sculpture

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Object Type
Museum number: 118808,a
Description: Carved gypsum sculpture of protective spirit facing left: a winged bull from a gateway in the citadel wall at Khorsabad, with panels showing a winged divine figure about to anoint with a 'cone' and magical fluid from a bucket. It is one of a pair, which were intended to keep evil from entering.
Authority
Cultures/periods
Production date: 710BC-705BC
Findspot: Excavated/Findspot: Khorsabad, Gate B
Materials
Technique
Dimensions: Height: 403.86 centimetres; Length: 486 centimetres; Width: 198.12 centimetres
$Inscriptions
Inscription subject
Curator's comments: A pair with 1850,1228.4. Part B belongs behind part A; part B changed from 118809B in 1968 after move from Assyrian. As at present arranged the panels are wrongly placed; they should be behind the bulls, facing the tail, not at the side, facing the bull's front. See Gadd, 'Stones of Assyria', p. 110, as to the original position.
Bibliographic references: Barnett & Wiseman 1960a / Fifty masterpieces of Ancient Near Eastern Art (pp.48-49, no. 22); Hall H R 1928a / Babylonian and Assyrian Sculpture in the British Museum (pl. xxviii); Gadd 1936b / The Stones of Assyria: the surviving remains of Assyrian sculpture, their recovery, and their original positions (P. 110 and pp.159-60); Luckenbill D D 1927a / Historical records of Assyria from Sargon to the end (p. 92 ff.); Smith 1938d / Assyrian Sculptures in the British Museum from Shalmaneser III to Sennacherib (plate 26)
Location: On display (G10c)
Subjects
Associated names
Acquisition name
Acquisition date: 1850
Acquisition notes: Register entry transcribed from General Register of Antiquities in MLA which states that these objects were erroneously entered as Layard's and were instead purchased from Colonel Rawlinson in the same bill as the colossal bulls from Khorsabad to which they originally belonged.
Department: Middle East
BM/Big number: 118808,a
Registration number: 1850,1228.3
Conservation: Treatment: 05 Apr 1995; Treatment: 23 Sep 1994

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