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Two Reliefs of an Assyrian King with Bowl

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

J. M. Munn-Rankin
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Extract

When the Assyrian king is shewn standing with a bowl in his right hand, he most commonly grasps a bow in his left. The excavations of Sir Max Mallowan at Nimrud have provided two of the relatively few cases in which the bow is replaced by some other object. One is the fine ivory plaque from the north-west palace on which Aššurnaṣirpal II holds the eagle-headed sickle. The other is the ivory panel from the Nabu temple which depicts a king with bowl and axe receiving officers and tributaries. I hope, therefore, tha t the two reliefs discussed here, on which the bowl is combined in one case with a sword and in the other with a staff, will be of interest to Sir Max, whose teaching and friendship I have been privileged to enjoy.

The reliefs are sculptured on either side of an unprovenanced block of grey “Mosul marble” of which the lower part is missing. It is in the reserve collection of the British Museum, BM.90985, and I am greatly indebted to Dr. R. D. Barnett, Keeper of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities, for bringing it to my attention and encouraging me to publish it. The approximate maximum dimensions are: height 21 cm., width 26 cm., depth 9·6 cm. The edges are smoothly worked and the top is slightly convex. Both faces are in a poor state of preservation. Part of the obverse (Plate XXIIIa), especially the right side of the royal figure, is water-worn and there are several small, unweathered pits which look like the marks of gunshot. On the reverse (Plate XXIIIb) the king's head is partially obliterated by the effecte of water action.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 36 , Issue 1-2 , October 1974 , pp. 169 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1974

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References

1 Mallowan, M. E. L., Nimrud and its Remains I (1966) 59, Pl. 21Google Scholar; Mallowan, M. and Davies, L. G., Ivories in Assyrian Style (1970), 16, Pl. IGoogle Scholar.

2 M. E. L. Mallowan, op. cit., 249 f., Pl. 209; M. Mallowan and L. G. Davies, op. cit., 67, Pls. XX and XXI, no. 67.

3 This slab is published and the photographs on Plate XXIII are reproduced by kind permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.

4 Madhloom, T. A., The Chronology of Neo-Assyrian Art (1970), 85 fGoogle Scholar.

5 It is normally shewn on formal representations of the king although it may be omitted in battle scenes.

6 Weidner, E. F., “Die Reliefs der assyrischen Könige” (AfO, Beiheft 2 (1937), 133 ff.Google Scholar, Abb. 99).

7 Pritchard, J. B., The Ancient Near East in Pictures (1954), Pl. 355Google Scholar.

8 The White Obelisk of Aššurnaṣirpal II depicts the king performing sacrifices outside a Nineveh temple, and the accompanying epigraph states that he “performed the wine (libation) and sacrifice of the temple of the august goddess”; cf. below, p. 236 f. and Plates XLII and XLVI. According to the sequence of episodes proposed by Unger, this ceremony follows on battles and precedes a royal banquet, Unger, E., “Der Obelisk des Königs Assurnasirpal I” (MAOG 6 (1932), 35 ff.Google Scholar, Pl. xvii).

9 It is worn by Shalmaneser III on the Kurkh stele, Smith, S., Assyrian Sculptures in the British Museum (1938), Pl. IGoogle Scholar. The upper part of a counterweight is also preserved on the back of his damaged statue from Nimrud, M. E. L. Mallowan, op. cit., I, Pl. 38, and it is probable that, as on the Kurkh stele and his statue in the Istanbul Museum (cf. Parrot, A., Nineveh and Babylon (1961), Pl. 21Google Scholar), he had a necklace with pendants in the form of divine symbols. It is not possible to determine from the photograph whether or not Adad-nirari III wears necklace and counterweight on the Saba'a stele (Unger, E., “Reliefstele Adadniraris III aus Saba'a und Semiramis” (PKOM II, (1916), Pl. 7Google Scholar; RIA I, Pl. 4).

10 E. Unger, ibid; RlA I, Pl. 4.

11 M. E. L. Mallowan, op. cit. I, Pl. 27.