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Relief panel from Assyria

Met curator Kim Benzel on repetition in Relief panel from Assyria,  c. 883–859 B.C.E.

The palace rooms at Nimrud were decorated with large stone slabs carved in low relief, with brightly painted walls and ceilings and sculptural figures guarding the doorways. The throne room contained narrative scenes commemorating the military victories of Ashurnasirpal, while in other areas of the palace were protective figures and images of the king and his retinue performing ritual acts.

On this relief slab the king Ashurnasirpal II wears the royal crown, a conical cap with a small peak and a long diadem. He holds a bow, a symbol of his authority, and a ceremonial bowl. Facing him, a eunuch, a "beardless one," carries a fly whisk and a ladle for replenishing the royal vessel. The peaceful, perhaps religious character of the scene is reflected in the dignified composure of the figures.

View this work on metmuseum.org.

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Video transcript

People are absolutely overwhelmed by the impression of this room. These reliefs come from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II, who reigned in the ninth century B.C. in ancient Mesopotamia. The sheer weight and size of the reliefs, raising them, carving them, these are all extraordinary feats of artistry and technology. You see the king, Ashurnasirpal, performing an offering of sort of liquid. There were some 210-plus images of trees throughout the palace. Ashurnasirpal is the servant who is meant to secure abundance and the fertility and fecundity of the land. In Mesopotamia, to create an image of the king was to actually give it the presence of the king. The excavator, Henry Austen Layard, dispersed the reliefs all across Europe and the United States because he felt they were so repetitive and redundant. And what is so fascinating to me is that this very repetition and redundancy is exactly what makes these reliefs work. When you go very, very close to the reliefs, almost every part of their garments is incised with some sort of decoration. The same narrative scenes that one sees on the macro level are repeated on this micro level. They’re being duplicated in a way that’s slightly different, but it has the same message: Kingship is infinite. So that infinite image creates an endless echoing, which is almost dizzying and supernatural. Today, people view them and they say, “Oh, well, they look so static” or “the faces are all the same; they obviously couldn’t make naturalistic art.” That has nothing to do with it, that was not their interest. It’s like saying that abstract artists can’t paint a naturalistic image. They have a completely different goal in mind. The repetition is meant to create a larger message. By giving it image, you’re giving it life, and if each of them is meant to be alive, then you have this extraordinary hyperreality.