Friday, December 12, 2014

Elmallah, Bouk 3, Image 5

About 2 weeks ago, on Nov. 29, I posted some preliminary images I was creating for the fifth image in my latest ebook now in production: The Song ov Elmallahz Kumming, Bouk 3. The image illustrates Dumuzee's servant betraying him to jackel-headed invaders. The two stanzas describing the scene can be found here:
http://shivvetee.blogspot.com/2014/11/more-images-for-song-ov-elmallah.html

At the time that I created the images in the previous post, working from Assyrian bas reliefs, I assumed I'd use the following image (in one form or another) for Dumuzee. It is a Sumerian bas relief of the god Enki. I had already begun working on it, as is obvious:



However, I then came across a remarkable wall carving from the Assyrian obelisk of Shalmaneser, showing King Jehu of Israel bowing to Shalmaneser. I decided to take some liberties with the Elmallah text (in the poem the servant is not described as bowing to the invaders), and use this detail from the obelisk for my servant. Here he is:



Merging the dogs into this image wasn't so easy, as the colors and backgrounds were not originally compatible. Hammer and chisel; chisel and hammer. I then chiseled in some cuneiform text (sure wish the soft clay hadn't hardened into limestone...), put on a little border of semi-precious stones, and here's how it turned out. Actually the original image is a png about 5mb and 2000x1200 pixels, but to post it here, I had to reduce it to a jpeg, 800x250, which still doesn't fit on this page. Click the image to view it:



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