Images

This clay tablet records several inscriptions found on an old lapis lazuli cylinder seal. The seal had belonged first to the Kassite king Shagarakti-Shuriash (reigned 1245-1233 BCE) in Babylon. It was taken to Assyria; later it was returned...

This literary text gives an advice to a prince on how a king should behave, with the agenda of securing tax exemptions for the cities of Babylon and Nippur. This clay tablet is a copy which was made between 700-650 BCE, of an earlier composition...

This is from the Eye Temple at Tell Brak. The gold and stone elements were fastened to wood. The design appears to reflect a temple facade; the small circles imitate cone mosaic, and the vertical fluting represents half-columns or niches...

This is a bronze head of a winged bull, from a handle of a large cauldron. 8th to 7th centuries BCE, Urartian. From Toprakkale, modern-day Turkey. (The British Museum, London)

Copper alloy head of a lion or cub, which may have acted as a guardian at the entrance to the Temple of Ninhursag at Tell Al-Ubaid, Southern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. Early Dynastic Period, c. 2500 BCE. The British Museum, London...

Gypsum wall panel relief depicting two musicians, playing a harp and a lyre. One is a young man wearing a feather headdress and the other is a woman wearing a fillet of large beads. A tame lion beneath palms and cypresses appears. The whole...

The lower half of this carved and polished granite statue has survived. It probably represents a seated figure of Gudea, ruler of Lagash. Lagash II period, circa 2150 BCE. From Seleucia ad Tigrim (5 miles south-west of Seleucia), Mesopotamia...

This head is part of a copper alloy bull in the round. This is the best preserved bull of four similar bulls found and it is the only one which kept its head. Early Dynastic Period, circa 2500 BCE. From the Temple of Ninhursag at Tell Al-Ubaid...

This gypsum wall panel relief depicts horses and grooms leaving Sennacherib's palace. Neo-Assyrian Period, reign of Sennacherib, 700-692 BCE. From Room L1 (north), the South-West Palace at Nineveh (Kouyunjik), Northern Mesopotamia, modern-day...

This is one of a long procession of tribute bearers seen arriving from modern-day Syria or Turkey, on the western fringes of the Assyrian Empire. Neo-Assyrian Period, reign of Sargon II, 710-705 BCE. From Room X of the Royal Palace at Khorsabad...