Manual of Oriental Antiquities — Story, Setting & Ideas

The Two-Stream Framework

Babelon's central thesis—that only two artistic currents, Egyptian and Assyrian, shaped the ancient East—is stated early and applied throughout. He writes of these streams 'sharing like brothers the empire of the arts' or 'mingling closely with one another.' This binary lens simplifies a vast geography, but it also gives the book a clear argumentative spine. The preface warns that the subject 'lacks cohesion and unity' only superficially; the reader will instead find 'perfect homogeneity.'

In practice, Babelon uses the framework to rank monuments. A bas-relief at Rum-Qalah is dismissed as a 'colourless copy' of Assyrian work, while a stela at Marash is praised for showing 'original elements' like the high tiara under a veil. The analysis is consistent: each object is tested for purity of influence, and local innovations are noted only when they resist decomposition.

Judging Imitation: The Hittite Case

The Hittite monuments receive the most detailed treatment in the excerpts. Babelon divides them into two groups: those near the Euphrates, which are 'servile' copies of Assyria, and those in western Syria and Cilicia, which are 'ruder' but more original. He points to specific markers of Hittite style: the diadem, the high cap with a long veil, and 'above all, the shoes with turned-up points.' Yet he immediately complicates this by noting that such shoes are still worn 'by the most various races' in his own time.

His voice is that of a connoisseur who can spot a copy at a glance. At Rum-Qalah, the lion's passive acceptance of javelins betrays the imitator's inferiority. At Marash, the women's chairs and tables recall Assyria, but the faces and hair suggest 'the confines of a territory' already touched by Hellenic art. These judgments are precise and traceable to visual details.

Pace and Structure: From Synthesis to Specifics

The book's pace alternates between broad surveys and focused case studies. The preface covers the entire field in a few paragraphs, while later sections zoom in on individual sites like Boghaz-Keui, where Babelon describes the palace's dimensions (136 ft. by 185 ft.) and notes holes for iron clamps 'as in the Achæmenid edifices.' This shift from general to particular is a deliberate rhetorical strategy.

The excerpts also reveal a pattern of comparison: Assyrian hunting scenes are contrasted with Hittite ones, and the 'vigour and litheness' of Ninevite lions is set against the 'benevolent' stillness of their imitators. Babelon's language is often evaluative—'coarseness,' 'imperfect,' 'more free'—but it never loses sight of the material evidence. The result is a guide that feels both authoritative and personal.

Readers approaching Babelon's manual should attend to his comparative method: he rarely describes an object without measuring it against a known model. The book rewards those who follow his eye for detail—the shape of a chariot, the angle of a wing, the curve of a shoe. Because the excerpts are incomplete, the full range of his argument about Egyptian versus Assyrian influence remains unclear, but the pattern of analysis is consistent. This is a work of synthesis that never forgets the individual artifact.

That rainy afternoon, Babelon's restless empires kept pulling me toward how light falls on stone—how Assyrian reliefs catch shadows differently than Greek ones. By evening, my mind had drifted to canal reflections instead of ziggurats. I found myself opening Rembrandt's Amsterdam — Themes and Context, and the same quiet attention to texture and weather answered something the ancient world had left unfinished.