“Collins leads a breathtaking lion hunt in his marvellous introduction to one of the British Museum’s fiercest and most famous treasures” (Times [UK]) Between the ninth and seventh centuries BCE, the small kingdom of Assyria (present-day northern Iraq) expanded through conquest from Egypt to Iran. The relief sculptures that decorated Assyrian palaces represent the high point of Mesopotamian art of the first millennium BCE, both for their artistic quality and their vivid depictions of warfare, rituals, mythology, hunting, and other aspects of Assyrian life. Together, the sculptures constitute some of the most impressive and eloquent witnesses of the ancient Near East, their importance only increasing with the recent destruction by ISIS of many of the reliefs that remained in Iraq. Originally published by the British Museum in 2008, this book serves as a superb visual introduction to these extraordinary sculptures, showcasing a series of stunning photographs of the museum’s unrivaled collection of Assyrian reliefs. Highlighting individual panels and their often overlooked details, these images capture the majesty of Assyrian kings, their splendid courts, and protecting divinities. An introduction by Collins sets the sculptures in their cultural and art historical context, while the following chapters provide a brief history of Assyria and its royal palaces as well as an overview of the artworks’ discovery, reception, and understanding.

One of the best-known images of the ancient Near East is an intriguing nineteenth-century color lithograph reconstructing the throne room of an Assyrian palace. Executed shortly after the archaeological rediscovery of Assyria, a land theretofore known only from the Bible, it was published by the most famous among early excavators of Assyrian ruins, Austen Henry Layard. Over time and despite criticisms, the picture has shaped the understanding and reception of ancient Mesopotamian architecture and architectural decoration. Inside an Ancient Assyrian Palace studies this influential image in depth, both at the time of its creation in London in the eventful year 1848 and in terms of its afterlife. A hidden inscription reveals unsuspected contributions by the renowned architect-designer Owen Jones and his colleague the architect-Egyptologist Joseph Bonomi. Also unexpected is the involvement of an enigmatic German artist who later emigrated to America and whose previous career in Europe had been lost to scholarship. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of art history and the ancient Near East. It will also be of relevance to museum visitors and others interested in the ancient world in general, in the art of the nineteenth century, and in design and historical reconstruction.

A detailed exploration of Layard's famous lithograph of the interior of an Assyrian palace

Far from being a Judeo-Christian invention, apocalyptic thought had its roots in the ancient Near East and was expressed in its art.

An insider's look at the iconography and history of Assyrian reliefs and the West's fascination with these ancient monuments

This large handsome volume, carefully reproduced from the original edition of 1849-53 and bound in deluxe Verona cloth, contains 170 drawings made by Layard of sculptures, bas-reliefs, and other objects discovered by him among the ruins of Nineveh.

A fascinating glimpse into ancient Assyrian culture, history, and art explored through one of its most famous rulers, King Ashurbanipal.

Bringing together the research of internationally renowned scholars, Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age contributes significantly to our understanding of the epoch-making artistic and cultural exchanges that took place across the Near East and Mediterranean in the early first millennium B.C. This was the world of Odysseus, in which seafaring Phoenician merchants charted new nautical trade routes and established prosperous trading posts and colonies on the shores of three continents; of kings Midas and Croesus, legendary for their wealth; and of the Hebrew Bible, whose stories are brought vividly to life by archaeological discoveries. Objects drawn from collections in the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, and the United States, reproduced here in sumptuous detail, reflect the cultural encounters of diverse populations interacting through trade, travel, and migration as well as war and displacement. Together, they tell a compelling story of the origins and development of Western artistic traditions that trace their roots to the ancient Near East and across the Mediterranean world. Among the masterpieces brought together in this volume are stone reliefs that adorned the majestic palaces of ancient Assyria; expertly crafted Phonecian and Syrian bronzes and worked ivories that were stored in the treasuries of Assyria and deposited in tombs and sanctuaries in regions far to the west; and lavish personal adornments and other luxury goods, some imported and others inspired by Near Eastern craftsmanship. Accompanying texts by leading scholars position each object in cultural and historical context, weaving a narrative of crisis and conquest, worship and warfare, and epic and empire that spans both continents and millennia. Writing another chapter in the story begun in Art of the First Cities (2003) and Beyond Babylon (2008), Assyria to Iberia offers a comprehensive overview of art, diplomacy, and cultural exchange in an age of imperial and mercantile expansion in the ancient Near East and across the Mediterranean in the first millennium B.C.—the dawn of the Classical age.

This volume assembles more than 30 articles focusing on the visual, material, and environmental arts of the Ancient Near East. Specific case studies range temporally from the fourth millennium up to the Hellenistic period and geographically from Iran to the eastern Mediterranean. Contributions apply innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to archaeological evidence and critically examine the historiography of the discipline itself. Not intended to be comprehensive, the volume instead captures a cross-section of the field of Ancient Near Eastern art history as its stands in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The volume will be of value to scholars working in the Ancient Near East as well as others interested in newer art historical and anthropological approaches to visual culture.