British Museum Acquires Precious Nimrud Ivories
By STAN PARCHIN
March 1, 2011
London's British Museum announced this morning its recent acquisition of the Nimrud Ivories (9th-7th Century B.C.), an extensive collection of finely carved decorative elements from ancient Assyrian furniture, containers, chariots and horse trappings. Grants totaling ₤1,170,000, including ₤725,000 raised by more than 1,800 generous British Museum Friends in six months’ time, made a great deal of the artifacts’ purchase possible. Additional financial support came from Great Britain's Art Fund and the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
Nearly 1,000 numbered items and 5,000 fragments were obtained by the British Museum from the British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI). The organization sold one-third of its collection to the revered Bloomsbury establishment in order to continue financing its educational programs and sponsorship of Iraqi scholars in the United Kingdom. It donated a second third of the objects to the museum as a gift. Some 65 pieces remained at BISI for their future repatriation to Iraq.
The Nimrud Ivories
Led for a time by Sir Max Mallowan (1904-1978), a team from the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (now known as BISI) recovered the Nimrud Ivories during excavations at the palace city between 1949 and 1963. Its work was underwritten largely by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Mallowan's wife, famous mystery writer Agatha Christie (1890-1976), frequented the site often. The author used expensive face cream to clean many of the items produced from elephant tusk, a highly treasured material in antiquity. Her misguided act thankfully left the artifacts and their appearance unscathed.
The beautifully carved ivories, made mostly in Phoenician and Syrian cities near the Mediterranean Sea coast, were brought to Assyria in ancient times as booty or tribute. A number of them were originally covered in gold foil and inlaid with stones. Designed with animal and human shapes as well as floral and geometric motifs, they were stripped of their glistening metal embellishments and discarded by the invading Medes.
One important ivory features a rearing winged griffin resting its paw on a papyrus or lotus flower in Egyptian style. Another work, probably created in Assyria, has incised decoration showing a frieze of wild goats on each side of a palmette. Some of the objects are inscribed in ancient Aramaic on their backs.
Partition, Storage and Display
In accordance with the early 20th-century practice of partition between a host country and its foreign excavators, a large portion of the Nimrud Ivories was given to BISI by Iraq. Beginning in 1963, the artifacts were stored at the Institute. Transferred later to the British Museum, they were available only to specialists for more than 25 years.
A selection of the Nimrud Ivories, never before seen by the public, goes on permanent display at the British Museum beginning March 14, 2011. They complement the institution’s world-renowned holdings in other materials from the capital city, among them its Assyrian limestone reliefs. Other works are to appear in traveling special exhibitions.
John Curtis, Keeper of the Department of the Ancient Near East at the museum, stated: "The carved ivories found (at Nimrud) are among the finest products recovered from an archaeological excavation. They tell us a great deal about the art and history of the Middle East in the early 1st Millennium B.C. Now they will be available for everybody to see and study."
Sources
Barnett, Richard D. A Catalogue of the Nimrud Ivories with Other Examples of Ancient Near Eastern Ivories in the British Museum. London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1957.
Crawford, Vaughn E., Prudence O. Harper and Holly Pittman. Assyrian Reliefs and Ivories in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Palace Reliefs of Assurnasirpal II and Ivory Carvings from Nimrud. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980, 35-39.
Curtis, J.E. and J.E. Reade (eds.), et al. Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum (exh. cat.). London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1995.