Assyria: Nineveh

Look for the effort involved in moving a giant stone figure. The reliefs in Room 9 include scenes of protective bull sculptures being transported. Workers and equipment turn a royal monument into a record of labour as well as an image of power. These panels came from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, in present-day northern Iraq. Sennacherib was an Assyrian king whose building projects and campaigns became subjects for the walls of his palace. The carvings describe the movement of sculpture that was itself made to guard and decorate royal buildings. Follow the relationship between the huge load and the smaller people around it. The stone on display carries an image of another stone being moved. That gives you two kinds of work to consider, the transport of the monument and the carving of the scene.