Plaque

This narrow, curved strip of ivory is decorated with two animals in profile facing left, each with a plain undecorated border on four sides. Because the strip was broken in antiquity, most of the animal at left is now missing, with only the body and parts of the rear legs preserved. The spotted hide and short tail suggest that it depicts a fallow deer, so the piece has been restored in wax with the head and forelegs of this animal. At right, a bearded male ibex is shown with head down, the massive horns curving backwards to reach almost to the shoulders, the sinewy neck and ribs articulated with short parallel lines. The incised outlines are drawn simply, without extensive details, and the animals’ vivid, lifelike appearance suggests that the artisan was familiar with the living creatures themselves. Both deer and ibex are wild animals associated with the untamed landscapes outside the cities of the Assyrian empire. Carved ivory pieces such as this were widely used in the production of elite furniture during the early first millennium B.C., and were often inlaid into a wooden frame using joinery techniques and glue. Ivories carved in this style, in which scenes similar to those depicted in the stone reliefs decorating the walls of the Assyrian palaces are represented using an incised technique, are thought to have been made in Assyrian workshops for the use of the royal court. This piece was found in Fort Shalmaneser, a royal building at Nimrud, in an area probably used as a royal residence. Most of the carved ivory found in the royal residence area at Fort Shalmaneser was carved in the Assyrian style, suggesting that the Assyrian court primarily used ivory furniture carved in this style.

Built by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, the palaces and storerooms of Nimrud housed thousands of pieces of carved ivory. Most of the ivories served as furniture inlays or small precious objects such as boxes. While some of them were carved in the same style as the large Assyrian reliefs lining the walls of the Northwest Palace, the majority of the ivories display images and styles related to the arts of North Syria and the Phoenician city-states. Phoenician style ivories are distinguished by their use of imagery related to Egyptian art, such as sphinxes and figures wearing pharaonic crowns, and the use of elaborate carving techniques such as openwork and colored glass inlay. North Syrian style ivories tend to depict stockier figures in more dynamic compositions, carved as solid plaques with fewer added decorative elements. However, some pieces do not fit easily into any of these three styles. Most of the ivories were probably collected by the Assyrian kings as tribute from vassal states, and as booty from conquered enemies, while some may have been manufactured in workshops at Nimrud. The ivory tusks that provided the raw material for these objects were almost certainly from African elephants, imported from lands south of Egypt, although elephants did inhabit several river valleys in Syria until they were hunted to extinction by the end of the eighth century B.C.