The Brooklyn Museum

Date: September 18, 2023

The Brooklyn Museum 

Brooklyn, New York. United States 

The next museum we are going to cover is one of the more recent acquisitions of Assyrian art to a museum collection. The Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York, was founded in 1898 as an offshoot of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. The goal of the institution is to be “a powerful place of personal transformation and social change”.  

The Brooklyn Museum is in possession of a series of twelve reliefs from Ashur-nasir-pal II’s palace at Kalhu from 879 BCE. Upon completion of the palace, the King hosted a gala during which citizens were able to walk through the palace to admire its beauty. It is believed there were nearly 70,000 guests in attendance at this celebration. These reliefs were unearthed during the 1840’s excavations of British archeologist Austen Henry Layard, which we discussed in earlier articles. As you may recall, the British and French excavation teams developed a rivalry over the course of their discoveries. The escalating competitive attitudes are part of what motivated the teams to rapidly gather and ship as many artifacts as they could back to their respective institutions. While we know that the majority of these artifacts still reside in the museums they were initially sent to, the fervor of the excavation teams resulted in the museums acquiring far more items than they had the space to store them. Left with few other choices, the museums put some of the artifacts up for sale on the private market.  

It was in 1855 when Henry Stevens, an American, purchased the reliefs in London. His initial intention was to send the reliefs to Boston where they would become property of the city. However, Boston municipal authorities were not able to raise the necessary funds to purchase the works from Stevens. As a result, Stevens began seeking buyers in New York City. James Lenox, of the New York Historical Society in Manhattan ended up purchasing the works. The reliefs were held by the New York Historical Society in Manhattan until 1937, when they lent the works to the Brooklyn Museum due to constraints in resources and storage space. Though the museum now held and displayed the works, they did not have the funds to purchase them outright. That was until 1955.  

Hagop Kevorkian was a collector and dealer of ancient near eastern art in New York. Kevorkian was from the city of Kayseri in Turkey, and graduated from the American Robert College in Istanbul. He came to New York as a young man in the 19th century. He made a name for himself through his contributions of antiquities for a number of noteworthy institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Louvre, The Victoria and Albert Museum, The University of Pennsylvania Museum, and The Brooklyn Museum. Hagop Kevorkian provided the funds to the Brooklyn Museum to purchase the twelve Ashur-nasir-pal II reliefs and install them in the space, which was aptly named the Hagop Kevorkian Gallery of Ancient Middle Eastern Art. 

This set of reliefs features depictions of Ashur-nasir-pal II communicating and consorting with divine entities. In addition to serving as a political leader, the Kings of ancient Assyria served as religious leaders as well. They were expected to demonstrate both an understanding and commitment to the Gods and Goddesses of the ancient Assyrian pantheon. Most of the reliefs feature apkallū -figures, also known as Genies. Genies are a divine winged being that served as the Kings protectors and consorts. Apkallū were seen as exceptionally intelligent, and were imagined to have assisted in the construction and protection of cities and their inhabitants. The relief show the King and genies celebrating religious rituals, such as tending to the sacred tree of life. The tree of life symbolism in particular was a motif used in Assyrian art to represent the divine power of the King to bestow life. The tree of life symbolism is so quincuncial to Assyrian art, that it is also used as the inspiration and subject of the logo for The Assyrian Cultural Foundation.  

Though many institutions have a larger variety of works from Assyrian, the Brooklyn Museum succeeds in providing guests an in depth look at the royal life of on Assyrian King and thus allows for a more personal and insular contemplation of the art at hand. By having the reliefs isolated from the wide variety of art that appears throughout the timeline of the empire, it allows for the details and nuances them to become more noticeable. Just as guests walked through the palace walls in 879 BCE, now visitors to the Brooklyn Museum can walk alongside these reliefs can contemplate the remarkable accomplishments of this ancient empire.  

Written by: Melanie Perkins

Published by: Brian Banyamin

Bibliography 

“Brooklyn Museum: About the Museum.” Www.brooklynmuseum.org, www.brooklynmuseum.org/about . 

“Brooklyn Museum.” Www.brooklynmuseum.org, www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/70571 . 

“Hagop Kevorkian.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Oct. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagop_Kevorkian. 

“Selected Works of Ancient near Eastern Art, Including Assyrian Reliefs.” Brooklyn Museum, https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/3206. 

The Vorderasiatisches Museum

Date: July 18, 2023

The next museum collection we will be discussing is the Vorderasiatisches Museum in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany. The collection of ancient near eastern objects began with the discovery of what is likely the most well-known piece in the collection, The Ishtar Gate of Babylon.   

The Ishtar Gate was built in 575 BCE by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II. The gate is constructed out of brick that is coated in a rich blue glaze, intended to mimic the appearance of the precious stone lapis lazuli. It features bas-relief sculptures of lions, which are representative of the Goddess Ishtar, aurochs (a type of extinct bull) which are representative of the storm God Adas, and depictions of the mythical creatures such as mushussu red dragons, which are representative of the God Marduk. The gate was used during Kha b-Nisan each year as the processional way through which the new year’s celebration passed into the city during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II.    

The Ishtar Gate was unearthed by German archeologist Robert Koldewey in a series of excavations that took place from 1899 to 1914. Based on research conducted by British historian Claudius Rich, Koldewey managed to find two royal palaces belonging to King Nebuchadnezzar as well as the Ishtar Gate. The excavation was funded by the German Oriental Society, which was founded in 1898. The presence of this funding pressured archeologists to take actions to recoup the cost of the excavation. This was primarily done through the smuggling of artifacts back to Berlin. They were originally a part of the collection at the Kaiser Friedrich-Museum, now the Bode-Museum. The Ishtar Gate was completely deconstructed, with each individual piece cataloged using a numbering system intended to help the team to reassemble the gate on site at the museum. The individual pieces were hidden in barrels of straw, shipped down the Euphrates River, and eventually made their way to Berlin. The process of reconstructing the gate onsite at the museum was a meticulous undertaking. The museum staff was tasked with sorting through hundreds of barrels containing contents of the Ishtar Gate, which had to be desalinated and reconstructed using a combination of contemporary bricks fired to resemble the blue glaze of the gate. The original gate was constructed in two parts comprised of a larger back section, and a small frontal section. The museum did not have the space to constructed the larger back section of the gate on site, and so those pieces of the Ishtar Gate remain in storage. The reconstruction of the frontal section of the gate, however, remains on display to this day.  

In 1903, there was another significant development in the growth of the collection. Robert Koldewey’s assistant, Walter Andrae, began excavating the Assyrian city of Assur. Assur was the first capital of Assyria, its religious center, and is believed to have been first settled around 2500 BCE. Though later Assyrian kings would declare capitals at Nimrud, Khorsabad, and Nineveh, Assur always remained the religious capital of the empire. It was the location of the Temple of Assur, also referred to as the Old Palace, where some Assyrian kings were returned and buried upon their death. Walter Andrae’s team uncovered various city structures and buildings, including multiple religious temples to various Assyrian Gods and Goddesses such as Sin, Ishtar, Shamash, Anu, Adad, and Nabu.   

When the excavation ended in 1914, the finds were divided between the Germany and the Ottoman Empire. In the time that the German archeologists were bringing the artifacts back to Berlin, World War I began. The team temporarily stationed in neutral Lisbon Portugal. However, when Portugal declared war against Germany in 1916, the artifacts from Assur were seized and put on display in the Museum of Porto. The objects were returned to Germany in 1926 where, along with other near eastern objects at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, the collection was moved to the Pergamon Museum. In 1945, during World War II, the Soviet Union stole the Assur works from the museum. They were held in the Soviet Union until 1958 when they were returned to East Germany. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 allowed for another step forward for the community of German archeologists, as now they were able to collaborate with each other across East and West Germany. In 1997, Johannes Renger led The Assur Project. The Assur Project was an academic undertaking aimed at creating a database of the finds at Assur and organizing them into publications.   

Today The Vorderasiatische Museum in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin Germany is made up of fourteen rooms which feature objects from ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian society. Their reconstructions of ancient monuments in particular afford visitors the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of the ancient peoples who once built and experienced these objects themselves. By prioritizing shared knowledge and collaboration with other archeologists, the team at the Pergamon Museum has been able to uncover truths about, and piece together our understanding of life in ancient Assyria.   

  Written by: Melanie Perkins 

Bibliography  

Berlin, Staatliche Museen. “About the Collection – Vorderasiatisches Museum.” Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin, https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/vorderasiatisches- museum/collection-research/about-the-collection/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2023.  

“Ancient Near Eastern Cultures.” Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin, https://www.smb.museum/en/museums- institutions/vorderasiatisches-museum/exhibitions/detail/ancient-near-eastern-cultures/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2023.  

Pedde, Friedhelm. “ANE TODAY – 201501 – Recovering Assur From the German Excavations of 1903-1914 to Today’s Assur Project in Berlin – American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR).” American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR), https://www.asor.org/anetoday/2015/01/recovering- assur/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2023.  

The Louvre: The Department of Near Eastern Antiquities  

Date: March 16, 2023

The Louvre: The Department of Near Eastern Antiquities  

Musée du Louvre, Paris, France. 

The first ever museum collection of Assyrian artifacts began in 1847 with the Musée de Louvre in Paris. The first, and some of the most noteworthy, pieces from this collection were uncovered at Sargon II’s Palace at Dur-Sharrukin. The remains of this ancient palace reside in what is now modern-day Khorsabad, Iraq. The palace at Dur-Sharrukin began construction under the reign of Sargon II. The King had intended to establish a new Assyrian capital at Dur-Sharrukin as a way of asserting his authority. Dur-Sharrukin was on its way to becoming the largest city in the ancient world. However, upon his untimely death, Sargon’s son and heir, Sennacherib, moved the capital to Nineveh, leaving the palace at Dur-Sharrukin behind unfinished. After the fall of the Assyrian empire in the 7th century, the artifacts of this great nation were buried by both literal and metaphorical sands of time. The Bible, as well as select ancient Greek texts, remained the only literary recourses Western archeologists and explorers had to learn about ancient Mesopotamia up until the mid-19th century. Though, sources such as the tale of Ahiqar the Wise, Ahiqar Hakima, as well as other writings in Syriac or Aramaic kept the memory of the great nation alive in the Assyrian community. The rise of European interest in ancient objects, coupled with the political interests of Britian and France, initiated a series of excavations in the middle east conducted by these foreign governments. 

Paul-Émile Botta was a French Consular Agent in Mosul, who had been selected to lead the excavation due to his background as a naturalist, historian, and diplomat, as well as his ability to speak multiple languages. He initially began digging at Quyunjik, but was unsuccessful in unearthing any major discoveries. Based on advice from local citizens, Botta turned his attention to Khorsabad in hopes of discovering undisturbed artifacts. Compared to other Assyrian monuments, Dur-Sharrukin was buried fairly close to the surface, and within a week’s worth of digging, Botta’s team was successful in uncovering large sections of the palace. 

The Palace of Sargon II contained a number of groundbreaking discoveries. Botta and his team unearthed large gypsum alabaster slabs which featured bas-relief sculpture telling the story of King Sargon’s royal life and legacy. This included scenes of hunting and military campaigns, as well as depictions of Assyrian gods. These alabaster slabs lined the mud brick walls of the sprawling palace, which contained around two hundred rooms and courtyards. The doorways were flanked by Lamassu statues; the first of their kind to be discovered by archeologists.  

Given the significance of Botta’s discoveries, the French government supplied the team with further resources for excavation and documentation. This included sending artist Eugène Flandin, who illustrated the site and finds. Time was of the essence when it came to illustrating the artifacts, as being suddenly exposed to the desert elements and heat started to damage them. Soon after unearthing the objects, Botta began shipping them back to France by way of boats up the Tigris River. This process was fraught with difficulty. The sheer amount and size of the objects being transported overwhelmed the ships. Throughout the journey, the crews were attacked and seized by pirates, who managed to sink one of the ships. In an effort to make the transportation process easier, some controversial choices were made. This includes breaking artifacts into smaller pieces and then reassembling them onsite at the Louvre. By today’s standards, Botta’s transfer of antiquities can be seen as a lesson in “what not to do.” However, the challenges faced and mistakes made did help to inform later academics in developing standardized and regulated means by which valuable historical objects are acquired, handled, transported, and maintained. Given that this was the first ever major excavation in the Near East, they still had a lot to learn.  

After their treacherous journey, the objects arrived at the Musée de Louvre in February of 1847. On May 1st 1847, King Louis-Phillip inaugurated The Ninevite Museum. This was the first exhibition of Assyrian antiquities in the world, and there was a great deal of public interest in the collection. In the years to come, the collection continued to expand. Contributions were made by Ernest Renan in the 1860’s, and Ernest de Sarzec in the 1870’s. Sarzec discovery of Ancient Sumerian objects prompted the Ninevites Museum’s transition into The Department of Near Eastern Antiquities in 1881. At this time, Léon Heuzey was appointed head curator of the department. He was incredibly devoted to garnering recognition of and knowledge about the antiquities, and also worked as a professor in Near Eastern Antiquities. Today, The Department of Near Eastern Antiquities at the Musée de Louvre remains one of the most remarkable collections of ancient Assyrian artwork in the world. Assyrians have had their own history systematically obfuscated from them from centuries. This has been done both through the separation of the community from their native homeland, and through the destruction of historical artifacts. Though the process of the excavations of these artifacts was imperfect, the exhibitions provide modern Assyrians the ability to stand face to face with their own history during a time when that is becoming increasingly more difficult. Assyrians can also take pride in knowing how significant and awe inspiring their history is to the global community, who continue to flock to the Louvre to experience the wonders of The Department of Near Eastern Antiquities. After all, they are the decedents or the artisans and laborers who’s work now contributes to the prestige of this world rebound museum.  

Written by: Melanie Perkins

Published by: Brian Banyamin

Bibliography:  

“Early Excavations in Assyria.” Metmuseum.org, Aug. 2021, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rdas/hd_rdas.htm. 

“The Opening of the Assyrian Museum at the Louvre.” Gouv.Fr, https://archeologie.culture.gouv.fr/khorsabad/en/opening-assyrian-museum-louvre. Accessed 16 Jan. 2023. 

“The Palace of Sargon II.” Le Louvre, https://www.louvre.fr/en/explore/the-palace/the-palace-of-sargon-ii. Accessed 16 Jan. 2023. 

Albrecht, Lea. “Louvre Shows Mideast Relics with Dubious Past.” Deutsche Welle, 23 Nov. 2016, https://www.dw.com/en/louvres-mesopotamia-exhibition-highlights-europes-spotted-past-with-ancient-art/a-36490045. 

Wikipedia contributors. “Dur-Sharrukin.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 28 Dec. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dur-Sharrukin&oldid=1129976094.