Relief of a Genie from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II in the Prinecton University Art Museum, August 2009

Relief of a Winged Divinity from the Throne Room (Room B), Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II
Assyrian, Nimrud, 885-859 BC
Gypseous limestone

# Y207

This relief was one of several that decorated the Throne Room of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II in his palace at Nimrud, in northern Iraq. Removed in the nineteenth century after its discovery by Sir Austen Henry Layard, the lower half of the figure is still in its original position in the palace, to the left of the throne itself. The winged, human-headed divinity wears a horned cap and a fringed garment embellished with incised floral and geometric patterns. Three daggers, one with an animal-head haft, are tucked in a fold beneath the right arm. The left hand probably held a bucket and the right hand a date-palm spathe for tending the Sacred Tree. Many details of the relief were originally painted black, white, red, and blue. The inscription in the Neo-Assyrian dialect of Akkadian, is written from right to left in cuneiform script. Only the left half of the inscription is preserved, but the full text can be restored because it repeats a standard formula found on many other reliefs. The inscription extols the power and accomplishments of Ashurnasirpal, "the great king, the mighty king, the king of hosts;" "the mighty male who tramples on the neck of his enemies."

Text from the Princeton University Art Museum label.