The Late Assyrian Empire (c. 900 - 612 BCE) was the first state to rule over the major centres of the Middle East, and the Late Assyrian court inhabited some of the most monumental palaces of its time. The Architecture of Late Assyrian Royal Palaces is the first volume to provide an in-depth analysis of Late Assyrian palatial architecture, offering a general introduction to all key royal palaces in the major centres of the empire: Assur, Kaluhu, Dur-Sharruken, and Nineveh. Where previous research has often focused on the duality between public and private realms, this volume redefines the cultural principles governing these palaces and proposes a new historical framework, analysing the spatial organization of the palace community which placed the king front and centre. It brings together the architecture of such palaces as currently understood within the broader framework of textual and art-historical sources, and argues that architectural changes were guided by a need to accommodate ever larger groups as the empire grew in size.

It is too often forgotten that every Assyrian “historical” inscription functioned in a very specific context. This context influenced its content and the way in which it was perceived by ancient viewers and readers. Russell’s goal is to address the reconstruction of the context of these inscriptions in order to elucidate their original impact. In the past, the palace inscriptions, including Assyrian palace inscriptions, have been published in composite editions with little or no reference to the provenience of the individual exemplars; in addition, the original excavation reports often were more interested in the content of the inscriptions than in their locations. To achieve the objective of placing these inscriptions in their original contexts and thereby provide a base for further study of them, and stimulated by two seasons of renewed excavations at Nineveh during which he studied many inscriptions in situ, Russell returned to the British Museum and Layard’s original, handwritten notes from the 19th century excavations at Nineveh—the goal being to catalogue fully and as completely as possible the individual inscriptions and their locations. The results of Russell’s labors are here published, including the first publication of several shorter inscriptions. The book is lavishly illustrated, both with museum photos and with photos by the author of many of the inscriptions in situ. The book will no doubt be the basis of all further study of the relationship between inscription and context in the palaces of the Assyrian kings.

One of the best-known images of the ancient Near East is an intriguing nineteenth-century color lithograph reconstructing the throne room of an Assyrian palace. Executed shortly after the archaeological rediscovery of Assyria, a land theretofore known only from the Bible, it was published by the most famous among early excavators of Assyrian ruins, Austen Henry Layard. Over time and despite criticisms, the picture has shaped the understanding and reception of ancient Mesopotamian architecture and architectural decoration. Inside an Ancient Assyrian Palace studies this influential image in depth, both at the time of its creation in London in the eventful year 1848 and in terms of its afterlife. A hidden inscription reveals unsuspected contributions by the renowned architect-designer Owen Jones and his colleague the architect-Egyptologist Joseph Bonomi. Also unexpected is the involvement of an enigmatic German artist who later emigrated to America and whose previous career in Europe had been lost to scholarship. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of art history and the ancient Near East. It will also be of relevance to museum visitors and others interested in the ancient world in general, in the art of the nineteenth century, and in design and historical reconstruction.

This volume assembles more than 30 articles focusing on the visual, material, and environmental arts of the Ancient Near East. Specific case studies range temporally from the fourth millennium up to the Hellenistic period and geographically from Iran to the eastern Mediterranean. Contributions apply innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to archaeological evidence and critically examine the historiography of the discipline itself. Not intended to be comprehensive, the volume instead captures a cross-section of the field of Ancient Near Eastern art history as its stands in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The volume will be of value to scholars working in the Ancient Near East as well as others interested in newer art historical and anthropological approaches to visual culture.

A detailed exploration of Layard's famous lithograph of the interior of an Assyrian palace