The King and Apkallu: Relief from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud, Room G

Label

History of the Reliefs
Spanning the wall of the gallery are six monumental reliefs from the Northwest Palace of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II. The panels, six out of the dozens in the palace, feature the king himself, his attendants, and supernatural figures called apkallu in a procession of power and authority that would have visually surrounded the actual king, his household, and visitors inside his lavish palace. In their original context, these reliefs, colorfully painted, would have been activated through flickering torch light, scents of incense and perfume, sound, and the movement of people as they passed through and occupied the halls.

The amount of stone required to cloak the interior of Ashurnasirpal’s palace was itself a demonstration of the king’s wealth and control over the resources of the Assyrian empire, which dominated most of the Middle East during Ashurnasirpal’s rule. The king himself is featured in the reliefs on the second slab from left, holding a bow and arrows to signal his strength as a warrior, wearing a highly decorative tunic and royal headdress to demonstrate his sovereignty, and flanked by attendant eunuchs and apkullu to emphasize his significance. If this were not enough to communicate the power of the king, the cuneiform “Standard Inscription,” an official list of the king’s accomplishments, repeats across the center of the panels, proclaiming: “Palace of Ashurnasirpal . . . destructive weapon of the great gods, strong king, king of the universe, king of Assyria . . . marvelous shepherd, fearless in battle, unopposable mighty floodtide, king who subdues those insubordinate to him, he who rules all peoples . . .”

 
Reliefs Object Biography
In the 1850s and 1860s, several New England colleges and museums began to acquire Assyrian reliefs. The desire for the reliefs derived from archaeological interest, the contemporary Christian belief that these sites were proof of biblical events, and competition between the schools. Many institutions obtained their reliefs and other objects through robust alumni networks. At Dartmouth, Oliver Payson Hubbard, the college librarian, wrote a letter in February 1853 to Austin Wright, a Dartmouth graduate from the Class of 1830 who was currently in Iran as a missionary. He wondered: “Can you, without too great trouble to yourself or them, persuade some of your brother missionaries at Mosul to procure for your Alma Mater some mementos of the Ancient Cities now opened on the Tigris?” Wright was able to connect with Henry Rawlinson, the British consul in Baghdad who was also in charge of British antiquarian activities in Mesopotamia. Six slabs were designated for Dartmouth and began their journey to the Upper Valley. The slabs were cut into blocks, carted by donkeys to Mosul, packed into twenty-eight boxes that traveled via camel to Alexandretta, and sent on a sailing vessel to Beirut. After waiting in a customhouse for nine months, the boxes set off for America on a steamship appropriately called the “Daniel Webster,” finally arriving in Hanover via train in December 1856. Since 1985, the reliefs have been mounted on this wall in the Kim Gallery of the Charles Moore–designed Hood Museum of Art.

From the 2024 exhibition Ancient Narratives: A New Look at Old Art, curated by Ashley B. Offill, Curator of Collections

Course History

ARTH 20, Art of Ancient Egypt and the Near East, Steven Kangas, Spring 2013

REL 4, JWST 4, Religion of Israel: The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), Peter Lanfer, Spring 2013

JWST 41, Cities of the Biblical World, Steven Kangas, Fall 2012

REL 81, Dickinson Distinguished Scholar Seminar: Orientalism and the Origins of Religion, Susannah Heschel, Fall 2012

ARTH 82, History of Museums and Collecting, Joy Kenseth, Spring 2012

ARTH 1, Steve Kangas, Ada Cohen, Bodies and Buildings: Introduction to the History of Art in the Ancient World and the Middle Ages, Fall 2013

ANTH 8, The Rise and Fall of Prehistoric Civilizations, Deborah Nichols, Fall 2013

ARAB 31, Advanced Arabic, El Mostafa Ouajjani, Fall 2013

JWST 7, Archaeologists, Artists, and Adventurers: The Rediscovery of the Holy Land, Steven Kangas, Winter 2014

WRIT 5, Imaging Power: The Development of a Western Vocabulary of Rulership, Jane Carroll, Winter 2014

ARTH 20, The Art of Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Near East, Steven Kangas, Winter 2014

ANTH 12.2, Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Daniel Potts, Spring 2014

THEA 15, Theater & Society I: Classical and Medieval Performance, Laura Edmondson, Fall 2014

ARTH 1, Bodies and Buildings, Steven Kangas, Nicola Camerlenghi, Fall 2014

REL 4, JWST 4, Religion of Israel: The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), Peter Lanfer, Fall 2014

ANTH 8, The Rise and Fall of Prehistoric Civilizations, Deborah Nichols, Fall 2014

ARTH 7.8, Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and their Modern Successors, Steven Kangas, Spring 2015

ARTH 20, The Art of Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Near East, Steven Kangas, Spring 2015

ARTH 1, Bodies and Buildings: Introduction to the History of Art in the Ancient World and the Middle Ages, Jane Carroll, Steven Kangas, Fall 2015

ANTH 12.2, The Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Jesse Casana, Fall 2015

JWST 7, Archaeologists, Artists, and Adventures: The Rediscovery of the Holy Land , Steven Kangas, Winter 2016

ANTH 12.2, The Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Jason Herrmann, Spring 2013

ARTH 01, Bodies and Buildings, Nicola Camerlenghi and Steven Kangas, Fall 2019

ANTH 18, Research Methods in Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2021

Philosophy 1.11, Art: True, Beautiful, Nasty, John Kulvicki, Summer 2023

Art History 1.01, Bodies and Buildings, Ada Cohen and Steven Kangas, Fall 2023

Religion 57.01, The End of the World, Peter Lanfer, Winter 2024

Classical Studies 12.02, Greek and Roman Engineering and Technology, Margaretha Kramer, Spring 2024

Conversations and Connections: Assyrian Reliefs, Summer 2023

Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Charis Boke, Summer 2024

Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Charis Boke, Summer 2024

Exhibition History

Carpenter Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1929-1985.

College Museum, Butterfield Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1896-1928.

Gene Y. Kim, Class of 1985, Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 15, 1985-present.

Global Cultures at the Hood: Ancient to Premodern, Gene Y. Kim Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26. 2019.

Picture Gallery, Reed Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1857-1860s; stored in a small closet in Reed Hall, 1860s-1880s; on display again, 1880s-1895.

Publication History

Jane Benson Ackerman, The Hood Museum of Art: Ten Years of Making Art at Home in the Upper Valley, Upper Valley Magazine, November/December 1995, Volume 9, No. 6, Van Etten, Inc., 1995, pp. 22-29, ill. p. 25

Judith Lerner, Journey's End: The Assyrian Reliefs at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, September, 1985, p. 30-31, ill. p. 30.

Georgia Croft, Back on the Wall (where they belong), Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1985, p. 31-33.

Treasures of the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, New York: Hudson Hill Press, 1985, p. 34.

Ada Cohen and Steven E. Kangas, Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography, Hanover, New Hamphire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2010, p. 60-74, plates 3.1-3.13, ill. p. 149, figure 5.5

Ada Cohen and Steven E. Kangas, Inside an Ancient Assyrian Palace, Looking at Austen Henry Layard's Reconstruction, Hanover: Hood Museum of Art and University of New England Press, 2017, p. X; Figure 1; p. Xiii, Figurge 2 (detail); p. 25, Figure 20.

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 71, ill. plate no. 2.

Provenance

The reliefs were excavated by Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817-1895), at Nimrud, Iraq, about 1845-47; offered to Missionaries by Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810-1895), a political agent of the British in Baghdad, about 1853; Professor Oliver Payson Hubbard, Class of 1873h (1809-1900), Chemistry Professor and College Librarian asked Reverend Austin Hazen Wright (1811-1865), Class of 1830 (Medical missionary stationed in Oroomiah, Persia) to acquire some reliefs for Dartmouth College, 1853; the Dartmouth reliefs were selected and packed by Reverend Henry Lobdell, M.D. (1827-1855) at Nimrud, about 1854-55; travelled from Nimrud to Mosul on mules; travelled on camels across the Syrian desert to the Mediterranean at Alexandretta (Iskenderun); transported to a sailing vessel to Beirut; travelled on the steamer "Daniel Webster" to Boston; travelled by rail to Hanover, New Hampshire; arrived on December 11, 1856.

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