Handle with two heads of ducks

This object was found in Fort Shalmaneser, a royal building at Nimrud that was used to store booty and tribute collected by the Assyrians while on military campaign. Many thousands of pieces of carved ivory, probably used as furniture decoration or luxury objects, were excavated from storage rooms in the building. While not as common, carved shell and bone items were also stored at Fort Shalmaneser. This roughly cylindrical object was carved from a piece of bone and decorated with back to back duck’s heads in relief, with bills pointing down and held close to the breast. A circle with drilled dot at the center marks each duck’s eye, and the motif is repeated as a border of circles and dots at the top and bottom. A hole runs through the piece lengthwise, perhaps for inserting a tang that belonged to the implement for which this served as part of a decorated handle.