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Two Slabs from Sennacherib's Palace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

J. E. Reade
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Extract

The bas-reliefs to which attention is drawn in this article both stood originally in the palace of Sennacherib (705–681 B.C.) at Nineveh, and were removed to Europe during the nineteenth century. The history of the excavations which produced them is a familiar one: Layard, the man primarily responsible, reckoned that he had exposed nearly two miles of sculpture in this building alone, and he was naturally unable, without adequate time, money, or assistance, to record and publish all his discoveries fully. So far the only widely accessible book to include more than a small selection of the wall-slabs has been Sidney Smith's Assyrian Sculptures in the British Museum from Shalmaneser III to Sennacherib; interest otherwise has until recently been sporadic and, on the whole, highly discriminating. It is only now that a full publication of Layard's notes and drawings is being prepared, by Dr. R. D. Barnett of the British Museum, and even so the partial re-excavation of the palace by Dr. Tariq Madhlum has already revealed how incomplete these are. The slabs from Nineveh fall into two main categories: those taken to London as parts of long narrative series, and those left in position to await reexcavation. There are, however, in the British Museum and elsewhere, many other fragments whose importance is not dependent on their context, and it is to this group that the two slabs discussed below belong.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , Spring 1967 , pp. 42 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1968

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References

1 Nineveh and Babylon, p. 589.

2 A. Paterson's Palace of Sinacherib seems to be even rarer than Layard's own volumes of Monuments of Nineveh.

3 Babylonian and Assyrian Sculpture, p. 41.

4 C. J. Gadd, The Stones of Assyria, pls. 13, 14; several otherwise unpublished drawings of this series are to be found on p. 47 of BMP A L VIII (1960).

5 A. H. Layard, Monuments of Nineveh II, pls. XXVII, XXVIII.

6 A. H. Layard, op. cit. pls. XLV–XLIX. These slabs are now in the British Museum; other fragments from the room may be identified because of their material, a fossiliferous limestone which retains detail far better than the usual Mosul marble: examples are in Weidner's, E. F.Die Reliefs der assyrischen Könige, figs. 54, 108Google Scholar, in Rocznik Orjentalistyczny VI (1928), fig. on p. 85Google Scholar, in AfO XX (1963), p. 199, fig. 17Google Scholar, and perhaps in AfO XVII (1954–1956), p. 416, fig. 9Google Scholar. This criterion, however, is not conclusive, as one fragment, made apparently of the same stone and shown in AfO XVI (1952), p. 29, fig. 4Google Scholar, is stylistically intermediate between Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal, and may therefore derive from Esarhaddon's palace at Nebi Yunis.

7 Layard, A. H., Nineveh and Babylon, pp. 230 ff.Google Scholar, and Monuments of Nineveh II, pl. XLIV. It is also possible that a group of fragments showing Assyrians and Elamites in feathered caps comes from room XXII: I have in mind two pieces in Venice (AfO XVI (1952), p. 31 f., figs. 6 & 7Google Scholar,) one in Brussels, (BMAH IV, 23 (1951), P. 28)Google Scholar, one m Rome (Weidner, op. cit., fig. 44), the joining fragments in Glasgow, (AfO XVI, p. 350, fig. 1)Google Scholar and Paris (de Clercq Catalogue II, no. 23), and the three joining fragments in London (Weidner, op. cit., fig. 69) and Boston, (AJA LVIII (1954), pl. XXXVII, fig. 5)Google Scholar. Room XXII is the only place in which Layard, to whom two of the fragments belonged, mentions having found feather-capped figures; the larger fragments, which Layard did not find, are all broken off from an upper register, and may have landed in the middle of the room, to be unearthed subsequently by Rassam. The alternative possibility, that they come from room I of Ashur-banipal's own palace, and represent his triumphal entry into Milkia after the defeat of Teumman, leaves no position readily available for B.M. 124924.

8 AfO XVI (1952), pp. 247–249Google Scholar. Her remarks deserve wider recognition. Opitz, D., in Analecta Orientalia XII (1935), p. 265Google Scholar, had previously suggested that details of Sennacherib's reliefs were occasionally brought up to date to conform with changing fashions.

9 Nineveh and Babylon, pp. 73, 104 & 342.

10 Fragments probably from this facade are illustrated by Layard, A. H., Nineveh and its Remains, II, pl. opposite p. 360 and fig., p. 402Google Scholar; A. Paterson, Palace of Sinacherib, pl. 98, nos. 31, 32; AfO XVI (1952), p. 31, fig. 5Google Scholar; and AfO XX (1963), p. 198, fig. 11. Nos. 199333 and 199334Google Scholar in tne Museum Narodowe, Warsaw, may also belong.

11 Gadd, C. J., The Stones of Assyria, p. 164Google Scholar.

12 Nineveh and Babylon, p. 69. Layatd's final plan of the palace, op. cit., plan I, which distinguishes between known and hypothetical walls, is probably to be preferred to that printed opposite p. 124 of Nineveh and its Remains II.

13 L.A.R. II, p. 321.

14 Berlin, V.A. 955; C. J. Gadd, The Stones of Assyria, pl. 23.

15 F. Thureau-Dangin and M. Dunand, Til-Barsip, pl. LI, top right.

16 Normally the king also wears a conical fez, but this was probably reserved in practice for state occasions; some of Ashurbanipal's more naturalistic reliefs show him, hunting or feasting, with the tiara alone. Cf. R. D. Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs, figs. 88 & 105; it should perhaps be noted that the former shows the king rescuing some of his Elamite guests from a lion, as described in L..A.R. II, p. 392.

17 R. D. Barnett and M. Falkner, The Sculptures of Tiglatb-Pileser III, pl. LXXXV. This sculpture shows not “the submission of an enemy”, but the reception by the king of a successful Assyrian officer in full armour; it may be compared with L. W. King, Gates of Shalmaneser, pl. LVII, and Budge, E. W., Assyrian Sculptures: Reign of Asburnasirpal, pl. XX, 1Google Scholar.

18 E.g. E. W. Budge, loc. cit..

19 Barnett, R. D. and Falkner, M., The Sculptures of Tiglatb-Pileser III, p. 10Google Scholar.

20 F. von Luschan, Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli I, pls. I–III; reproduced also by J. B. Pritchard, Tie Ancient Near East in Pictures, nos. 447–449.

21 F. Thureau-Dangin and M. Dunand, Til- Barsip, pls. XII and XIII.

22 Rassam, H., Asshur and the hand of Nimrod, p. 8Google Scholar. These slabs, and others from the same group excavated by the British Army during the last war, are now divided between the British Museum, the Royal Geographical Society, the Staatliche Museen of Berlin, the Nergal Gate Museum at Mosul, and the Mosul Museum itself.

23 A possible order, from right to left, is: Berlin 956, B.M. 124900, a fragment in the Mosul Museum store, R.G.S. 8 + N.G. 2, one slab known only from a drawing, and Berlin 955; cf. C. J. Gadd, op. cit., pls. XXI and XXIII, and E. F. Weidner, op. cit., fig. 70.

24 From right to left, apparently: N.G. 3, B.M. 124948, a drawing, Berlin 953 (three slabs), N.G. 4, B.M. 124901, Berlin 957, B.M. 124951, N.G. 5 + B.M. 124949, Berlin 958, and N.G. 1 + B.M. 124950; cf. Gadd, op. cit., pl. XXII, Weidner, op. cit., fig. 71, Hall, op cit., pl. 38, 1, and RLV VII pl. CLVI11. There is of course no connection between the musicians in this procession and those, doubtless from room XLVII, who appear on B.M. 124947 (C. J. Gadd, op. cit., pl. XX).