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The ‘Mona Lisa’ of Nimrud

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

M. E. L. Mallowan
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Extract

During the month of April 1952 we were digging the deepest levels of a brick-lined well which had been found a year previously within the chamber NN of the North West Palace of Aššur-naṣir-pal. Below the two hundred and forty-fifth course, at about 18 metres (60 feet) down from the well-head, we were struggling to bail out the water faster than it was surging up. Indeed, we only succeeded in getting down to bedrock, 25·4 metres or 331 courses from the top, by working continuously all day, and then again, after a respite at sunset, by the light of hurricane lamps from midnight for six hours until dawn.

In the deeper levels many objects which had been cast into the well when Calah was sacked at the end of the seventh century B.C. began to appear. As each drum-load of precious sludge was ready to be hauled to the surface we realised that any one of them might hold a king's ransom. At last it happened. The foreman announced that ‘a lady has been found,’ and before our eyes we saw this ivory head emerge from the deep waters where it had lain, immersed in mud, for more than 2,500 years. Carefully we wiped away the thick coat of slime that partly concealed her face, her hair and her crown. What we beheld was a thing of beauty still radiant with life. The warm brown tones of the natural ivory, set against the dark black tresses of hair that framed the head, combined with the soft rounded curves of the face to give an extraordinary impression of life. The slightly parted lips appeared to have a light reddish tint; the black pupils of the eyes were encased in dark lids; the crown, fillets and stand were of a rather darker brown than the face. Originally crown and base must have been decorated with ivory studs of which only two now remained.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , Spring 1963 , pp. 1 - 5
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1963

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References

1 The colour plate is printed from a transparency of an excellent photograph taken in Baghdad by Mr. Graham Gardner on behalf of the School. While the colour gives a fair impression of the original it is not strictly accurate; the tinge of the hair on the original is darker, less blue, and the ivory of the face less yellow. The difficulties of taking a photograph are at present considerable, for the ivory has had to be protected by a coat of wax.

2 We cannot however decide on the nature of the pigment on the Mona Lisa until it is possible to conduct a chemical examination. I understand that certain red ivories in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, which Frankfort referred to as stained (A.A.A.O. 192) are in fact not pigmented but have experienced some chemical change which accounts for their tone. It is however difficult to see how the polychromy of the Mona Lisa can have been anything but deliberate. Many stained ivories were found in Fort Shalmaneser, and we may recall that Homer, Iliad iv, 141 had seen Carian girls staining ivory cheek-pieces or blinkers.

3 G. Loud, The Megiddo Ivories, plate 4.

4 Schaefer, und Andrae, , Kuttsi des Alten Orients (1942), p. 578Google Scholar.

5 See H. Payne and G. M. Young, Archaic Sculpture from the Acropolis. The earlier the statuary, the more obvious is the oriental influence. Moreover, since in many buildings at Nimrud, e.g. Ezida, the Burnt Palace, and Fort Shalmaneser collections of ivories were still visible as late as 612 B.C. some oriental originals may well have been seen by contemporary Greek artists. ‘Ionians’ are already identifiable in cuneiform texts dating to the reign of Sargon II of Assyria.

6 N.D. 2227–2230.

7 Iraq XVI, Pl. XXIII and p. 94f.Google Scholar

8 O.I.P. XL, Loud and Altman, Khorsabad, plate 51.

9 Compare for example the savage looking ivory ladies attributable to the ninth century B.C. in Moortgat, Tell Halaf III (1955), Abb. 12.

10 Compare Iraq XII, Pt. I, Pl. XII no. 5 with Iraq XIII, Pt. 1, Pl. V.