The famous Assyrian bas-relief showing a dying lion, missing for many years, has recently been presented to the British Museum. It was excavated at Nineveh in the 1850s but its subsequent whereabouts has been the source of much speculation. A photograph of it was taken by Mansell and Co. in the last century (Plate XV) and this photograph continued to be available; it has been reproduced in many books, which accounts for the notoriety the relief now enjoys.

The relief itself is cut down from a larger panel. It now measures 16·6 cm in height and 30·8 cm in length, and is 1·5–2·0 cm thick. At the back, on the right side, is a raised lip. The back itself is well-smoothed, but vertically scored lines are visible (Plate XVIa). On either side of the relief, there is clear evidence of saw marks where it has been cut down to size in modern times. It has probably been also cut along the bottom, but the evidence here is not quite so unequivocal. All along the top is a raised edge 0·5–0·8 cm wide that is probably the original top border of the relief; at any rate, it has the appearance of a finished edge with no signs of having been cut recently. At the bottom, the lion stands on a base line that does not quite extend the width of the slab. Probably in the last century the relief was set into a wooden frame (19·2 × 33·3 cm) with a walnut veneer (Plate XVIb). The frame is open at the back, but a vertical iron strip, held in position by four screws, keeps the relief in place.