Stone panel from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (Room E, no.
13)
Nineveh, northern Iraq
Neo-Assyrian, about 645 BC
Hunting with hounds
This stone panel decorated a mud brick wall of the palace of
King Ashurbanipal (reigned 669-630 BC) at Nineveh. It was
originally part of a much longer composition relating to the royal
sport of lion hunting. The figures leading the hounds are hunt
attendants.
The use of such mastiffs is well represented on the wall reliefs
at Nineveh. They are used to guard the edge of an arena in which
the king kills lions and, in a separate hunting composition, they
are used to bring down wild asses. Scenes of hunting are a common
motif in Mesopotamian art reflecting the king's conquest of chaotic
and dangerous nature.
Dogs may have been the earliest animals to be domesticated by
humans, perhaps by 10,000 BC or earlier. In Mesopotamia some of the
earliest evidence for the presence of dogs comes in the form of
skeletons found in the graves at Eridu in the south and dating to
around 5000BC. They have been identified as greyhounds.
It has been suggested that the disease of rabies was present in
Mesopotamia by the beginning of the second millennium BC and
representations of dogs, possibly for magic protection, make their
appearance.
The Mesopotamians considered the dog family to include not only
domestic dogs, wolves, hyenas and jackals, but also
lions.