Plaque carved in relief with figure fighting a lion

Plaque carved in relief with figure fighting a lion

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This trapezoidal ivory plaque was found in a storage room in Fort Shalmaneser, a royal building at Nimrud that was used to store booty and tribute collected by the Assyrians while on military campaign. It depicts a male figure, barefoot and dressed in an Egyptian-style kilt and beaded collar, in combat with a rampant lion. The figure wears a short Egyptian wig and a headdress that resembles the Egyptian double crown. He holds a plant stalk with a lily blossom in his right hand and grasps the lion’s foreleg with the same hand, while driving a spear through its abdomen with his left, holding the spear awkwardly behind his own body. Plant stalks topped with lily blossoms grow behind each of the two combatants, and one with an additional branch topped by a bud grows in the field between the two. The lion seems to rest a paw on the lily blossom, or perhaps on the shaft of the spear. Its mouth is open in a roar, and its mane is shown as individual tufts of hair, extending along the shoulder and down the belly, as is typical on Mesopotamian depictions of lions. A raised plain border is preserved on the sides and bottom edge. The surface of the ivory is much more worn on the left side and a large fragment is missing from the bottom edge. Carved ivory pieces such as this were widely used in the production of elite furniture and luxury objects during the early first millennium B.C., and could be overlaid with gold foil or inlaid to create a dazzling effect of gleaming surfaces and bright colors. This piece is one of many elaborately carved ivories with motifs adapted from Egyptian art that have been attributed to Phoenician workshops, as Phoenician art shows strong Egyptian influence. It was found with many other small trapezoidal plaques, suggesting that these pieces were originally fitted together in a hexagonal or octagonal ring that was wider at the bottom than the top. If equipped with bases and lids, these could have been used as boxes, or alternatively they could have served as stands for bowls or round-bottomed goblets. 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.

Ancient Near Eastern Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plaque carved in relief with figure fighting a lionPlaque carved in relief with figure fighting a lionPlaque carved in relief with figure fighting a lionPlaque carved in relief with figure fighting a lionPlaque carved in relief with figure fighting a lion

The Met's Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art cares for approximately 7,000 works ranging in date from the eighth millennium B.C. through the centuries just beyond the emergence of Islam in the seventh century A.D. Objects in the collection were created by people in the area that today comprises Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Yemen, and Central Asia. From the art of some of the world's first cities to that of great empires, the department's holdings illustrate the beauty and craftsmanship as well as the profound interconnections, cultural and religious diversity, and lasting legacies that characterize the ancient art of this vast region.