Carved ivory depicting a woman at a window
Phoenician, 9th-8th century BC
From Nimrud, northern Iraq
A sacred prostitute?
This ivory panel was once part of a piece of furniture. (The
West Semitic letter gimel is incised twice on the back of
the panel, to guide the furniture-maker during construction.) The
excavator Henry Layard found it with other objects in the
North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud, the site of the
ancient Assyrian capital of Kalhu.
The panel shows a woman with Egyptian-style hair looking out of
what appears to be a window. It is often thought that she is a
sacred prostitute, connected with Astarte or Ishtar, goddess of
fertility, but the exact significance of the scene is unclear.
Versions of these panels can be seen decorating the legs of a couch
on which King Ashurbanipal reclines in the 'Garden Party' scene at
Nineveh.
Ivory was clearly popular as a form of decoration throughout the
Near East. Examples of various styles but of similar date are also
known from elsewhere at Nimrud, where they may have been part of
captured booty or tribute, as well as from the Assyrian city of
Khorsabad, and further afield in Syria and Israel.
A.H. Layard, Nineveh and its remains, 2 volumes (London, J. Murray, 1849)
J.E. Curtis and J.E. Reade (eds), Art and empire: treasures from (London, The British Museum Press, 1995)
R.D. Barnett, Illustrations of Old Testament, 2nd edition (London, The British Museum Press, 1976)