Height: 10.350 cm
Width: 10.200 cm
Thickness: 2.450 cm (max.)
Weight: 151.000 g

ME 127412

Room 57-59: Ancient Levant

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Agatha Christie and archaeology

Ivory plaque of a lioness devouring a boy

Some of Mallowan's best discoveries in the North-West Palace were made in wells. The first to be excavated, in Room NN, was lined with 331 courses of baked bricks, many of them inscribed with the name of Ashurnasirpal (reigned 883-859 BC). The bottom of the well was filled to a depth of 10 metres with wet sludge, and it was in this deposit that a series of amazing finds were made, including four outstanding ivories, including this one.

They had probably been thrown in the well during the destruction of the palace in the late seventh century BC. The carving is Phoenician in style, which suggests that the piece of furniture from which they came may have been made in one of the Phoenician centres along the Levantine coast, and come to the Assyrian capital as tribute or booty.

The carving shows an African boy with jewelled armlets and bracelets being attacked by a lioness like a large cat. Above them is a dense network of lilies and papyrus. Much of the surface of the ivory was once overlaid with gold leaf and inlaid with carnelian and lapis lazuli. Some of this survives and there are traces of the blue mortar into which the lapis lazuli inlays were pressed. The boy wears a short kilt covered in gold leaf. The curls of his hair are marked with gold. A spot of lapis lazuli is also inlaid on the forehead of the lioness.