monument
- Museum number
- 91027
- Description
-
Irregular rectangular-sided monument recording Esarhaddon's restoration of Babylon; possibly black basalt; carved symbols on the upper surface.
- Production date
- 670BC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 21.50 centimetres (excluding base)
-
Height: 24 centimetres (including base)
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Width: 11.30 centimetres
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Depth: 11 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The stone is nt local to Mesopotamia. The irregular shape of the object suggests that it was cut from a naturally rounded piece of stone. The inscription is incomplete and commented on by I.L. Finkel & J.E. Reade in 'NABU' 2000 (pp. 80-81).
Moulded and cast; cast priced at 12 shillings by D. Brucciani (1910) and catalogued as "basalt memorial stone, inscribed in archaic Babylonian with an account of the restoration of the walls and temples of Babylon, by Esarhaddon, King of Assyria". Still available as a commercially available cast in the c. 1970s (listed in the BM Facsimile Service, Catalogue of Replicas). The cast is listed as available in the British Museum Facsimile Service 'Catalogue of Replicas from British Museum collections' (n.d.), in the series "Assyrian Inscriptions".
- Location
- On display (G55/dc3)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2018-2019 8 Nov-24 Feb, London, BM, I am Ashurbanipal, king of the world, king of Assyria
2014 - 2015 22 Sep - 5 Jan, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age'
2008 26 Jun-5 Oct, Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum-Pergamonmuseum, 'Babylon, Myth and Truth'
2008 14 Mar-2 Jun, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 'Babylon'
- Acquisition date
- 1860
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 91027
- Registration number
- 1860,1201.1