Assyrian high-relief bricks from Nineveh and the fragments of a royal name

Abstract

During the excavations in Nineveh carried out by R. Campbell Thompson on behalf of the British Museum in the years 1929 to 1932, many glazed Assyrian bricks were recovered and partly published in the excavation reports. Bricks were found in the years 1927–8 and 1929–30, respectively, when the Temple of Nabu and the so-called Palace of Assurnasirpal II were being excavated. Bricks were said to have come from the South-East area of the Temple of Nabu, where the excavators thought they had found the palace of King Assurnasirpal II. Actually, as recognised then by Thompson himself, the area between the temples of Nabu and Ishtar, where the palace of Assurnasirpal was thought to be, is characterised by later installations that reused Assyrian materials and structures (Fig. 1a–b). Confusion is due to the frequent presence of the wordé.gal(“palace”) at the beginning of the inscription that was stamped onto the bricks. However, the wordé.galprobably does not refer to a palace proper, but was used as a production mark: the brick was produced by and/or within the administrative structure (“palace”) of the Assyrian king, whose name usually follows the wordé.gal(“palace” of + Assyrian king's name), independently from its final location or use either for a palace or a temple. Thus, as reconstructed by Julian Reade, the Temple of Ishtar should be considered the likely source for the Assyrian materials found when excavating the South-East quadrant in the years 1927–8 and 1929–30, although the Temple of Nabu itself cannota prioribe totally excluded.

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