Banquets, Baubles and Bronzes: Material Comforts in Neo-Assyrian Palaces
Allison Karmel Thomason
6 PM at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Synopsis:
The large-scale monumental reliefs, from the palaces of the Neo-Assyrian kings at Nimrud, Khorsabad and Nineveh have received a great deal of attention in archaeological and art historical studies. My current research and the lecture that I will present explores the small-scale items—the movable property of the palace that would have peppered the daily experiences of the Assyrian court. I want to bring alive for the audience the glint of a gold arm-cuff, the flow of a woven red robe splaying across a mud brick floor, the clang of bronze cups as they are clamped down on an ebony table decorated with ivory carvings. All of these things are relatively scarce yet nevertheless present in the archaeological record, obsessed over in administrative documents and trumpeted proudly as tribute and plunder in Assyrian wall reliefs and royal inscriptions.
About the Lecturer: Dr. Allison Karmel Thomason is a professor of Ancient History at Southern Illinois University. She specializes in Mesopotamian art, archaeology and history; ancient Near Eastern art and Neo-Assyrian art. She received her PhD from Columbia University and participated in excavations in Corfu, Greece, with Martha S. Joukowsky and in Ashkelon, Israel with Larry Stager. Her publications include “Representations of the North Syrian Landscape in Neo-Assyrian Art”, “From Sennacherib’s Bronzes to Taharqa’s Feet: Representations of the Material World at Nineveh”, and “Luxury and Legitimation: Royal Collecting in Ancient Mesopotamia” among others.