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Sargonid sculpture and the late Assyrian cubit
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2014
Abstract
During the Spring of 1991, the Fall of 1993 and the Summer of 1994, a major effort was completed to measure all the surviving untrimmed, monolithic and essentially entirely preserved Late Assyrian sculptured slabs and figures from Khorsabad, dating to the time of Sargon II, that are now held in Western museums. The programme of measurement was undertaken as the Paris slabs were in the process of being installed in their new home in the Richelieu Wing, Musée du Louvre, Paris. The Khorsabad slabs in the British Museum, London, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and the Sargon stele in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin were also measured. In addition, a number of slabs in the British Museum from the South-West and North Palaces at Nineveh were measured. Some were carved during the reign of Sennacherib, while others, from Room 23, were decorated in the reign of Assurbanipal.
The first stages in the analysis of the measurements have already led to a number of useful observations concerning the standards of measurement used in decorating Late Assyrian Palaces. Measurement of untrimmed slab widths and frieze heights from Nineveh portraying battle scenes suggest that the standard Late Assyrian cubit equalled 51.5 cm in length. Slabs from Khorsabad Façade L are cut to this same cubit. On the other hand, religio-mythological royal emblemata, or guardians of the gates, at the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad were carved in accordance with a cubit of 56.6 cm, precisely three finger-breadths longer than the standard cubit. A slab featuring King Sargon was carved to a cubit 55 cms in length, precisely two finger-breadths longer than the standard. This confirms the existence of three Late Assyrian cubits: a standard cubit, a “Big Cubit” (KÙŠ GAL-ti in the annals of Sennacherib, AS4.LUM GAL-ti in a text of Esarhaddon), and the rare “Cubit of the King” (KÙŠ LUGAL in Late Assyrian cuneiform documents), which is probably the same as the “Royal Cubit” (basileios pēchys), three finger-breadths longer than the standard cubit, mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus (I, 178).
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- Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1996
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References
1 Powell, Marvin A., “Masse und Gewichte”, Reallexikon der Assyriologie VII, 473, 476 Google Scholar.
2 Luckenbill, , Daniel, D., Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia II Google Scholar, “Sargon”, No. 85.
3 Ibid., “Sennacherib”, Nos. 365–6, 372–5, 380, 384, 386, 388, 396, 408, 409.
4 Powell, op. cit., 474.
5 Ibid., 474–5.
6 Loud, Gordon, Khorsabad I (OIP XXXVIII; Chicago, 1936), 44 Google Scholar.
7 As exhibited in the British museum.
8 Powell, op. cit., 475–6.
9 A number of additional staff members of the several museums lent invaluable assistance. I take this opportunity to thank Elisabeth Fontan of the Louvre, Ray Tindall of the Oriental Institute, Stefan Flis, Alex Clenell and Patrick Cronin of the British Museum, Ruth Knauthe of the Pergamon Museum, and the many others whose assistance contributed to the successful completion of this project.
10 Neugebauer, O., and Sachs, A., Mathematical Cuneiform Texts (New Haven, CT, 1986), 3–4 Google Scholar.
11 Albenda, P., Palace of Sargon: King of Assyria (Paris, 1986), 161 Google Scholar, AO 19881, Pl. 47 and Fig. 63.