Across Many Oceans: The Strange Journey of the Northwest Palace Reliefs
Humanities
History (Europe and the Mediterranean Concentration)
This research paper describes the journey of the Ashurnasirpal II reliefs from Nimrud's Northwest palace and its interpretation across time and space. The first portion of the paper describes the apotropaic role the reliefs would have performed in their original Neo-Assyrian context as guardians of the king and empire. The second portion explores the rediscovery of the reliefs by Sir Austen Henry Layard and how these reliefs were reinterpreted by Victorian Europeans as Biblical curiosities. Finally, the paper examines the role the reliefs have in their modern museum context as tools for inter-cultural education. The paper concludes by speculating about the future of these objects in an increasingly globalized world based on current research trends.
