ASHURBANIPAL, KING OF THE WORLD

Once the most powerful man on Earth, Ashurbanipal, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, is little known today. Yet during his reign (669–c.631 BC), he commanded the largest empire in the world, stretching from Cyprus in the west to Iran in the east. Bringing together items including stone sculptures, elaborate jewellery and stone tablets, a new exhibition at the British Museum uncovers the life of the last great Assyrian king.

ASHURBANIPAL AND THE LION HUNT

One of the exhibition’s highlights is a stone relief, which dates from 645–635 BC. It forms part of a series that depicts the great ruler hunting a lion. At around 1.6 metres high and five metres wide, the relief would have featured on the walls of Ashurbanipal’s North Palace in Nineveh, the Assyrian capital (modern-day Mosul). In Assyria, lion hunting was a royal sport, and hunts were often staged publicly as a way to demonstrate the ruler’s power.

The sport had symbolic significance too. According to Assyrian cosmogony, the gods had created a perfectly balanced world, and it was the ruler’s duty to maintain balance and order. By killing the lion – a symbol of disorder and wilderness – the king was displaying his allegiance to the gods.

CREATING THE RELIEF

The relief is also a symbol of Ashurbanipal’s royal power. It is carved from gypsum, a soft stone that is easy to work. This enabled the makers to capture the relief in remarkable detail, using tools similar to those used by modern stone carvers.

‘The action is vividly rendered and the amount of detail is fantastic, from the embroidery used in the king’s garment to the rosettes and tassels on the horse’s bridle,’ the exhibition’s project curator, Carine Harmand, explains.

The relief would have been created in a series of workshops situated around the North Palace, with teams of masters and assistants. ‘We think the masters would have sketched the general structure of the scene, and then the assistants would have carried out the carving,’ Harmand says. ‘Once this was completed, the makers would have refined all the details.’

WHO WAS ASHURBANIPAL?

Elements, such as the stylus in Ashurbanipal’s belt, give the 21st-century viewer insight into his character. Not just a warrior king, Ashurbanipal was a keen scholar. His palace was home to, what is today, the world’s oldest surviving royal library. It contained tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets (an ancient writing system).

‘He was a proactive scholar,’ Harmand reveals, ‘sending envoys around his empire to collect all the knowledge possible. This relief presents Ashurbanipal as a skilled and successful leader, showing him as perfect in body and in mind – a true warrior and a scholar.’

I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria, The British Museum, London. Until 24 February 2019. britishmuseum.org

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Image © The Trustees of The British Museum