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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2014
When Austen Henry Layard excavated the palace of Aššurnaṣirpal II at Nimrud, ancient Kalḫu, he did not describe Room Z in detail. Therefore, information to aid in a reconstruction of this room must be collected and carefully analysed with the use both of primary sources and the careful considerations of earlier and contemporary scholars who have contributed to the restoration of this palace since its discovery almost 150 years ago.
Layard described the room and the one entrance which he designated as such in the following manner:
“Entrance a. Colossal winged figures with garlands round their temples, carrying on one arm a wild goat or a gazelle, and in the elevated right hand, an ear of corn: facing Chamber Z.”
“Room Z. A narrow passage, connecting hall Y with a chamber which has been completely destroyed. Nos. 1, 2, 6, 7 are narrow slabs, divided by the usual inscription in two compartments, each occupied by a small winged figure. On the remaining slabs are colossal winged figures, with the horned cap.”
The authors wish to thank the following colleagues, teachers and friends for their assistance and advice in the preparation of this article: Dr. Muayad Sa'id Damerji (Director General of the Iraqi State Antiquities Organization), Professor Dr. Barthel Hrouda (Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie, Munich), Dr. Julian E. Reade (British Museum, London), and Mr. Nicholas Postgate (British Archaeological Expedition in Iraq, Baghdad). The Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung supported Mr. Sobolewski's stay in Munich during our collaboration. All the photographs were taken by Mr. W. Jerke. The authors accept responsibility for this article's content.
1 I.e., Layard's plans and drawings, the brief descriptions which he published, and the present condition of the extant remains at Nimrud following the re-investigations of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and the Iraqi State Antiquities Organization.
2 With regard to Room Z, the most recent contribution to the reconstruction of its relief decoration by Julian Reade (“The Neo-Assyrian Court and Army: Evidence from the Sculptures”, Iraq 34 (1972), 109Google Scholar) clears up the confusion concerning the identification of the reliefs in two registers from Room Z. Reade discovered the two-register relief from position 26 in Room S in the Manchester Museum, Manchester, England, thereby making it possible to re-assign B-II-a-i-1 and B-II-b-i, the upper and lower registers of another relief to Room Z (see below). The missing portion of the upper register of the Manchester Museum relief was recently identified in the photo-archive of the Nimrud excavation of the Polish Centre of Archaeology (Janusz Meuszyński, Field Director). It will be published shortly.
3 Nineveh and its Remains I, 389–90Google Scholar; for the “Layard Papers” mentioning this room, see Gadd, C. J., The Stones of Assyria, 139Google Scholar. Each relief will be discussed below.
4 Nineveh and its Remains I, plan III; Monuments of Nineveh, plan 3.
5 Layard, Austen Henry, Inscriptions in the Cuneiform Character from Assyrian Monuments, London: Harrison and Son, 1851, pl. 45 (note)Google Scholar.
6 “Twelve Ashur-nasir-pal Reliefs”, Iraq 27 (1965), 128Google Scholar and Plate XXXII. Contrast Layard, Nineveh and its Remains I, plan III.
7 Two preliminary reports concerning the Iraqi Excavations at NW Palace will appear shortly in Sumer.
8 These remarks preclude a detailed discussion which is in preparation, of one and two leaf doorways in Assyrian architecture. This threshold measures c. 1·78 m × 1·72 m, except that the oblique angle of the western edge extends the north-to-south measurement near the northern side of the stone to a maximum length of 1·90 m.
9 See the useful collection and discussion of decorated threshold slabs by Albenda, Pauline (“Assyrian Carpets in Stone”, JANES 10 (1978), 1–34)Google Scholar. This example was not known to Albenda, who does, however, mention another pavement decorated with “flower and scrollwork”, which Layard discovered near Entrance b of Room S. She dates it to the Sargonid reconstruction of the palace ; see ibid., 4-5, notes 25-27.
10 “Twelve Reliefs”, 128, s.v. Plate XXXIc.
11 So we surmise. See Gadd, , Stones of Assyria, 137Google Scholar (49–5–2, 2 = BM 124561). Original Drawings III preserves a drawing of its pair, which was lost in the Tigris disaster.
12 Stearns, John B., Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II, Graz: Ernst Weidner, 1961, 4–5Google Scholar.
13 In Room I, a raised band of inscription separates the upper from the lower register. The so-called sacred tree alternates with the genies on both registers in a continuous frieze, with few exceptions, all around the room. The small, kneeling, human-headed genies are in the upper registers and the eagle-headed genies stand in the lower registers—except for 116, where beardless genies stand, each holding a string of beads.
14 See above, note 2.
15 These arguments are based upon and continue earlier work, especially that of Gadd, Stearns and Reade. See also Meuszyński, Janusz, “Die Reliefs von Assurnasirapli II. Die Sammlungen ausserhalb des Irak”, Ar Anz 1976, 478Google Scholar; and Paley, S. M., King of the World. Ashur-nasir-pal-II of Assyria 883-859 B.C., Brooklyn: The Brooklyn Museum, 1976, 77–80Google Scholar.
16 Panels 12 and 13, Brooklyn Museum 55.149 and 55.150. Paley, , King of the World, 69–70, pl. 12Google Scholar for the photographs and relevant bibliography.
17 “Twelve Reliefs”, 134.
18 “The Throne Room of Aššur-naṣir-apli II (Room B in the North-West Palace at Nimrud)”, ZA 64 (1975), 56, 60Google Scholar (Fig. 8), 70 (V). Our thanks to Julian Reade for providing a summary of his careful notes which he made in Iraq in 1964/65. These notes enabled us to make the connection between IM 29052 and fragments identified by Meuszyński as B15 in his ZA article cited here. The photographs and notes of what is certainly IM 29052 were found among Meuszynski's papers after his untimely death. The relief has 16 lines of inscription, appropriate to the west end of Room B.
19 Paley, , King of the World, 145 ff.Google Scholar All the reliefs in this room would seem to have the same recension as the basis for their display inscription.
20 This reconstruction was presented by the present authors at the XXVI Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Copenhagen (July, 1979).
21 The original idea for an entrance-way into the west wing of the Palace from Room Z was Reade's. He placed it west of Slabs 6 and 7. See “Twelve Reliefs”, Pl. XXXII and p. 128, s.v. Bombay 9.
The new plan of the Northwest Palace published in Reallexikon der Assyriologie V/3-4, 312-313, drawn by R. Sobolewski in 1976, does not show an entrance on the north wall of Room Z. However, when that plan was made, no architectural elements had been identified on the site to support the suggestion that a doorway existed there. There was only the negative evidence of the missing plinth in position 7, which was not recognized as relevant until this attempt at the reconstruction of the decoration was made. As is known, the entire west wing of the Palace was badly destroyed before archaeology entered the Mesopo-tamian scene. The walls to be seen in the west wing when one visits the site today are the reconstruction of the archaeological expedition of the Iraqi State Antiquities Organization based upon their survey of the remains in that wing. As close as the Iraqi effort has come to an original plan, there may still be room for modification if strong arguments could be brought forward to fill in the gaps which archaeological excavation technique could not recover because the evidence was destroyed.
22 Alternatively what he described was what he found, not the original emplacement of the stones but the Sargonid reconstruction. We think, however, that this is unlikely.
23 See above Part IIB4 and note 16.