wall panel; relief

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Object Type: wall panel; relief
Museum number: 124820
Description: Gypsum wall panel relief in two parts: showing a winged bull for Sennacherib's palace leaving the quarry. The bull, roughly finished, has been placed on a sledge which advances on rollers, hauled by prisoners of war. Four overseers, two with trumpets, direct the operation from the top of the colossus. On the left, the king stands in hand-drawn chariot. Some men clear rocks from the track; others pull on a long lever, wedged into place to shift the load when it sticks. Below, men use buckets, attached to counterpoised arms to raise water and divert a stream.
Authority
Cultures/periods
Production date: 700BC-692BC
Findspot: Excavated/Findspot: South West Palace (Nineveh), Court VI panels 63-64
Materials
Dimensions: Height: 254 centimetres; Length: 1188.72 centimetres
Curator's comments: The original surface of the stone is best preserved along the lowermost 30 cm or so, above which the relief has been partly calcined during the sack of Sennacherib's palace. This indicates that the bottom of the relief had been protected from the fire by discarded roofing material thrown down into the room during the process of the removal of the valuable roof beams and immediately prior to the torching of the contents which, being mudbrick lined with stone, would not otherwise have burnt.
Bibliographic references: Barnett, Bleibtreu & Turner 1998a / Sculptures from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh (152b-153b); Birch 1883 / Guide to the Kouyunjik Gallery (pp. 97-100, nos. 51-2); Gadd 1936b / The Stones of Assyria: the surviving remains of Assyrian sculpture, their recovery, and their original positions (p. 170); Pritchard 1969a / The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (no. 94) (detail); Rimmer J 1969a / Ancient musical instruments of Western Asia (p. 37, fig. 10, pl. XVI); Reade 1978 / Studies in Assyrian geography - Sennacherib and the waters of Nineveh (part 1, pp. 56-8, fig 6a) (detail); Rashid 1984 / Mesopotamien (p. 124 & fig. 143); Reade 1983b / Assyrian Sculpture (pp. 38-9, figs. 51-3) (details); Russell 1991 / Sennacherib's Palace Without Rival at Nineveh (p. 259, fig. 131)
Location: On display (G9)
Subjects: sculpture; prisoner; labourer/manual worker; landscape; king/queen; charioteer/chariot; musical instrument
Acquisition name
Acquisition date: 1851
Acquisition notes: Carried by ship "Fortitude". For inventory, see WAA volume "Correspondence etc."
Department: Middle East
BM/Big number: 124820
Registration number: 1851,0902.6
Additional IDs: Miscellaneous number: 51-52 (ex NG)
Conservation: Treatment: 04 Aug 1994; Treatment: 14 7 2017

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