Monday 13 April 2015

Nimrud


There was an example of the Assyrian view of  "the body" at the British Museum exhibition, taken from its wonderful collection of friezes. It showed prisoners strung up.
Now the old capital of Assyria, Nimrud, has apparently been completely destroyed by the philistine IS. King Ashurnasirpal II who reigned from 883-859 BC built the city of Nimrud. Here's one of the inscriptions which used to be on its walls:

"The palace of cedar, cypress, juniper, boxwood, mulberry, pistachio wood, and tamarisk, for my royal dwelling and for my lordly pleasure for all time, I founded therein. Beasts of the mountains and of the seas, of white limestone and alabaster I fashioned and set them up on its gates." 




1 comment: