The Statue of Ashurnasirpal II is a rare example of
Assyrian
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
* Assyrian ...
sculpture in the round that was found in the mid nineteenth century at the ancient site of Kalhu (now known as
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 m ...
) by the famous archaeologist
Austen Henry Layard. Dating from 883–859 BC, the statue has long been admired for its flawless condition and the high quality of its craftsmanship. It has been part of 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 ...
's collection since 1851.
Discovery
The statue was originally placed in the Temple of
Ishtar
Inanna, also sux, 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒀭𒈾, nin-an-na, label=none is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in Su ...
to remind the deity of the king's piety.
It is made of
magnesite, and the original
pedestal
A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In ...
upon which it stood is made of a reddish stone.
Both of these materials are not found locally, so they were probably transported back to Nimrud after a military campaign abroad. Layard found the statue and pedestal in its original location in 1850. Within a year of its discovery, the sculpture had been dispatched to
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
.
Description
The statue shows
Ashurnasirpal without his Assyrian crown allowing the viewer to see the king's hair and beard which he wore fashionably long. Commentators note the statue's beard is more impressive than that which an average Assyrian would have found practical. The king's torso is covered by a short-sleeved tunic and a shawl. In his right hand he appears to hold a kind of
sickle
A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...
; in Assyrian religion gods were sometimes depicted using the sickle as weapon to fight monsters. In the king's left hand he clasps a
mace, which symbolized the authority vested in him as vice-regent of the supreme god
Ashur.
Inscription
Across the king's chest there is an eight-line
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-sh ...
inscription which proclaims his titles and genealogy, and mentions a military campaign he led from the river
Tigris
The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...
to
Mount Lebanon and the 'Great Sea', which is assumed to be the
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
Sea.
References
Further reading
{{Commons
*J.E. Reade, Assyrian Sculpture (London, The British Museum Press, 1998)
*A.K. Grayson, Assyrian Royal Inscriptions (Wiesbaden, O. Harrassowitz, 1976)
*J.E. Curtis and J.E. Reade (eds), Art and empire: treasures from (London, The British Museum Press, 1995)
*A.H. Layard, Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (London, J. Murray, 1853)
Middle Eastern sculptures in the British Museum
Assyrian art and architecture
Sculpture of the Ancient Near East
Nimrud
Cultural depictions of Ashurbanipal