One of his royal attendants is guiding the royal chariot. Two royal attendants ward off the lion with their spear. Note the exquisitely carved embroidery, armlets, earring, and costume. He holds a long spear and stabs a leaping lion in his head. The king is identified by his conical head cap. Rawlinson could read cuneiform and wrote back to Rassam saying that this is a palace of Ashurbanipal nothing was much known about Ashurbanipal when his name first came to light!ĭetail of an alabaster bas-relief depicting the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. He made copies of the cuneiform inscriptions written on the Palace’s reliefs and sent them to Henry Rawlinson (1810-1895), the British consul in Baghdad. Rassam, initially, did not recognize who is the king. The men appear to hunt a large number of lions. They depict a group of warriors led by a taller figure, who wears a conical hat this is their king. AshurbanipalĪt the heart of the Assyrian galleries, Room 10a of the British Museum in London, these stone slabs stand on either wall of the room. From Room C of the North Palace, Nineveh (modern-day Kouyunjik, Mosul Governorate), Mesopotamia, Iraq. The eyes of the king and his attendant were intentionally damaged after the fall of Nineveh. His royal attendant is guiding the royal chariot. He holds a bow and throws arrows towards a succession of lions. The mud-bricks had disappeared, of course, completely but the reliefs themselves, which once decorated them, have fortunately survived.ĭetail of an alabaster bas-relief depicting the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. Rassam ordered his men to dig a large hole in the mound after more than 2,000 years, the remains of a royal palace were found. Rassam stated in his autobiography that “one division of the workmen, after 3-4 hours of hard labor, were rewarded by the grand discovery of a beautiful bas-relief in a perfect state of preservation”. They were discovered by Rassam in the year 1853 and have been housed in the British Museum since 1856. These extraordinary carvings, so dynamic and full of movements, are so realistic and so accomplished and are some of the most remarkable ancient artifacts ever found. Thanks to the great work of Hormuzd Rassam (1826-1910), who unveiled a large number of alabaster bas-reliefs, which once decorated the walls of that king’s Palace (built around 645 BCE) the Assyrian lion-hunting scenes! By the time they have reached two years of age, they don’t need their mothers to look after them anymore.Whoever was privileged to gain access to the North Palace of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, could consider himself part of something timeless. They grow small ones when still very young, which are then replaced with adult teeth as they get older.Īt six to seven months old, cubs stop drinking milk altogether. Like humans, lions are born without teeth. At around two to three months, they begin to eat meat as well with their small milk teeth. It is good for them and helps them to grow quickly. Young cubs drink milk from their mother’s teats. If there is not enough food around to feed a hungry mouth, a lioness will wait until there is before giving birth. Lionesses can also control when they have cubs. This helps to keep them safe from predators – meat-eating animals, such as other lions and tigers – and also large animals such as elephant and buffalo. They look after them in a group, known as a ‘crèche’. Lionesses in a pride often have cubs around the same time as each other.
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