Ancient Disfiguring Discovered on Assyrian Relief

When curators at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art decided to move some ancient Assyrian reliefs to the newly renovated

portion of their galleries, they simply wanted a better space to display these impressive artifacts. But they made a major

discovery: evidence of an ancient act of vengeance.

In the brighter light of the new exhibit space, 19th-century repairs became visible on the reliefs. The underlying

damage on one relief of Ashurnasirpal II seemed to be significant. In this regal portrait the king is depicted in the

elaborate costume of an Assyrian monarch: tall conical hat, long embroidered cape, several pieces of jewelry and a dagger.

One hand holds a bow, while the other is raised in a traditional gesture of greeting.

A closer look beneath the modern repairs, however, revealed that the bow had been broken, his wrist and Achilles

tendons had been cut, his nose and ear damaged, one eye had been gouged out and part of his beard hacked away. The museum

curators determined that this was no ordinary case of wear or accidental damage. But who would deliberately deface a

portrait of the king?

Ashurnasirpal II ruled Assyria from 883 to 859 B.C., during which time he established his capital at Kalhu, now modern

Nimrud in northern Iraq. (Genesis 10:8–12 recounts that the great hunter Nimrod gave rise to

the Assyrian people and built the great city of Calah [Kalhu].) Ashurnasirpal built up his walled city with temples, palaces

and living quarters for the people whom he forcibly relocated there. Although the Bowdoin relief was not professionally

excavated, it most likely came from a temple on the citadel. Once brightly painted, this nearly 6-foot-tall gypsum portrait

of the king was intended to intimidate viewers.

Experts who have studied the reliefs now believe that the Ashurnasirpal portrait was attacked by the Medes, former

Assyrian vassals who overtook Kalhu in 612 B.C. The very images of kings—even those who had been dead for hundreds of

years—were believed to hold power and represent the Assyrian kingship, so when the Medes took power, they defaced the

images to both reflect and ensure the conquered kings’ impotence. According to Barbara N. Porter, a scholar from the

Harvard Semitic Museum who has studied the reliefs in depth, the act of vandalism “could be seen as a magical attack

as well as a symbolic disfiguration.”—D.D.R.