in white limestone to contrast with the gray basalt blocks, or orthostat (slabs) used to decorate the walls.

Like pottery, stone is one of the most common finds in archaeological excavations, because it is very nearly indestructible. In the ancient Near East stone was commonly used for a wide range of purposes, including, where available in any quantity, the buildings themselves, as well as sculpture, tools, vessels, seals, amulets and beads. In many areas the most readily available surface stones are still, as at Ain Dara, limestone and sandstone.

The quality of the stone naturally affected both the artistic and the architectural character of the construction and the desirability or aesthetic regard in which the product was held. Imported stone in areas otherwise devoid of it is documented in texts, such as the Mari archives. Mesopotamian scribes produced lists of stones, fortunately described according to their appearance since the names rarely coincide with modern terminology. Particular stones were valued for their "magical" or "spiritual" properties, or their "mystical" implications. Forty-nine stones, for example, were listed in the Sumerian myth of the Lugale. They were considered to represent the children of Asag; they supported his struggle against Ninurta, who had turned him, as it happens, into stone.

Dark, igneous rocks such as diorite and granite, as well as basalt, of the type used for the Ain Dara animals, are to be found in this particular area of southern Anatolia and northwestern Syria. The temple at Ain Dara, however, displayed - and became famous for-- an idiosyncrasy apparently repeated nowhere else. Two outsized footprints, of the sort worshipped in Buddhist temples in South and Southeast Asia, had been chiseled into the outer threshold of the temple porch; and another footprint, almost a meter long, into the floor of the inner threshold, or vestibule. But who carved them? And why? They served, furthermore, as a prelude to three steps, each of these faced with geometric designs said to represent water, or perhaps continuity. The steps rise and give onto the body of the sanctuary, which had also been enriched, during various construction phases, with lavish carving of deities, animals and human or anthropomorphized figures, as well as detailed geometric decoration. One block, for example, shows a deity figure between two bull-men, framed in an abstract floral design.

References to animals in antiquity originate in three sources. There are descriptions in texts such as the cuneiform tablets in the Mari archives. Or, there are endless artistic representations integrated into the architecture. And then there are the bones found in tomb or ritual excavations. Mesopotamian scribes were kind enough to leave long lists of animal names or allusions to animals. These include observations of animals, or references to them, in omens and oracles. There are, in addition, the records of herds considered to be the property of certain temples or precincts. And there are lists of animals hunted or kept by kings in special parks, such as the case of the lions hunted into immortality by Sargon's or Ashurbanipal's Assyrian bas-reliefs. In any case, lions are adaptable and gifted at survival. For whatever reason, lion bones are exceedingly rare in excavations. It was only after the First World War that they became extinct in the Near East. On the other hand hippos and elephants were hunted for their ivory and by the first millennium B.C. had already been reduced to extinction. Both of these animals, commonly found in Syria, may have been native but more likely were imported from the Indus.

Many real or fantastic creatures, including those massive and nimble and incredibly expressive figures in the Ain Dara carvings, are depicted on sculpted panels, or by contrast, in miniscule format on the cylinder seals used wherever cuneiform was adopted (especially by the Hittites, Elamites and Urartians) before writing gave way to Aramaic; they focus particularly on lions, bulls, sheep and goats, but also, to a lesser degree, on gazelles, elephants, horses, donkeys, dogs, vultures, crabs, flies, snakes, turtles, fish and others. Unusual animals could be exchanged as gifts between rulers and so were documented as well in reliefs or in mural painting. One Mari text records the delivery of a bear, sent by the king of Susa.

Wild water buffalo may also have been present in Syria. Their bones are difficult to distinguish from those of domestic cattle. Pig remains, on the other hand, are easily identified, and were common in ancient Near Eastern sites, though they became scarcer after the third millennium. A Hittite ritual against domestic quarrelling in fact included the sacrifice of a pig. Of course after the Arab expansion pigs and pork were prohibited by the Koran, a sanction that extended to animal sacrifice in general.

Dogs, descended from wolves, were verifiably present in the Near East c. 10,000 B.C. or perhaps even earlier, often as guard dogs, and in Mesopotamia and Anatolia they were actually associated with healing, though they also roamed the towns as scavengers. Dogs were found buried in the ramp of a temple to Gula at Isen (c. 1000 B.C.) and more than one thousand dog burials were found in the Persian period levels at Ashkelon.

Important to keep in mind, however, is the fact of the gods of the ancient Near East, even well into historical times, as being, almost without exception, anthropomorphic, either male or female, or envisioned as humans embellished with one or another of the most generally venerated animal qualities. They were, furthermore, projected -- as at Ain Dara -- as gigantic in size. Or they exuded a terrifying splendor, or were endowed with superhuman powers, although the power assigned to the various deities, either by custom or by superstition, was by no means equal.

Yet grandiose and monumental, or conversely, of restricted influence, they shared the emotions and foibles of humankind. Generally speaking the gods were immortal, although there were certain deities described in their corresponding myths as defying or overcoming death, in superhero fashion, or ultimately giving up and expiring in the face of inevitable physical death. And while they lived indistinctly in heaven or the underworld, as the case may be, an extension of their personality also inhabited the various cult statues erected to them by humankind. Local deities identified with their various city-states, probably the legacy of a prior culture, were particularly important to the heterogeneous Hittite religion. There were also gods and goddesses who personified the natural forces, or there were birth goddesses, or groups, as in Hinduism, of anonymous gods. And then there were "minister deities", who attended the more important gods and goddesses, or served as the personal gods of individuals. Certain human rulers, as in parts of India or Southeast Asia, in Japan, and later in Imperial Rome, were also deified. Any of these could be expressed, as well, by their animal alter-ego, or by an animal attribute affixed to a human figure, such as up to seven superimposed sets of bull's horns, but also common were a lion's mane or a headdress with animal elements. Or animals were anthropomorphized and integrated into demi-human form, such as in the case of the so-called "Scorpion Man", in actual fact a Bird Man or "Plumed Serpent" from Tel Halaf, now on display in the Aleppo Museum.

Two rows of carved animals adorned the façade of the temple in Ain Dara, and even as time and the weather have condemned them to flaking and peeling, their keen and curious features remain clearly visible. Most of the figures refer to lions (regarded as the embodiment of strength and brutality) and sphinxes - images of authority- some of them with female faces framed by locks of hair; or deities associated with mountains or mountain tops: mystical figures, visionaries, prophets, often identified with the followers of the Neolithic Earth Mother, she who led men into battle or, by contrast, encouraged the fertility implicit in settlement and agriculture, who later became, by turn, Ishtar-Astarte-Anat-Artemisa.

In its final phase of construction a corridor was built around the Ain Dara temple, with more carved slabs forming an outer enclosure, with a display of gods and kings, or deified monarchs, on its interior. Although many of the panels are damaged the majority of the reliefs, in total 150, all reveal a Syro-Hittite style dating from the ninth to the eighth centuries B.C.

In all likelihood Ain Dara, at that point, represented one of the local neo-Hittite dynasties elevated on the individual, yet independent and disassociated, city-states founded by elements among the royal family, who had survived in Carchemish - that outstanding Syro-Hittite site that now straddles the Turkey-Syria border-- outliving the collapse of Hattusas' empire, c. 1200 B.C., ostensibly at the hands of the mysterious, nonetheless ruthless and brutal - and to this day unexplained - "Sea People".

Whoever built Ain Dara, whoever created the singular temple and attended to the pilgrims who came to worship there, whoever later inhabited the grassy knoll or the valley below, whether during the Greek, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman or Arab periods, thrived on its wealth and prospered in the rich climate. Current excavations, undertaken since 1994 by a Syro-Japanese mission, are further perforating the tel with tunnels and shafts, in search of remains of all of these cultures, to complement the tumbled walls on the top of the mound, the unfinished figures of monumental lions, the scattered building blocks, the remains of dwellings. Perhaps only the yellow wild flowers in the grass or the blood-red poppies in May will ever know the truth. But they will never tell.

Carol Miller, resident of Mexico and author of a number of books on pre-Hispanic cultures of Mesoamerica (see www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com or www.xlibris.com/CarolMiller.html) , is preparing another book, devoted to her travels and research in Syria. Sculptress, scholar, photographer, translator, traveler, she is also a regular contributor in text and photos to Syria Gate.