statue

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Object Type
Museum number: 118889
Description: Limestone statue of attendant god dedicated to Nabu by Adad-Nirari III and Sammuramat; carved from inferior limestone, standing in the attitude of submission, wearing the single-horned crown proper to minor deities. There is a cuneiform inscription around the skirt.
Authority
Cultures/periods
Production date: 810BC-800BC
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: Temple of Nabu (Nimrud)
Materials
Technique
Dimensions: Height: 182.88 centimetres
$Inscriptions
Curator's comments: Pair with 1856,0909.64 (BM.118888).; The figure was dedicated to Nabu, the god of learning, in the temple of Ezida at Calah by the governor of Calah and other cities, for the life of the king and of his consort Sammuramat (probably the original of the legendary Semiramis), of the donor and of the people under his rule. The unjustified inference has been drawn that this figure represented Nabu, but it clearly represents an attendant of the kind found in the prophylactic terracotta figurines. The inscription around the skirts is the same on both figures, and has been published in Rawlinson, vol. i, Plate 35, no. 2, and translated in Luckenbill, 'Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia', vol. i, p. 264. For the circumstances of discovery see Gadd, 'The Stones of Assyria', pp. 150-1.
Bibliographic references: Smith 1938d / Assyrian Sculptures in the British Museum from Shalmaneser III to Sennacherib (plate 3); Rawlinson H C & Norris E 1861a / The cuneiform inscriptions of Western Asia, I: a selection from the Historical Inscriptions of Chaldaea, Assyria, and Babylonia (plate 35, no. 2); Luckenbill D D 1926a / Historical records of Assyria from the earliest times to Sargon (pp. 264) (translation); Gadd 1936b / The Stones of Assyria: the surviving remains of Assyrian sculpture, their recovery, and their original positions (pp. 150-1); Grayson, RIMA 3 / Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, II (858-745 BC) (RIM.A.0.104.2002)
Location: On display (G6a)
Subjects: deity; attendant
Associated names: Named in inscription: Adad-nirari III; Named in inscription: Sammuramat; Named in inscription: Nabu
Associated places: Associated with: Temple of Nabu
Acquisition date: 1856
Department: Middle East
BM/Big number: 118889
Registration number: 1856,0909.65
Conservation: Treatment: 17 Jul 1996; Treatment: 26 Oct 2001; Treatment: 20.05.1993

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