wall panel;
relief
- Museum number
- 118904
- Description
-
Gypsum wall panel relief. Three Assyrian soldiers, behind a siege-shield facing ⇦, attack a city. The drawing shows another identical group standing behind them. The first and nearest soldier, an archer, is beardless and wears a long garment held at the waist by a broad fringed(?) girdle. From his right shoulder to his left hip runs his sword-belt. The narrow object on his back is perhaps a bow-case, since the quivers in Tiglath-pileser's reliefs are broader and have usually fringes attached to them. The second archer has a full beard, a long garment, and also a sword. The third soldier, with a full beard and dressed in a tunic, has a dagger in his right hand, while with the left he holds the tall shield. This shield, used only in sieges, has the upper square return, characteristic of the time of Tiglath-pileser III. All three men wear round caps or helmets with earflaps.
The Assyrians are attacking a castle or small fortified city surrounded by water (lake or moat?); on its bank grow date-palms and a pomegranate tree, indicating some locality in southern Babylonia. On the relief there remain only part of a turret and the arm of an archer shooting against the attackers.
This panel is one of a set of panels showing Tiglath-Pileser III's campaigns in Southern Iraq.
- Production date
- 728BC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 103 centimetres
-
Width: 109 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- This panel is one of a set of panels showing Tiglath-Pileser III's campaigns in Southern Iraq. As Gadd, 'The Stones of Assyria', has suggested, the continuation of this scene probably forms the relief depicted in drawing Or.Dr.III, 'Central VI: "Seige of a City"', an original drawing held in the British Museum collection. A cast of this relief is listed as available in the British Museum Facsimile Service 'Catalogue of Replicas from British Museum collections' (n.d.), in the series "Assyrian Bas-Reliefs".
- Location
- On display (G8)
- Acquisition date
- 1848
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 118904
- Registration number
- 1848,1104.3
