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“The Dragon of Nineveh” by Matt Brown

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Pricing & Formats:

10.7 ft by 4.9 ft canvas print: hand-finished with clear acrylic paint, for added texture and protection - For more details, and information on pricing, please refer to the 10ft Pictures page.

This piece is also available in a number of different formats and sizes. For more details, and information on pricing, please refer to the Pricing & Format page.

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About:

The Dragon of Nineveh descends from its furnace, drowsy and aflame. With luck, the cool air of the subterranean gardens will rouse the creature from its stupor before it collides with the ground. If so, it will either fly deeper into the network of caverns to explore those places people cannot go, or it will leave through the gaping entrance and away, over gleaming Nineveh and beyond the Tigris.

Should the dragon fail to return, the furnaces can only smoulder on their own for so long. After some months, the basalt will darken. The red, molten sulphur will yellow and crystallise, and the cavern will resound with great cracks, like thunder, as the walls contract with cold.

When the fires finally go out, the first thing people will know of it, will be when the great Archimedean screws stop turning. Then, far above in the towers and halls, the springs will cease to spout, and later, the heated floors of the senate will chill. Finally, the upturned lake that irrigates the surrounding farmlands will condense and seep back down into the water-table, deep under the desert. Nineveh will eventually fall.

What I like about this image, is the notion that the fate of a civilisation may already be set - unfurling without its people’s knowledge. On the outside – through the cavern’s entrance - Nineveh seems as powerful as ever, and its citizens continue to enjoy its green terraces. They can recognise the greatness of its design, but few can fully grasp the workings of its foundation. Quietly, its vital signs will reach their peek, followed by their imperceptible decline, until finally, each breath becomes fainter and fainter.

But perhaps this is not the fate of Nineveh. After all, the dragon may yet return. Perhaps it has merely gone for a roam or a prowl. Perhaps it has gone in search of a mate and will reappear with a brood of healthy offspring.

But still, there’s the worry that the Ninevehians have placed too high a burden upon the dragon and its furnace. What if the heat that has been harnessed and leached away has made conditions so cold and uncomfortable that it decides to find a home elsewhere? Maybe Babylon, or Egypt.

But there’s another alternative – because back in the days of Nineveh, dragons were things to be feared. Even though the founders and the architects and the scientific philosophers understood the link between dwindling dragon numbers and subterranean cooling, popular consensus saw dragons as the natural enemies of human kind.

And so it was that the Assyrian hero named Merodach set out and slew the dragon Tiamat, to the joy of the Assyrian people. And later, lesser heroes slew lesser dragons. And perhaps consequently, by 650 BC technicians maintaining the Archemedean screws began to experience more and more unusual mechanical difficulties.

In 633 BC, Nineveh was attacked by the Medes. In 625 BC, Medes was joined by the Babylonians and Susianians, as they attacked again. Nineveh finally fell in 612 BC, when its forces were unable to withstand the continued onslaught, and was mercilessly razed to the ground.

When the provinces were parcelled up between the victors, there was no mention made of any dragons. Perhaps there had never been any. But in Europe, one hundred years later, as the Roman Republic began to enjoy more influence in the world, talk of strange, flying serpents began to pop up with greater frequency, in folk-tales shared beside the fire.

Whether its dynamo is subterranean or sub-prime, a civilisation can founder, it seems, at any random moment. Even though the fundamentals may seem sound, on closer inspection, historians will discover that there were grave problems lurking at its core. Which begs the question - where does our dragon lie?

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