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Neo-Assyrian Reliefs from the Central Area of Nimrud Citadel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Janusz Meuszyński
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Extract

In April–May 1974, the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology (director Professor Dr. K. Michalowski) carried out a first season of excavations on the central part of the citadel at Nimrud. The work was directed by the author of this article.

For introductory information on this work, the reader is referred to a preliminary report on the results of this first season now in press, and to a summary communication by J. N. Postgate which has already appeared in this Journal. M. Falkner has published an account of previous work on the site by Layard, Rassam, Loftus and Mallowan, and J. E. Reade, in a very important contribution, published for the first time two of the colossi which reappear here.

One of the main results of the work of the Polish expedition was the discovery of Neo-Assyrian colossi and reliefs, some of them with types of representation previously unknown. Most of these monuments formed the decoration of a building, till now only partly excavated, which was built by Aššurnaṣirpal II and restored by Shalmaneser III. To avoid confusion with the so-called Centre and Central Palaces, I propose provisionally to refer to this as the Central Building. For an over-all view of the excavations, see Plate VII. The photographs for the present study are all the work of Mr. Waldemar Jerke.

It is too early to make specific statements on the function of this building and its relationship to the NW Palace, but I hope that it will become possible after the excavation seasons projected for Autumn 1975 and Spring 1976. At present one feature of this building at least is clear, its similarity in plan (so far as rediscovered) with the NW wing of Sargon's Palace at Khorsabad, and with the wings of some other Assyrian state buildings designated by G. Turner as “Reception Suite, Type F”.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , Spring 1976 , pp. 37 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1976

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References

1 Etudes et Travaux 9 (1975)Google Scholar.

2 Excavations in Iraq, 1973–74 (Iraq 37 (1975), 59–60Google Scholar).

3 In Barnett, R. D. and Falkner, M., The Sculptures of Tiglath-pileser III (London, 1962), 1–7Google Scholar.

4 Iraq 30 (1968), 69–73Google Scholar.

5 Iraq 32 (1970), 177 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Budge, E. A. W., Assyrian Sculptures in the British Museum (London, 1914), Plate XLICrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 See analogous representations in Meuszyński, J., Etudes et Travaux 6 (1972), 32, Fig. 15Google Scholar.

8 See footnote 6.

9 See for example, Layard, A. H., Monuments of Nineveh I, Plate 3Google Scholar.

10 Now in Berlin, VA 952; cf. Meuszyński, J., Etudes et Travaux 6 (1972), 50–51, Fig. 4Google Scholar.

11 Meuszyński, J., Etudes et Travaux 6 (1972) 32 note 24, Fig. 15Google Scholar. The unpublished drawing of this relief is reproduced here as Plate XIV. I wish to express my gratitude to the Trustees of the British Museum, and to the former Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities, Dr. R. D. Barnett, for permission to publish it from among Layard's original drawings, which are preserved in this institution.

12 Barnett and Falkner, The Sculptures of Tiglathpileser III, Plates CIV, CVI.

13 Ibid., Plate CV.

14 See footnote 13.

15 Barnett and Falkner, op. cit., 3.

16 See footnote 9.

17 Barnett and Falkner, op. cit., 1–7.

18 Boehmer, R. M. apud Orthmann, W., Der Alte Orient (Propyläen Kunstgeschichte 14), Fig. 274 eGoogle Scholar; R. M. Boehmer, Held (in der Bildkunst); RLA 4, 293–302Google Scholar.

19 Budge, op. cit., Plate XLI.

20 Many examples of these genies are reproduced by Stearns, J. B., AfO Beiheft 15 (Graz, 1961), Plates 67–74Google Scholar.

21 See above, footnote 10.

22 Meuszyński, J., Etudes et Travaux 6 (1972), Figs. 20, 23, 24Google Scholar.

23 Ibid., 60–63 (nos. 7–14), Figs. 19, 20, 21, 23.