Well-Hidden Ivories Surface at Nimrud
047
Ivories from Nimrud VI: Ivories from the North West Palace (1845–1992)
by Georgina Herrmann and Stuart Laidlaw with Helena Coffey
(London: British Institute for the Study of Iraq, Gertrude Bell Memorial, 2009), 282 pp., 138 pp. b/w plates, 24 pp. color plates, £75 (hardcover)
Late in the seventh century B.C., Babylon began a military campaign that would destroy the once-powerful Assyrian empire that had dominated the Near East for 200 years. In 612 B.C. the Babylonian and allied Median armies reached the Assyrian royal city of Calah, now Nimrud, destroying, looting and then setting aflame the gorgeous Assyrian palaces.
Eager for treasure, the Babylonians ripped the gold overlay from the palatial Assyrian furniture, leaving the wooden frames. The Babylonian soldiers wanted anything valuable they could easily carry, so they were not interested in the elaborate ivory decorations 048that also graced this furniture. Such carvings had little use if they were prized out of their settings.
Calah/Nimrud lies on the Tigris River in northern Iraq. Excavations here have extended for more than a century and a half. The excavators include such famous names in the history of Near Eastern archaeology as Austen Henry Layard, Hormuzd Rassam, Max Mallowan (and his wife Agatha Christie Mallowan) and others.
In 1952 British archaeologists returned to continue excavating the once-glorious palace of Ashurnasirpal, king of Assyria from 883 to 859 B.C. The palace had four wells. The British scholars became well explorers. In one well (Well NN) they were 88 feet down when the equipment broke and the water level rose. The workmen scampered out. Nevertheless, amid the water jars they raised with their pulley wheel, they found some of the finest ancient ivory carvings ever discovered.
Perhaps pride of place goes to two nearly identical plaques depicting a lioness killing a young man in a field of flowers, which are inlaid with lapis lazuli and carnelian. The flower stems and the boy’s kilt are still overlaid with some gold. Unfortunately, one of the plaques was stolen in the 2003 Iraq war and has never been recovered.
In the 1970s the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage returned to the site to undertake some restoration. Another well in the palace had tempted the earlier British explorers, but its walls were too unsteady and threatened to collapse, so they could not explore it to the bottom. In 1975 the Iraqi team reinforced the walls of the well (now known as Well AJ). Their next task was to clear the accumulated sludge at the bottom. When they did, they also recovered some of the most astonishing ivory carvings known from the ancient world. Apparently, amid the mayhem and destruction visited at the site by the Babylonians, someone 049050gathered some of the world’s most magnificent ivories in a wicker basket that he or she then lowered into the well.
Wells were convenient repositories for all sorts of things at this site. One (Well 4) contained the bones of 120 people, many shackled, as well as ivories. In 1953 Max Mallowan recovered ivories from still another well (Well AB).
Hundreds of pieces of ivory had also been recovered from palace rooms from the very beginning. Altogether, thousands of ivories, mostly in tiny pieces, have been recovered at the site.
The volume under review seeks to bring together for the first time all of the published ivories and unpublished ivories from Ashurnasirpal’s North West palace at Nimrud. Today they are scattered from Australia to New York and of course many are in Iraq.
In the pages of this article are some of the stunning pieces as they are pictured in the volume’s color and black and white plates. They include a round ivory box for cosmetics or perfumes about 6 inches in diameter; a nude winged goddess or mistress of animals holding a pair of lions, from a detail of a pyxis or cosmetic box; a crowned woman’s head carved from the end of an ivory tusk that served as the stopper for a flask; the bowl of a spoon held by lions with holes in their mouths: the spoon must have been fitted to a flask from which liquid was poured into the spoon; and an extraordinary human-faced bird with a goat in its talons that is being pecked by two vultures.
But pictures cannot do justice to these extraordinary pieces. The details of the objects need to be seen in the round. Nevertheless, in an effort to come as close as possible to this experience, the volume often includes several photographs of the same object from different angles and with different details, both in color and black and white.
These ivories are not only the finest ivories from the site, indeed they are arguably the finest ivories in the whole ancient Near East, but ivories that 051doubtless formed the model and inspiration for the “House of Ivory” that the Bible tells us King Ahab of Israel built in Samaria (1 Kings 22:39). The Bible does not speak well of these ivories, or rather of the Israelites who “lie on ivory beds, lolling on their couches, feasting on lambs” (Amos 6:4). But we moderns can still appreciate their beauty and the extraordinary craftsmanship.
Strangely enough, although the Assyrian kings collected the ivory-ornamented furniture, they may never have used it. Most of the ivories from Nimrud came as booty (or tribute) from the smaller powers of the west that were subject to the Assyrian behemoth—principally the Phoenicians and the North and Central Syrians west of the Euphrates River. The kings there had their furnishings decorated in their local styles.
Assyrian-style ivories from Nimrud were evidently made in Assyria, however. Most are apparently inlays from the furniture of the king.
The Assyrian-style cosmetic containers, too, were apparently used by the Assyrian king and his men, as suggested by the fact that none was recovered from the richly appointed tombs of Assyrian queens buried beneath the palace.
This magnificent publication is now an essential part of any future study of art and craftsmanship during the Iron Age in the Near East. More than that, this oversize, lavishly produced book should bring the work of ivory carvers to the attention of art historians worldwide. The authors’ labors will draw the respect and admiration of all who consult this book.
Unless attributed otherwise, all photographs are credited to the British Institute of the Study of Iraq (formerly the British School of Archaeology in Iraq), the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, and Stuart Laidlaw.
Ivories from Nimrud VI: Ivories from the North West Palace (1845–1992)
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