The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud: Issues in the Research and Presentation of Assyrian Art

Abstract

In this study I propose two hypotheses about the palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud: first, that the relief decoration of Assurnasirpal's palace expresses a four-fold Assyrian ideology of military success, service to the gods, divine protection, and Assyrian prosperity; and second, that the subject of the decoration in each suite of rooms was influenced by the function of that suite. In order to test these hypotheses, I draw on two theoretical approaches to understanding the meaning of architecture: Trigger's principle of monumental architecture as conspicuous consumption, and Rapoport's phenomenon of the redundancy of cues in the architecture of complex societies. I conclude that the subjects of the reliefs may be identified with considerable confidence, that the architectural evidence and relief subjects reinforce one another in suggesting specific functions for each suite of rooms, and that relief carving served as an expression of conspicuous consumption by being carved in conspicuous locations.