Asset number
888856001
Description
Gypsum wall panel: this piece shows the Assyrian army attacking an enemy fortress. The fortress stands on a rise, perhaps an ancient mound. Inside the walls is a pulley with two ropes hanging from it. Though there is no visible link between the pulley and the bucket below, it is clear that the Assyrian soldier in the foreground has cut the rope with which someone inside the fortress has been trying to collect water from a source outside the walls. This soldier must be the same as the one on the left of the panel, who holds a bucket in his left hand and lifts his right arm in a gesture of triumphant greeting towards someone, presumably an officer or the king himself, who appeared with the main Assyrian force on panels further to the left. The central figure, with both arms raised, is holding a shield over his head as a protection against enemy shots. Meanwhile an enemy soldier on a tower is shooting an arrow at the Assyraians to the left; he is wearing a headband, but this item of dress is not sufficient to identify the location of the scene; it may have been somewhere in Syria. The architecture of the fortress, with lines of rosettes below and crenellations and pairs of windows in the towers, suggests a place of some distinction. The scale of the defender, unnaturally large in relation ot the tower on which he is stationed is typical of ninth-century art. There are traces of the standard inscription at the top of the panel.
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