The Broken Obelisk

Abstract

The purpose of the present note is to alert scholars to the fact that following a cleaning programme undertaken in the late 1960s certain iconographic details apparently visible on the decorated face of the monument known as the Broken Obelisk should be treated with caution.As recounted by C. J. Gadd, the Broken Obelisk was found by Hormuzd Rassam in August 1853 at Nineveh, about halfway between Sennacherib's Palace and Ashurbanipal's Palace (Gadd 1936: 123; Rassam 1897: 9). It was probably in or near the Ishtar Temple (ibid.; Reade 2005: 373). The Obelisk was drawn on site (Fig. 1), either by Charles Hodder (Gadd 1936: 123) or by William Boucher, who arrived at Nineveh in March 1854 in order to help Rassam record some of the important sculptures he had found at Kouyunyik (Barnett 1975: 22; Rassam 1897: 37). Gadd describes how the obelisk was shipped with other sculptures from Basra to Bombay in the steam-frigate Acbar in March 1854, and from Bombay to London in the ship Merchantman, arriving in February 1855 (Gadd 1936: 123). It now has the British Museum number 118898 (56-9-9, 59).It is known as the Broken Obelisk because it is the upper part only of an obelisk with a stepped top. At the bottom it measures 65 × 41 cm, and it has an overall surviving height of 63 cm. There is a lengthy cuneiform inscription on three of the four sides (the short left side is blank) and on one of the long sides there is, in addition to the cuneiform inscription, a panel of carved decoration showing a king holding a rod and ring or (more likely) a mace and a coil of rope. In front of the king are two pairs of prisoners roped together. In the field above the prisoners, and in front of the king, are five divine symbols, comprising a horned cap, a crescent, a winged disc from which emerge two hands, one of them holding a bow, a bolt of lightning, and a rosette. The text (Grayson 1991: 99–105) recounts the achievements of a king who is thought to be Ashur-bel-kala (1073–1056 BC). It is usually inferred from the text that the obelisk was originally set up at Ashur.