Inside An Ancient Assyrian Palace

One of the best-known images of the ancient Near East is an intriguing nineteenth-century color lithograph reconstructing the throne room of an Assyrian palace. Executed shortly after the archaeological rediscovery of Assyria, a land theretofore known only from the Bible, it was published by the most famous among early excavators of Assyrian ruins, Austen Henry Layard. Over time and despite criticisms, the picture has shaped the understanding and reception of ancient Mesopotamian architecture and architectural decoration. Inside an Ancient Assyrian Palace studies this influential image in depth, both at the time of its creation in London in the eventful year 1848 and in terms of its afterlife. A hidden inscription reveals unsuspected contributions by the renowned architect-designer Owen Jones and his colleague the architect-Egyptologist Joseph Bonomi. Also unexpected is the involvement of an enigmatic German artist who later emigrated to America and whose previous career in Europe had been lost to scholarship. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of art history and the ancient Near East. It will also be of relevance to museum visitors and others interested in the ancient world in general, in the art of the nineteenth century, and in design and historical reconstruction.

“Collins leads a breathtaking lion hunt in his marvellous introduction to one of the British Museum’s fiercest and most famous treasures” (Times [UK]) Between the ninth and seventh centuries BCE, the small kingdom of Assyria (present-day northern Iraq) expanded through conquest from Egypt to Iran. The relief sculptures that decorated Assyrian palaces represent the high point of Mesopotamian art of the first millennium BCE, both for their artistic quality and their vivid depictions of warfare, rituals, mythology, hunting, and other aspects of Assyrian life. Together, the sculptures constitute some of the most impressive and eloquent witnesses of the ancient Near East, their importance only increasing with the recent destruction by ISIS of many of the reliefs that remained in Iraq. Originally published by the British Museum in 2008, this book serves as a superb visual introduction to these extraordinary sculptures, showcasing a series of stunning photographs of the museum’s unrivaled collection of Assyrian reliefs. Highlighting individual panels and their often overlooked details, these images capture the majesty of Assyrian kings, their splendid courts, and protecting divinities. An introduction by Collins sets the sculptures in their cultural and art historical context, while the following chapters provide a brief history of Assyria and its royal palaces as well as an overview of the artworks’ discovery, reception, and understanding.

Revised version of doctoral dissertation, University of Heidelberg, 2008-2011.

"Commissioned by powerful kings between the ninth and seventh centuries BC, when the small kingdom of Assyria in northern Iraq expanded through conquest to dominate the area from Egypt to Iran, the carved images are imperssive and eloquent witnesses to their remarkable achievements. Paul Collins expresses the historical context of the sculptures and surveys the artistic traditions in which they are rooted."--BOOK JACKET.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses monumental, majestic, and important works of art from the ancient world. In particular, a group of Assyrian sculptures from the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, which was constructed during the reign of Assurnasirpal II (883-859 B.C.), is remarkable both for its artistic excellence and for its technical skill. Excavated at Nimrud in the mid-nineteenth century by Sir Austen Henry Layard, an English archaeologist, the majority of these impressive, larger-than-life-size reliefs and sculptures came to the Metropolitan Museum in 1932 as gifts of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., one of the Museum's most generous supporters. Other Assyrian pieces were gifts to the Museum in 1917 from J. Pierpont Morgan, another major figure in the Metropolitan's history. An earlier donor, Benjamin Brewster, began the Museum's collection of Assyrian reliefs with a gift in 1884. In 1968, prior to the beginning of construction on the Lila Acheson Wallace Galleries of Egyptian Art, most of the Ancient Near Eastern works were placed in storage. Now, as the first stage in the reinstallation of permanent galleries for the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, the Assyrian sculptures may again be enjoyed in a gallery setting that reflects their original placement in the Northwest Palace at Nimrud.

Best known today from biblical accounts of his exploits and ignominious end, the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.) was once the ruler of all western Asia. In his capital at Nineveh, in what is now northern Iraq, he built what he called the "Palace without Rival." Though only scattered traces of this magnificent structure are visible today, contemporary written descriptions and surviving wall reliefs permit a remarkably detailed reconstruction of the appearance and significance of the palace. An art historian trained in ancient Near East philology, archaeology, and history, John Malcolm Russell marshals these resources to investigate the meaning and political function of the palace of Sennacherib. He contends that the meaning of the monument cannot be found in images or texts alone; nor can these be divorced from architectural context. Thus his study combines discussions of the context of inscriptions in Sennacherib's palace with reconstructions of its physical appearance and analyses of the principles by which the subjects of Sennacherib's reliefs were organized to express meaning. Many of the illustrations are published here for the first time, notably drawings of palace reliefs made by nineteenth-century excavators and photographs taken in the course of the author's own excavations at Nineveh.

An insider's look at the iconography and history of Assyrian reliefs and the West's fascination with these ancient monuments