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Lammasu
''Lama'', ''Lamma'', or ''Lamassu'' (Cuneiform: , ; Sumerian: lammař; later in Akkadian: ''lamassu''; sometimes called a ''lamassus'') is an Assyrian protective deity. Initially depicted as a goddess in Sumerian times, when it was called ''Lamma'', it was later depicted from Assyrian times as a hybrid of a human, bird, and either a bull or lion—specifically having a human head, the body of a bull or a lion, and bird wings, under the name ''Lamassu''. In some writings, it is portrayed to represent a goddess. A less frequently used name is ''shedu'' (Cuneiform: , ; Sumerian: alad; Akkadian, ''šēdu''), which refers to the male counterpart of a ''lamassu''. ''Lamassu'' represent the zodiacs, parent-stars or constellations. Goddess Lama The goddess Lama appears initially as a mediating goddess who precedes the orants and presents them to the deities. The protective deity is clearly labelled as Lam(m)a in a Kassite stele unearthed at Uruk, in the temple of Ishtar, goddess to wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lammasu
''Lama'', ''Lamma'', or ''Lamassu'' (Cuneiform: , ; Sumerian: lammař; later in Akkadian: ''lamassu''; sometimes called a ''lamassus'') is an Assyrian protective deity. Initially depicted as a goddess in Sumerian times, when it was called ''Lamma'', it was later depicted from Assyrian times as a hybrid of a human, bird, and either a bull or lion—specifically having a human head, the body of a bull or a lion, and bird wings, under the name ''Lamassu''. In some writings, it is portrayed to represent a goddess. A less frequently used name is ''shedu'' (Cuneiform: , ; Sumerian: alad; Akkadian, ''šēdu''), which refers to the male counterpart of a ''lamassu''. ''Lamassu'' represent the zodiacs, parent-stars or constellations. Goddess Lama The goddess Lama appears initially as a mediating goddess who precedes the orants and presents them to the deities. The protective deity is clearly labelled as Lam(m)a in a Kassite stele unearthed at Uruk, in the temple of Ishtar, goddess to wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dur-Sharrukin
Dur-Sharrukin ("Fortress of Sargon"; ar, دور شروكين, Syriac: ܕܘܪ ܫܪܘ ܘܟܢ), present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Khorsabad is a village in northern Iraq, 15 km northeast of Mosul. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC. After the unexpected death of Sargon in battle, the capital was shifted 20 km south to Nineveh. History Sargon II ruled from 722 to 705 BC. The demands for timber and other materials and craftsmen, who came from as far as coastal Phoenicia, are documented in contemporary Assyrian letters. The debts of construction workers were nullified in order to attract a sufficient labour force. The land in the environs of the town was taken under cultivation, and olive groves were planted to increase Assyria's deficient oil-production. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC, when the court moved to Dur-Sharrukin, although it was not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assyrian Sculpture
Assyrian sculpture is the sculpture of the ancient Assyrian states, especially the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911 to 612 BC, which was centered around the city of Assur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) which at its height, ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt, as well as portions of Anatolia, Arabia and modern-day Iran and Armenia. It forms a phase of the art of Mesopotamia, differing in particular because of its much greater use of stone and gypsum alabaster for large sculpture. Much the best-known works are the huge ''lamassu'' guarding entrance ways, and Assyrian palace reliefs on thin slabs of alabaster, which were originally painted, at least in part, and fixed on the wall all round the main rooms of palaces. Most of these are in museums in Europe or America, following a hectic period of excavations from 1842 to 1855, which took Assyrian art from being almost completely unknown to being the subject of several best-selling books, and imitated in political cartoons. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions (Latin: ) which form its signs. Cuneiform was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system. Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian. Akkadian texts are attested from the 24th century BC onward and make up the bulk of the cuneiform record. Akkadian cuneiform was itself adapted to write the Hittite language in the early second millennium BC. The other languages with significant cuneiform corpora are Eblaite, Elamite, Hurrian, Luwian, and Urartian. The Old Persian and Ugaritic alphabets feature cuneiform-style signs; however, they are unrelated to the cuneiform lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gate Of All Nations
The Gate of All Nations (Old Persian: ''duvarthim visadahyum'') also known as the Gate of Xerxes, is located in the ruins of the ancient city of Persepolis, Iran. The construction of the Stairs of All Nations and the Gate of All Nations was ordered by the Achaemenid Empire, Achaemenid king Xerxes I (486-465 BC), the successor of the founder of Persepolis, Darius I the Great. Building The structure consisted of one large room whose roof was supported by four stone columns with bell-shaped bases. Parallel to the inner walls of this room ran a stone bench, interrupted at the doorways. The outside walls, made of broad mud block, were bedecked with frequent niches. Each of the three walls, on the east, west, and south, had a very large stone doorway. A pair of massive bulls secured the western entrance; two Lamassu in the Neo-Assyrian, Assyrian style, albeit, of colossal proportions, stood at the eastern doorway. Engraved above each of the four colossi is a trilingual inscription att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cylinder Seal
A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. According to some sources, cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary sites of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia and slightly later at Susa in south-western Iran during the Proto-Elamite period, and they follow the development of stamp seals in the Halaf culture or slightly earlier. They are linked to the invention of the latter's cuneiform writing on clay tablets. Other sources, however, date the earliest cylinder seals to a much earlier time, to the Late Neolithic period (7600-6000 BC), hundreds of years before the invention of writing. Cylinder seals are a form of impression seal, a category which includes the stamp seal and finger ring seal. They survive in fairly large numbers and are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sargon II
Sargon II (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is generally believed to have become king after overthrowing Shalmaneser V (727–722), probably his brother. He is typically considered the founder of a new dynastic line, the Sargonid dynasty. Modelling his reign on the legends of the ancient rulers Sargon of Akkad, from whom Sargon II likely took his regnal name, and Gilgamesh, Sargon aspired to conquer the known world, initiate a golden age and a new world order, and be remembered and revered by future generations. Over the course of his seventeen-year reign, Sargon substantially expanded Assyrian territory and enacted important political and military reforms. An accomplished warrior-king and military strategist, Sargon personally led his troops into battle. By the end of his reign, all of hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winged Genie
Winged genie is the conventional term for a recurring motif in the iconography of Assyrian sculpture. Winged genies are usually bearded male figures sporting birds' wings. The Genii are a reappearing trait in ancient Assyrian art, and are displayed most prominently in palaces or places of royalty. The two most notable places where the genies existed were Ashurnasirpal II’s palace Kalhu and Sargon II’s palace Dur-Sharrukin. Variations of style They appear in the reliefs of the walls and throughout the temples and palaces in a wide variety of ways. There are three common stylistic tendencies in reliefs with genii. First there are bearded, winged figures wearing a horned helmet. Next there are bearded, winged figures wearing a diadem instead of helmet. Finally there are winged, muscular, male figures with bird heads. They are usually adorned with rosettes on their diadem and/or wrists. Most often they are wearing a short sleeved, knee-length tunic with a tasseled hem. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. When a relief is carved into a flat surface of stone (relief sculpture) or wood (relief carving), the field is actually lowered, leaving the unsculpted areas seeming higher. The approach requires a lot of chiselling away of the background, which takes a long time. On the other hand, a relief saves forming the rear of a subject, and is less fragile and more securely fixed than a sculpture in the round, especially one of a standing figure where the ankles are a potential weak point, particularly in stone. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be simply added to or raised up from the background. Monumental bronze reliefs a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiglath-Pileser II
Tiglath-Pileser II (from the Hebraic form Spelled as "" "Tiglath-Pileser" in the Books of Kings () or as "" "Tilgath-Pilneser" in the Books of Chronicles (). of Akkadian ''Tukultī-apil-Ešarra'') was King of Assyria from 967 BCE, when he succeeded his father Ashur-resh-ishi II, until his death in 935 BCE, when he was succeeded by his son Ashur-dan II. Little is known about his reign. See also *Tiglath-Pileser I *Tiglath-Pileser III Tiglath-Pileser III (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "my trust belongs to the son of Ešarra"), was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 745 BC to his death in 727. One of the most prominent and historically significant Assyrian kings, Tig ... Footnotes References * 935 BC deaths 10th-century BC Assyrian kings Year of birth unknown {{Assyrian-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ebla
Ebla ( Sumerian: ''eb₂-la'', ar, إبلا, modern: , Tell Mardikh) was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located about southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh. Ebla was an important center throughout the and in the first half of the Its discovery proved the Levant was a center of ancient, centralized civilization equal to Egypt and Mesopotamia and ruled out the view that the latter two were the only important centers in the Near East during the Early Bronze Age. The first Eblaite kingdom has been described as the first recorded world power. Starting as a small settlement in the Early Bronze Age ( ), Ebla developed into a trading empire and later into an expansionist power that imposed its hegemony over much of northern and eastern Syria. Ebla was destroyed during the It was then rebuilt and was mentioned in the records of the Third Dynasty of Ur. The second Ebla was a continuation of the first, ruled by a new royal d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_01.JPG "Click for more on -> Relief")
