Archaeologists from Heidelberg University unearthed a groundbreaking find in Iraq’s city of Nineveh: an ancient Assyrian monument relief that contributes significantly to our current knowledge of the Assyrian Empire’s political and religious symbolism. This relief, discovered in the throne room of King Ashurbanipal’s North Palace, dates back to the 7th century BCE. It’s one of the biggest finds in recent years.
The large bas-relief is approximately 5.5 meters long, 3 meters high, and weighs 12 tons. It depicts Ashurbanipal—the last great king of the Assyrian Empire from 669 to 631 BCE—among the gods Ashur and Ishtar. There is a fish-genius, symbolizing life and salvation, and a scorpion-man figure with raised arms behind the deities. These divine attendants strongly suggest that the relief originally had a massive winged sun disk hovering above, a symbol widely used to indicate divine protection and royal authority.
“Among the many relief images of Assyrian palaces we know of, there are no depictions of major deities,” said Prof. Dr. Aaron Schmitt, who leads the excavations in the North Palace. This makes the find exceptional in both its artistic presentation and its historical importance.
The discovery was part of the Heidelberg Nineveh Project, initiated in 2018 by Prof. Dr. Stefan Maul of the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Near East at Heidelberg University. Since 2022, the excavation team has focused on the Kuyunjik mound, the heart of ancient Nineveh, close to the current city of Mosul. Nineveh reached its zenith under King Sennacherib in the late 8th century BCE, when it became the capital of the powerful Assyrian Empire.
The relief fragments were found buried in an infilled pit behind a niche opposite the main entrance of the throne room of the palace—a location of ceremonial importance. Schmitt states that the central location of the niche suggests that the relief must have held a position of extreme prominence. Experts approximate that the pit was dug during the Hellenistic period (3rd to 2nd century BCE), several centuries after the fall of the Assyrian Empire. The burial likely preserved the artwork and explains why earlier excavations, such as those conducted by British archaeologists in the late 19th century, never unearthed it. The British expedition had already made discoveries of some other grand reliefs from the palace, and these are now displayed in London’s British Museum.
The relief is currently under further study, with analysis results expected to contribute information such as the type of stone—likely gypsum—and the precise meanings of the represented figures. Their findings will appear in a scholarly journal, said Prof. Schmitt. As agreed with the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, there are also hopes of reassembling the relief and restoring it to its original location in the palace, where it will eventually be accessible to the public.
More information: Heidelberg University
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