Image Details

Horse-prow ships haul timber by river from Lebanon to Assyria for construction of the palace of Sargon II (ruled 721–705 B.C.E.). The scene, originally from Khorsobad, is now at the Louvre. So common was the horse as a decoration on Phoenician ships that the vessels were known as hippos ships; hippos is Greek for horse. The horse ornament was especially popular at Cyprus in the seventh century B.C.E. and very likely decorated the bow of the ship incised on the Dor scapula.