Assyrian Reliefs: The Sacred Art of Mesopotamia's Last Empire
The palace reliefs of the Assyrian Empire (c. 900-612 BCE) constitute one of the most powerful and most disturbing bodies of sacred art in the ancient world. Carved in alabaster and limestone on the walls of royal palaces at Nineveh, Nimrud, and Khorsabad, these continuous narrative reliefs recorded with photographic specificity the military campaigns, royal hunts, divine rituals, and cosmic battles of the Assyrian kings — who understood themselves not merely as political leaders but as the earthly agents of the god Ashur, executing divine will through the exercise of supreme force. The lamassu (human-headed winged bulls and lions that guarded the palace gates) were not decorative: they were apotropaic beings of genuine divine power, their five legs positioned so that from the front they appeared still and from the side they appeared striding — eternally watchful in both dimensions. When the British Museum acquired them in the 19th century and placed them in the entrance hall, visitors...