Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-c9gpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T12:36:06.782Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Representations of Imgur-Enlil on the Balawat Gates1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

D. J. Tucker
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper reviews the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the three sets of Late Assyrian bronze gates on Tell Balawat (Imgur-Enlil). Attention is drawn to the strategic importance of the site in the light of recent investigations at Balawat. Architectural aspects of the elevation view of Imgur-Enlil depicted on the Mamu Temple gate erected by Assurnasirpal II are discussed in terms of the possibilities and problems in attempting to correlate graphically the elevation view with plan views of unidentified square enclosures on the campaign gates of Shalmaneser III. The logical graphical transposition from elevation to plan view and the narrative context suggest that three square empty enclosures are representations of Imgur-Enlil.

The discovery by Hormuzd Rassam of two bronze-clad gates of Assurnasirpal II (883–859 B.C.) and his successor Shalmaneser III (858–824 B.C.) in 1878 added a new dimension to the knowledge of the art of Assyria (Rassam, 1880/82: 1897: 200–20). However, it was not until the mid-twentieth century that Tell Balawat was accepted as the true provenance of the gates and firmly put on the Assyrian map as the site of the town of Imgur-Enlil (Lloyd, 1947: 173).

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 56 , 1994 , pp. 107 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1994 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

This paper has developed from a survey of Balawat made by the author in 1989. The surface survey was conducted under the umbrella of the British Museum expedition to Nimrud and Balawat directed by Dr John Curtis. I am grateful for comments from Drs J. Curtis, M. D. Roaf and St. John Simpson who kindly read an earlier draft of this paper.

References

Budge, E. A. W. (1913) By Nile and Tigris. London.Google Scholar
Curtis, J. (1982) Balawat. Fifty Years of Mesopotamian Discovery (ed. Curtis, J.), 113–9. London.Google Scholar
Curtis, J. (1988) Assyria as a bronzeworking centre in the Late Assyrian Period. Bronzeworking Centres of Western Asia c. 1000–539 B.C. (ed. Curtis, J.). London/New York, 83–96.Google Scholar
Curtis, J. (1992) Recent British Museum Excavations in Assyria. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Series 322, 147–165.Google Scholar
Curtis, J., Collon, D. and Green, A. (1993) British Museum excavations at Nimrud and Balawat in 1989. Iraq 55, 1–37.Google Scholar
Gunter, A. (1982) Representations of Urartian and Western Iranian fortress architecture in the Assyrian reliefs. Iran 20, 103–12.Google Scholar
Jacoby, R. (1991) The representation of cities on Assyrian reliefs. Israel Exploration Journal 41, 112–31.Google Scholar
Jones, J. F. (1852) Vestiges of Assyria, Sheet 3d. Map.Google Scholar
King, L. W. (1915) Bronze Reliefs from the Gates of Shalmaneser King of Assyria B.C., 860-825. London.Google Scholar
Lloyd, S. (1947) Foundations in the Dust. Oxford.Google Scholar
Naumann, R. (1971) Architektur Kleinasiens. Tübingen.Google Scholar
Oates, D. (1968) Studies in the Ancient History of Northern Iraq. London.Google Scholar
Oates, D. (1974) Balawat (Imgur Enlil): the site and its buildings. Iraq 36, 173–8.Google Scholar
Oates, D. (1982) Ain Sinu. Fifty Years of Mesopotamian Discovery (ed. Curtis, J.), 120–2. London.Google Scholar
Rassam, H. (1880/1882) Excavations and Discoveries. Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 1, 45–56.Google Scholar
Rassam, H. (1887) Asshur and the Land of Nimrod. New York/Cincinnati.Google Scholar
Reade, J. E. (1979) Narrative composition in Assyrian sculpture. Baghdader Mitteilungen 10, 52–110.Google Scholar
Tucker, D. J. (forthcoming) A systematic surface survey of Balawat, 1989.Google Scholar
Unger, E. (1920) Die Wiederherstellung des Bronzetores von Balawat. MD AI, Athenische Abteilung 45, 1–105.Google Scholar
Ussishkin, D. (1982) The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib. Tel Aviv.Google Scholar