wall panel; relief

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Object Type: wall panel; relief
Museum number: 124927
Description: Carved gypsum wall panel relief: incomplete. Divided into three horizontal registers. Assyrian soldiers destroy an Arab encampment; in the upper two rows, soldiers assault women, a kind of scene unparalleled in Assyrian sculpture. Apparently, in this case it was the policy to be entirely ruthless. In the bottom row, men and women are dead, and tents, unpegged and flopping in the flames.
Authority
Cultures/periods
Production date: 645BC-635BC
Excavator/field collector: Excavated by: Hormuzd Rassam; Excavated by: Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson; Excavated by: William Kennett Loftus; Excavated by: John George Taylor
Findspot: Excavated/Findspot: North Palace (Nineveh), Room L (part of) Panel 9
Materials
Technique
Dimensions: Length: 134.16 centimetres; Width: 162.56 centimetres; Depth: 25.40 centimetres
Curator's comments: See also BM.124925 See also BM.124926
Bibliographic references: Barnett 1976 / Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668-627 B.C) (p.45, pl.XXXIII); Reade 1979b / Ideology and propaganda in Assyrian art: a symposium on ancient empires (fig. 10); Reade 1998c / Assyrian illustrations of Arabs (fig.6) (also refers to an unpublished fragment not in the BM); Hoyland R 2001a / Arabia and the Arabs: from the Bronze Age to the coming of Islam (p.173, pl.24); Barnett & Foreman 1959 / Assyrian Palace Reliefs and their Influence on the Sculptures of Babylonia and Persia (pls.114, 116); Yadin 1963 / The art of warfare in Biblical lands in the light of archaeological discovery (fig.451) (colour)
Location: On display (G89)
Exhibition history: 2018-2019, 8 Nov - 24 Feb, London, BM, I am Ashurbanipal, king of the world, king of Assyria
Condition: incomplete
Subjects: barrack/camp scene; soldier
Acquisition date: 1856
Department: Middle East
BM/Big number: 124927
Registration number: 1856,0909.31-32

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