Openwork Plaque with an Oryx Eating a Plant Next to a Tree in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2010

Openwork Plaque with an Oryx Eating a Plant Next to a Tree
Ivory
Northern Mesopotamia, excavated at Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), Fort Shalmaneser, Room NW 15
Neo-Assyrian period, Phoenician style, 9th-8th century BC

Accession Number: 58.31.3

This is one of a group of plaques depicting animals and stylized plants. They were made by master carvers in a delicate openwork technique.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.