The Nimrud ivories are a large group of small carved ivory plaques and figures dating from the 9th to the 7th centuries BC that were excavated from the
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
n city of
Nimrud
Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a majo ...
(in modern
Ninawa
Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ba ...
in
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
) during the 19th and 20th centuries. The ivories mostly originated outside
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
and are thought to have been made in the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
and
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, and have frequently been attributed to the
Phoenicians
Phoenicia () was an ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient thalassocracy, thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-st ...
due to a number of the ivories containing
Phoenician inscriptions
The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the society and history of the ancient Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arameans. Semitic inscriptions may occ ...
.
Richard David Barnett
Richard David Barnett, CBE, FBA (23 January 1909 – 29 July 1986) was the Keeper, Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities of the British Museum.
Early life
Born on 23 January 1909, Barnett was the son of Lionel David Barnett, who was th ...
. The Nimrud Ivories and the Art of the Phoenicians Iraq, vol. 2, no. 2, British Institute for the Study of Iraq, 1935, pp. 179–210, https://doi.org/10.2307/4241579. “The Nationality of the NW. Palace Ivories: That the group of ivories was not Assyrian was concluded on their discovery from their Egyptian appearance. Francois Lenormant, in the Bulletin archéologique de l'Athenaeum français, No. 6, June 1856, asserted that his father, Charles, had been the first to recognize that the pseudo-Egyptian workmanship was in reality Phoenician, whereas Dr. Birch of the British Museum, the ivories' first publisher, had held them for Egyptian work executed in Assyria, or copied there. Posterity, a few dissentients apart, has followed Lenormant, and some wilder misattributions might have been avoided had it been noticed, as stated above, that in Layard's group seven pieces bore a letter of the Phoenician alphabet, and in that of Loftus were two inscriptions apparently also Phoenician. (There seem to be weaker reasons for describing them as Aramaic.) Modern work has only enhanced the plausibility of Lenormant's view. Other ivories of similar type have been found at Samaria, the capital of Ahab, whose connexions with Tyre were notorious. Again, those found at Arslan Tash in North Syria, according to a fragment among them which bore an inscription in what is either Phoenician or Aramaic, were seemingly made and presented by some Phoenician tributaries of Damascus to their overlord. To these points we may add the internal evidence of the religious scenes themselves, which in Part II of this paper are shown to be just such as would be expected in the art of a country so situated as Phoenicia. A concluding point of internal detail, in striking confirmation, is that the loggia windows represented on the panels of the 'Woman at the Window' illustrate what is in the Talmud called 'the Tyrian window', 'through which one can put one's head', i.e. παρακπύτειν, in contrast to the Egyptian type, through which one could not.” They are foundational artefacts in the study of Phoenician art, together with the
Phoenician metal bowls
Phoenician metal bowls are approximately 90 decorative bowls made in the 7th–8th centuries BCE from bronze, silver and gold (often in the form of electrum), found since the mid-19th century in the Eastern Mediterranean and Iraq. They were histor ...
, which were discovered at the same time but identified as Phoenician a few years earlier. However, both the bowls and the ivories pose a significant challenge as no examples of either – or any other artefacts with equivalent features – have been found in Phoenicia or other major colonies (e.g. Carthage, Malta, Sicily).
Most are fragments of the original forms; there are over 1,000 significant pieces, and many more very small fragments. They are carved with motifs typical of those regions and were used to decorate a variety of high-status objects, including pieces of furniture, chariots and horse-trappings, weapons, and small portable objects of various kinds. Many of the ivories would have originally been decorated with gold leaf or semi-precious stones, which were stripped from them at some point before their final burial. A large group were found in what was apparently a palace storeroom for unused furniture. Many were found at the bottom of wells, having apparently been dumped there when the city was sacked during the poorly-recorded collapse of the
Assyrian Empire
Assyrian may refer to:
* Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia.
* Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire.
** Early Assyrian Period
** Old Assyrian Period
** Middle Assyrian Empire
** Neo-Assyrian Empire
* Assyr ...
between 616 BC and 599 BC.Metropolitan note /ref>
Many of the ivories were taken to the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
and were deposited in (though not owned by) the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. In 2011, the Museum acquired most of the British-held ivories through a donation and purchase and is to put a selection on view. It is intended that the remainder will be returned to Iraq. A significant number of ivories were already held by Iraqi institutions but many have been lost or damaged through war and looting. Other museums around the world have groups of pieces.
Description
The ivories comprise plaques decorated in relief with intricate carvings of sphinxes, lions, serpents, people, flowers and geometric motifs, as well as carvings of female heads and female figurines. They were carved in various locations across the Ancient Near East, including Egypt, modern Syria and Lebanon, with relatively few carved locally. The ivory used to make these objects would originally have been derived from Syrian elephants which were endemic in the Middle East in ancient times, but by the 8th century BC the Syrian elephant had been hunted close to extinction, and ivory for later objects would have had to be imported from India, or, more likely, Africa.
The ivory plaques are thought to have been used to decorate chariots, furniture and horse trappings, and would originally have been covered in gold leaf or ornamented with semi-precious stones such as
lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli (; ), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color.
As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mines, ...
. Some pieces still preserve remnants of gold leafing. Many were already centuries old when put in storage and may have fallen out of fashion by that time. The gold may have been removed from the ivories before they were put in storage, or it may have been taken by the
Babylonians
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. ...
when they sacked and razed Nimrud in 612 BC.
Some of the ivories have Phoenician letters engraved on their back, which it is thought may have been used as guides to the assembly of pieces onto the furniture to which the ivories were attached. The presence of Phoenician letters on the ivories suggests that they were the product of
Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
n craftsmen.
In addition to plaques, many small ivory carvings of female heads have been found at Nimrud, most only one or two inches in height, but a few over 5 inches tall. Many of these heads wear a flat cap which is very similar to the flat caps depicted on much earlier ivories from the
Tel Megiddo
Tel Megiddo ( he, תל מגידו; ar, مجیدو, Tell el- Mutesellim, ''lit.'' "Mound of the Governor"; gr, Μεγιδδώ, Megiddo) is the site of the ancient city of Megiddo, the remains of which form a tell (archaeological mound), situat ...
site in modern
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. Another common carved form found at Nimrud comprises figurines of two naked females joined back to back, which are thought to have been used either as handles for fans or mirrors, or as a decorative element on furniture.
The plaques show a wide variety of themes, some of which exhibit a pure Assyrian style, and some of which show Egyptian influence, with engravings of Egyptian people or gods, and even
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...
. However, the Egyptian themes are often misconstrued, and the hieroglyphs do not form valid names, so they would seem to be debased imitations of Egyptian art.
A far greater number of ivories were found at Nimrud than at any other Assyrian site, and it is thought that they had been brought to Nimrud as booty or imported as luxury goods from cities on the Mediterranean coast. Some centuries later it seems that these objects fell out of fashion, and were put into storage.
Discoveries
Layard (1845)
The first group of ivories was excavated from the site of the palace of
Shalmaneser III
Shalmaneser III (''Šulmānu-ašarēdu'', "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Ashurnasirpal II in 859 BC to his own death in 824 BC.
His long reign was a constant series of campai ...
(ruled 859–824 BC) at the Assyrian capital of Nimrud. The palace was rediscovered in 1845 by
Austin Henry Layard
Sir Austen Henry Layard (; 5 March 18175 July 1894) was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in It ...
, on the very first day of his excavations; on the second day, he made the first discovery of ivories.
Loftus (1854–1855)
More ivories were found during
William Kennett Loftus
William Kennett Loftus (13 November 1820, Linton, Kent – 27 November 1858, at sea) was a British geologist, naturalist, explorer and archaeological excavator. He discovered the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk in 1849.
Biography
Loftus was brou ...
's excavations in 1854–1855. They were found in a group of buildings labelled the "South-East Palace" or "Burnt Palace"; Loftus described the circumstances of the discovery in a letter to the ''Journal of Sacred Literature'' in February 1855:
Mallowan (1949–1963)
Further discoveries were made between 1949 and 1963 by a team from the
British School of Archaeology in Iraq
The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI) (formerly the British School of Archaeology in Iraq) is the only body in Britain devoted to research into the ancient civilizations and languages of Mesopotamia. It was founded in 1932 and its aim ...
led by the archaeologist
Max Mallowan
Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan (6 May 1904 – 19 August 1978) was a prominent British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history. He was the second husband of Dame Agatha Christie.
Life and work
Born Edgar Mallowan in Wands ...
. Mallowan found thousands of ivories, many of which were discovered at the bottom of wells into which they had apparently been thrown when the city was sacked, either in the turmoil that followed the death of
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 general ...
in 705 BC or when Nineveh fell and was destroyed in 612 BC. Mallowan's wife was the famous British crime novelist,
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictiona ...
(1890–1976), who was fascinated with archaeology, and who accompanied her husband on the Nimrud excavations. Christie helped photograph and preserve many of the ivories found during the excavations, explaining in her autobiography that she cleaned the ivories using a fine
knitting needle
A knitting needle or knitting pin is a tool in hand-knitting to produce knitted fabrics. They generally have a long shaft and taper at their end, but they are not nearly as sharp as sewing needles. Their purpose is two-fold. The long shaft ' ...
, an orange stick and a pot of face cream.
The collection of ivories uncovered by Mallowan were divided between Iraq and Britain, where they remained at the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (later to become the British Institute for the Study of Iraq) until 1987. They were then put in storage at the British Museum until 2011, but were not put on display. Many of the Iraqi-held ivories have been lost or damaged. Following the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
2003 the
National Museum of Iraq
The Iraq Museum ( ar, المتحف العراقي) is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. It is sometimes informally called the National Museum of Iraq, a recent phenomenon influenced by other nations' naming of their national museum ...
in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
was looted, and many of the ivories kept there were damaged or stolen. Other ivories that were stored in a bank vault in Baghdad were damaged by water when the building was shelled.
In March 2011, the British Museum purchased one third of the Mallowan ivories (comprising 1,000 complete ivories and 5,000 fragments) from the British Institute for the Study of Iraq for £1.17 million, following a public fundraising campaign that raised £750,000 in six months, and with the support of grants from the
National Heritage Memorial Fund
The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) was set up in 1980 to save the most outstanding parts of the British national heritage, in memory of those who have given their lives for the UK. It replaced the National Land Fund which had fulfilled the ...
and the
Art Fund
Art Fund (formerly the National Art Collections Fund) is an independent membership-based British charity, which raises funds to aid the acquisition of artworks for the nation. It gives grants and acts as a channel for many gifts and bequests, as ...
. This is the second most expensive purchase by the British Museum since the end of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
In addition to the purchase, the British Institute for the Study of Iraq has also donated another third of its collection to the British Museum in recognition of the storage of the collection by the museum over the previous 24 years. It is anticipated that the remaining third of the collection will be returned to Iraq sometime in the future. A selection of the ivories will be put on display at the British Museum from 14 March 2011.
Oates (1957–1963)
The largest single ivory find was made between 1957 and 1963 when a British School team led by David Oates discovered a room at the Nimrud palace that was dubbed the "ivory room", which had apparently served as the main storage centre for ivory objects amassed by the Assyrian kings. Subsequent excavations by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities unearthed still more ivories.
Other discoveries
In recent years excavations by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities have unearthed more ivories.
File:Head of a female figure MET DP110585 (cropped).jpg, Female head, probably from a statuette, Syrian style
File:Head of a female figure MET DP110561 (cropped).jpg, Female head, probably from a statuette, North Syrian style
File:Ram-headed Sphinxes Flanking a Sacred Tree, Phoenician, Iraq, Nimrud, ivory - Cleveland Museum of Art - DSC08102.JPG, Ram-headed Sphinxes Flanking a Sacred Tree, Phoenician, Cleveland Museum of Art
File:Man and Griffin in Combat, Phoenician, Iraq, Nimrud, ivory - Cleveland Museum of Art - DSC08096.JPG, Man and Griffin in Combat, Phoenician, Cleveland Museum of Art
File:Placchetta d'avorio da nimrud, sfinge, VIII-VII secolo ac.jpg, Plaque 8th-7th century BC
File:Placchetta d'avorio da nimrud, ornamento con labero sacro, VIII-VII secolo ac.jpg, Plaque with plant motif
File:Standing man holding branches of lotus flowers. Ivory, from Nimrud, Iraq, 9th to 7th century BC. Sulaymaniyah Museum.jpg, Standing man holding branches of lotus flowers.
File:Standing man holding branches of lotus flowers. The winged god Assur appears above. Ivory, from Nimrud, Iraq, 9th to 7th century BC. Sulaymaniyah Museum.jpg, Standing man holding branches of lotus flowers. The winged god Assur appears above.
File:Standing man holding a lotus flower. Ivory, from Nimrud, Iraq, 9th to 7th century BC. Sulaymaniyah Museum.jpg, Standing man holding a lotus flower.
File:Carved ivory piece of an Egyptian woman. From Nimrud, Iraq, 9th-7th century BC. Sulaymaniyah Museum.jpg, Carved ivory piece of an Egyptian woman.
Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions
A number of the ivories contain
Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions
The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the society and history of the ancient Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arameans. Semitic inscriptions may oc ...
– a few contain a number of words, and many more contain single letters. Some of these were found in the mid-nineteenth century by Layard and Loftus (in particular a knob inscribed "property of Milki-ram " 'lmlkrm'', and more were found in 1961 by Mallowan and Oates. Of the latter, the most significant finds were excavated in "Fort Shalmaneser" in the southeast of the Nimrud site.Millard, A. R. Alphabetic Inscriptions on Ivories from Nimrud ''Iraq'', vol. 24, no. 1, 1962, pp. 41–51
Alan Millard
Alan Ralph Millard (born 1 December 1937) is Rankin Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Ancient Semitic languages, and Honorary Senior Fellow (Ancient Near East), at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology (SACE) in the University of Li ...
published a series of these in 1962; the code "ND" is the standard excavation code for "Nimrud Documents":
* ND 10151 - a 9 cm label with three letters
* ND 10359 - a triangular plaque from a harness, with three letters
* ND 8184 - a curved strip, with six letters, and further smaller fragments
* ND 10150 - the most detailed inscription, on a fragment 9 x 5 cm, with three lines of fragmented text. This is also known as TSSI I 6, having been published in Gibson's ''Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions''
* ND 10304 - an inscribed griffin, with five letters
* ND 10303 - an inscribed griffin, with three letters
They have been compared to the
Arslan Tash ivory inscription
Arslan Tash ivory inscription is a small ivory plaque with an Aramaic language inscription found in 1928 in Arslan Tash in northern Syria (ancient Hadātu) by a team of French archaeologists led by François Thureau-Dangin.Ur Box inscription.
One of the fragmentary ivories found at Nimrud carries the name of Hazael. This was probably king
Hazael
Hazael (; he, חֲזָאֵל, translit=Ḥazaʾēl, or , romanized as: ; oar, 𐡇𐡆𐡀𐡋, translit= , from the triliteral Semitic root ''h-z-y'', "to see"; his full name meaning, " El/God has seen"; akk, 𒄩𒍝𒀪𒀭, Ḫa-za-’- il ...
mentioned in the Bible.
Collections
Ivories from Nimrud are held at a number of institutions across the world:
*
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, London, England: 6,000 pieces excavated by Mallowan which were formerly held at the British Institute for the Study of Iraq; as well as a number of pieces from other excavations.
*
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local ...
28 pieces from the
British School of Archaeology in Iraq
The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI) (formerly the British School of Archaeology in Iraq) is the only body in Britain devoted to research into the ancient civilizations and languages of Mesopotamia. It was founded in 1932 and its aim ...
.
*
National Museum of Iraq
The Iraq Museum ( ar, المتحف العراقي) is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. It is sometimes informally called the National Museum of Iraq, a recent phenomenon influenced by other nations' naming of their national museum ...
, Baghdad, Iraq.
* The
Sulaymaniyah Museum
The Sulaymaniyah Museum (Kurdish: مۆزهخانهی سلێمانی; Arabic: متحف السليمانية), or Slemani Museum, is an archeological museum located within heart of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is the second ...
, Iraqi Kurdistan. This museum houses about 30 pieces, which were excavated by Sir Max Mallowan. All of them are contained within 2 large display cases.
*
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York City
*
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...
*
Erbil Civilization Museum
The Erbil Civilization Museum ( ku, مۆزەخانەی شارستانیی ھەولێر, ar, متحف أربيل الحضاري) is an archeological museum which is located within the city of Hawler, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. It is the seco ...
, Iraqi Kurdistan. The museum houses 3 plaques, which were also excavated by Sir Max Mallowan between 1949 and 1963 CE. All of these plaques are on display in Hall 2 of the Museum.
*
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...
, Australia: 3 pieces excavated by Mallowan.
* The
California Palace of the Legion of Honor
The Legion of Honor, formally known as the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, is an art museum in San Francisco, California. Located in Lincoln Park, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which a ...
The Nimrud Ivories are being published in a series of scholarly catalogues. Many of these are available free online from the British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI)
Nimrud lens
The Nimrud lens, also called Layard lens, is an 8th-century BC piece of rock crystal which was unearthed in 1850 by Austen Henry Layard at the Assyrian palace of Nimrud in modern-day Iraq. It may have been used as a magnifying glass or as a burnin ...
*
Begram ivories
The Begram ivories are a group of over a thousand decorative plaques, small figures and inlays, carved from ivory and bone, and formerly attached to wooden furniture, that were excavated in the 1930s in Bagram (Begram), Afghanistan. They are rare ...