Biography of a Neo-Assyrian Relief Fragment from Nineveh

An article by Professor Irene Bald Romano and Gina Watkinson (SoA PhD Student and ASM conservator), “Biography of a Neo-Assyrian Relief Fragment from Nineveh” was published in Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research. You can download the paper from this link: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/732321.

Abstract: This article presents the biography of a Neo-Assyrian gypsum relief fragment from Ashurbanipal’s
7th century B. C.E . North Palace at Nineveh, now in the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona.
Its discovery by British explorers in late 1853 or early 1854, its journey to the United States, probably in
the mid-19th century through missionaries in Ottoman Mesopotamia, its connection with the circus
impresario P. T. Barnum and Tufts College, and its acquisition in 1959 by the Arizona State Museum
are discussed, along with the changing uses and meaning of the object in its various contexts. The frag-
ment depicts fat-tailed sheep being led in procession by a royal eunuch. It is related to a larger relief
fragment in the British Museum that was positioned to the right of this fragment, allowing some con-
clusions about its probable location within the North Palace and interpretations concerning its
iconography.