Nimrud ivories

The ivories comprise plaques decorated in relief with intricate carvings of sphinxes, lions, serpents, people, flowers and geometric motifs, as well as carvings of female heads and female figurines. They were carved in various locations across the Ancient Near East, including Egypt, modern Syria and Lebanon, with relatively few carved locally. or, more likely, Africa. In addition to plaques, many small ivory carvings of female heads have been found at Nimrud, most only one or two inches in height, but a few over 5 inches tall. Many of these heads wear a flat cap which is very similar to the flat caps depicted on much earlier ivories from the Tel Megiddo site in modern Israel. Another common carved form found at Nimrud comprises figurines of two naked females joined back to back, which are thought to have been used either as handles for fans or mirrors, or as a decorative element on furniture. A far greater number of ivories were found at Nimrud than at any other Assyrian site, and it is thought that they had been brought to Nimrud as booty or imported as luxury goods from cities on the Mediterranean coast. Some centuries later it seems that these objects fell out of fashion, and were put into storage. ==Discoveries==

Layard (1845) The first group of ivories was excavated from the site of the palace of Shalmaneser III (ruled 859–824 BC) at the Assyrian capital of Nimrud. The palace was rediscovered in 1845 by Austin Henry Layard, on the very first day of his excavations; on the second day, he made the first discovery of ivories. Loftus (1854–1855) More ivories were found during William Kennett Loftus's excavations in 1854–1855. They were found in a group of buildings labelled the "South-East Palace" or "Burnt Palace"; Loftus described the circumstances of the discovery in a letter to the Journal of Sacred Literature in February 1855: Mallowan (1949–1963) Further discoveries were made between 1949 and 1963 by a team from the British School of Archaeology in Iraq led by the archaeologist Max Mallowan. Mallowan found thousands of ivories, many of which were discovered at the bottom of wells into which they had apparently been thrown when the city was sacked, either in the turmoil that followed the death of Sargon II in 705 BC or when Nineveh fell and was destroyed in 612 BC. Christie helped photograph and preserve many of the ivories found during the excavations, explaining in her autobiography that she cleaned the ivories using a fine knitting needle, an orange stick and a pot of face cream. They were then put in storage at the British Museum until 2011, but were not put on display. Other discoveries In recent years excavations by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities have unearthed more ivories. File:Head of a female figure MET DP110585 (cropped).jpg|Female head, probably from a statuette, Syrian style File:Head of a female figure MET DP110561 (cropped).jpg|Female head, probably from a statuette, North Syrian style File:Ram-headed Sphinxes Flanking a Sacred Tree, Phoenician, Iraq, Nimrud, ivory - Cleveland Museum of Art - DSC08102.JPG|Ram-headed Sphinxes Flanking a Sacred Tree, Phoenician, Cleveland Museum of Art File:Man and Griffin in Combat, Phoenician, Iraq, Nimrud, ivory - Cleveland Museum of Art - DSC08096.JPG|Man and Griffin in Combat, Phoenician, Cleveland Museum of Art File:Placchetta d'avorio da nimrud, sfinge, VIII-VII secolo ac.jpg|Plaque 8th-7th century BC File:Placchetta d'avorio da nimrud, ornamento con albero sacro, VIII-VII secolo ac.jpg|Plaque with plant motif File:Standing man holding branches of lotus flowers. Ivory, from Nimrud, Iraq, 9th to 7th century BC. Sulaymaniyah Museum.jpg|Standing man holding branches of lotus flowers. File:Standing man holding branches of lotus flowers. The winged god Assur appears above. Ivory, from Nimrud, Iraq, 9th to 7th century BC. Sulaymaniyah Museum.jpg|Standing man holding branches of lotus flowers. The winged god Assur appears above. File:Standing man holding a lotus flower. Ivory, from Nimrud, Iraq, 9th to 7th century BC. Sulaymaniyah Museum.jpg|Standing man holding a lotus flower. File:Carved ivory piece of an Egyptian woman. From Nimrud, Iraq, 9th-7th century BC. Sulaymaniyah Museum.jpg|Carved ivory piece of an Egyptian woman. ==Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions==

A number of the ivories contain Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions – a few contain a number of words, and many more contain single letters. Some of these were found in the mid-nineteenth century by Layard and Loftus (in particular a knob inscribed "property of Milki-ram " [lmlkrm]), and more were found in 1961 by Mallowan and Oates. Of the latter, the most significant finds were excavated in "Fort Shalmaneser" in the southeast of the Nimrud site. Alan Millard published a series of these in 1962; the code "ND" is the standard excavation code for "Nimrud Documents": ==Collections==

Ivories from Nimrud are held at a number of institutions across the world: • British Museum, London, England: 6,000 pieces excavated by Mallowan which were formerly held at the British Institute for the Study of Iraq; as well as a number of pieces from other excavations. • Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery 28 pieces from the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. • National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq. • The Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraqi Kurdistan. This museum houses about 30 pieces, which were excavated by Sir Max Mallowan. All of them are contained within 2 large display cases. • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City • Cleveland Museum of Art • Erbil Civilization Museum, Iraqi Kurdistan. The museum houses 3 plaques, which were also excavated by Sir Max Mallowan between 1949 and 1963 CE. All of these plaques are on display in Hall 2 of the Museum. • University of Melbourne, Australia: 3 pieces excavated by Mallowan. • The California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco has a group of pieces. ==Catalogues==

The Nimrud Ivories are being published in a series of scholarly catalogues. Many of these are available free online from the British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI): links here. ==See also==