wall panel; relief

Please enable JavaScript in your web browser to get the best experience.

Object Type: wall panel; relief
Museum number: 118916
Description: Gypsum wall panel relief: depicting a harpist and lyre player, one a woman wearing a fillet of great beads, the other a youth(?), wearing a feather headdress, with tame lion beneath palms and cypresses.
Authority
Cultures/periods
Production date: 645BC-635BC
Excavator/field collector: Excavated by: Hormuzd Rassam; Excavated by: William Kennett Loftus; Excavated by: Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson; Excavated by: John George Taylor
Findspot: Excavated/Findspot: North Palace (Nineveh), Room E Panel 5
Materials
Technique
Dimensions: Height: 168 centimetres
Curator's comments: Part of BM.127370.; Moortgat, 'Die Kunst des Alten Mesopotamien' p.106, makes the interesting suggestion that this scene represents the power that music exerts over wild beasts, a kind of Orpheus motif, which is also to be seen on an unfinished 'kudurru' from Susa, and that it may be of Iranian inspiration. It is, however, found on pottery from Palestine (Loud, 'Megiddo' II, pl.76) and on a seal from North Syria (Rimmer, 'Ancient musical instruments of Western Asia in the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities, the British Museum', fig.6 and pl.VIIIa).
Bibliographic references: Barnett 1967b / Assyria and Iran. The earliest representation of Persians (p.3004); Barnett 1976 / Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668-627 B.C) (p.39, pl.XIV); Gadd 1936b / The Stones of Assyria: the surviving remains of Assyrian sculpture, their recovery, and their original positions (p.191, pl.25); Gadd 1934c / The Assyrian Sculptures (p.74); Barnett & Foreman 1959 / Assyrian Palace Reliefs and their Influence on the Sculptures of Babylonia and Persia (pl.54); Moortgat 1967 / Die Kunst des alten Mesopotamien (p.106); Loud 1948 / Megiddo II, seasons of 1935-39 (pl.76) (pottery with similar motif); Rimmer J 1969a / Ancient musical instruments of Western Asia (fig.6 & pl.VIIIa) (North Syrian seal)
Location: Not on display
Exhibition history: 2018-2019, 8 Nov - 24 Feb, London, BM, I am Ashurbanipal, king of the world, king of Assyria date uncertain, BM, Assyrian Saloon date uncertain, BM, stair housing
Subjects: mammal; musician; tree/bush
Acquisition date: 1856
Department: Middle East
BM/Big number: 118916
Registration number: 1856,0909.22
Additional IDs: Miscellaneous number: AS.75 (ex)
Conservation

Free entry

Opening hours