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Portrait of Sir Austen Henry Layard, 1885
Charles Vigor
Oil on canvas; 47 1/2 x 31 3/4 in. (120.5 x 80.5 cm)
British Museum, Presented by Phyllis Layard
WA 1968-5-18,1
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Austen Henry Layard
(1817–1894) began his excavations at Nimrud in 1845 at the age of twenty-eight.
First supported by private funds and later by the British Museum, Layard
worked at the site until 1851. Because the excavations took place before
the era of photography, Layard recorded his finds in detailed drawings.
His major discovery was the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II and the
stone relief sculptures that decorated the palace walls. He had the immense
sculptures shipped to England together with other finds. Some of the sculptures
were sent to the country home of his cousin at Canford Manor in Dorsetshire,
England. There they were installed in the "Nineveh Porch," which had cast-iron
doors featuring human-headed bull colossi, stained-glass windows composed
of patterns drawn from wall paintings found at Nimrud, and a ceiling painted
with cuneiform texts. The collection of twenty-six Assyrian sculptures displayed
on the walls was surpassed at the time only by the Assyrian relief collection
in the British Museum. In 1919, eighteen of the sculptures were sold, and
they eventually came into the collection of John D. Rockefeller Jr., who
donated them to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1932.
Hormuzd Rassam
(1826–1910) was born in Mosul, Iraq, and educated in England. He acted
as an assistant to Layard at Nimrud. Rassam continued the excavations for
the British Museum from 1852 to 1854. He worked on the citadel in the central
area and in the eastern sector, where he uncovered the remains of the Nabu
Temple. In 1878, Rassam returned briefly to Nimrud and excavated in the
vicinity of the ziggurat, or temple tower.
William Kenneth
Loftus (1821?–1858) was sent to Nimrud by the British Museum with
the support of the Assyrian Exploration Fund in 1854. He discovered the
Southeast Palace and the Burnt Palace on the citadel and found a series
of fine ivory carvings, many of them carved in the Syrian style. A few of
these ivories are now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Max E. L. Mallowan (1904–1978), a distinguished
British archaeologist, reopened the excavations at Nimrud in 1949 under
the auspices of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art was a major supporter of this expedition from 1951 to 1963.
Mallowan's prime objectives were to uncover the palaces and temples found
by his predecessors, complete the plans of them, and excavate in previously
untouched areas on the citadel, in the lower town, and at Fort Shalmaneser,
the arsenal in the southeast corner of the city. A number of cuneiform tablets
and many major works of art—stone sculpture, ivory carvings, bronzes,
and seals—were discovered during the thirteen years of excavation under
his direction and that of David Oates and Jeffrey Orchard. Finds were divided
among Iraq's Department of Antiquities, the British Museum, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and a number of other contributing institutions.
Department of Antiquities, Iraq, has excavated at Nimrud during the
last decade. Their investigations on the citadel mound have recovered spectacular
carved ivories and an extravagant royal tomb of three queens. This project
has also restored some of the palace and temple buildings. |
