Openwork plaque with papyrus and pomegranates

This plaque was found in a storage room in Fort Shalmaneser, a royal building at Nimrud that was used to store booty and tribute collected by the Assyrians while on military campaign. It was carved in the openwork technique, in which the background is cut away and remaining elements are carved in the round. A delicate network of six branches radiates out from a central trunk, representing a stylized tree. At the ends of the branches are three types of elements: a blossom, a volute below fronds, or a pomegranate. The tree combines features of papyrus plants and pomegranate trees to depict a symbol of abundance and fruitfulness connected with the agricultural cycle. A plain border extends around all four sides of the tree. Five other identical plaques were found in the same storage room, and probably all six belonged to the same piece of furniture.

Built by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, the palaces and storerooms of Nimrud housed thousands of pieces of carved ivory. Most of the ivories served as furniture inlays or small precious objects such as boxes. While some of them were carved in the same style as the large Assyrian reliefs lining the walls of the Northwest Palace, the majority of the ivories display images and styles related to the arts of North Syria and the Phoenician city-states. Phoenician style ivories are distinguished by their use of imagery related to Egyptian art, such as sphinxes and figures wearing pharaonic crowns, and the use of elaborate carving techniques such as openwork and colored glass inlay. North Syrian style ivories tend to depict stockier figures in more dynamic compositions, carved as solid plaques with fewer added decorative elements. However, some pieces do not fit easily into any of these three styles. Most of the ivories were probably collected by the Assyrian kings as tribute from vassal states, and as booty from conquered enemies, while some may have been manufactured in workshops at Nimrud. The ivory tusks that provided the raw material for these objects were almost certainly from African elephants, imported from lands south of Egypt, although elephants did inhabit several river valleys in Syria until they were hunted to extinction by the end of the eighth century B.C.