Ripping Open Pregnant Arab Women: Reliefs in Room L of Ashurbanipal's North Palace

Abstract

Neo-Assyrian reliefs are known for representing all kinds of violence. The reliefs frequently capture Assyrian soldiers beheading their enemies with a sword, piercing them with a spear, or smashing their heads with a mace. The objects of such violence are exclusively men, primarily soldiers and rulers. The Assyrian reliefs also show long processions of deportees, among them women, who were deported together with their husbands and their children as part of Assyrian booty (Barnett 1976: pl. XVIII, XIX; Barnett and Falkner 1962: pl. VI, VII, XC); however, they were usually not mistreated or shackled as the subjugated men were (Albenda 1987: 20). Relief BM 124927 found in the North Palace of Nineveh represents an exception. It depicts Assyrian troops ruthlessly slaying Arab women (Reade 1998: 227). To emphasize the unusual character of this relief it is helpful to compare it with the treatment of Elamite women that has been preserved on the reliefs of Room F in the same palace (Barnett 1976: pl. XVIII). After the battle the Elamite women hid themselves in marshes. When the Assyrian soldiers find them, the reliefs portray no violence committed against them. The next scene depicts the deportation of the Elamite women, but once again no explicit violence against the Elamite women can be noticed. The opposite is true for the Arab women on the reliefs in Room L.1 After the battle against the Arabs, the Assyrians turn against the Arab camp. Relief BM 124927 represents four direct attacks against Arab women and two scenes in which we can easily recognize dead female bodies. The most brutal scene of violence against women ever captured on Neo-Assyrian reliefs is on the middle register of this relief. I will argue that this scene depicts the Assyrian soldiers ripping open a pregnant Arab woman. Despite several excellent studies of these reliefs, many questions are still left unanswered. Therefore, before analyz-

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