After the Royal Court Moved Away: A Reinterpretation of the Ivory Finds within the Royal Palaces of Kalḫu

David Kertai*

After the Court Moved Away:A Reinterpretation of the Ivory Finds withinthe Royal Palaces of KalḫuDOI 10.1515/aofo-2015-0005

Abstract: Excavations at Kalḫu (modern Nimrud) have resulted in a collection of ivories that are exceptionalin their quantity, quality and diversity. They have been used to assess the appreciation and use of ivories bythe Assyrian royal court. A re-examination of the archaeological contexts in which ivories were found withinthe Northwest Palace and Fort Shalmaneser suggests that most belong to the period after the royal court hadmoved away. In the few preserved contexts, imported and Assyrian ivories were generally intermixed. Thesecontexts are easiest to explain if one assumes that imported and Assyrian ivories were used side by side.Nimrud’s complicated history during the 7th century B.C., however, argues against such a simple equation.The ivories were rarely found in their original contexts and were much affected by the looting, sack andabandonment of the palaces. The recontextualisation of the ivory finds into their 7th century contexts bringsdifferent, non-royal agents to the fore within the Assyrian palaces.

Keywords: Architecture, Ivory, Northwest Palace, Fort Shalmaneser, Kalḫu, Nimrud

“There is a clear division, as far as anything is clear in a palace that has been comprehensively sacked, between thedistribution of Assyrian ivories and imported pieces. The first were found in ceremonial and important residential contexts,such as Room B and the adjacent F, Room AB, which served as the storeroom for the ceremonial area, and the two principalsuites at the northern end of the Great Court. Ivories of Levantine manufacture were discovered in treasuries, like Rooms V/Wand A.” (Herrmann / Laidlaw 2009: 32)

Introduction

Most ivories from Nimrud were uncovered during the excavations of Henri Austen Layard in the middle of the19th century and by those of Max Mallowan and David Oates a century later. The majority have since beenpublished in the series Ivories from Nimrud. The discourse has largely focused on reconstructing the ivories’origins in terms of artistic traditions and local workshops. Their consumption within Assyria has received lessattention. A well-known exception is Georgina Herrmann’s discussion about the use of ivories within Assyria(see epigraph). She argues that the archaeological contexts of the ivories reflect a difference in appreciationand use between Assyrian and imported1 ivories (see especially Herrmann 1997; Herrmann / Millard 2003).My contribution revisits these arguments by discussing the history of Kalḫu’s royal palaces and its implica-tion for interpreting the ivories found in them during modern excavations.

Any conclusions depend on how one interprets the archaeological contexts in which the ivories werefound. Max Mallowan and Leri Glynne Davies (1970: 1) argued that “such was the conservatism of theAssyrian Palace administration that the majority of them were discovered in or near the apartments in whichthey had originally been housed”. This article will take a more sceptical view, arguing that the finds from

*Corresponding author: David Kertai, The Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences, The HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel, E

˗ Mail: [email protected]

1 In order to avoid discussions about the origin of ivories, this paper will, following Herrmann, use the term “imported ivories” torefer to all the ivories originating from the Levant.

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Kalḫu are rather reflective of the different periods of abandonment, especially the period surrounding theend of the Assyrian empire. The exact history of the city during this period remains unclear. The city hadalready lost much of its royal status a century earlier when the court moved away during the final years ofSargon (Šarru-ukīn) II’s reign (722–705 B.C.). The administrative records found in the city indicate that itsmain palaces remained active as economic and administrative units thereafter. Among these the queen’shousehold stands out (see e.g. Dalley / Postgate 1984; Kwasman / Parpola 1991). Whether this entailedmembers of the royal court living in Kalḫu is far less certain (Herrmann 1992: 11) and mostly depends on thenature and size of the royal court and family.

Thomason (2005: 132) suggests that Kalḫu had become “a special purpose city, used entirely for thestorage of important objects that could not fit into the palaces at Nineveh” during the 7th century B.C. Whilethe real treasures are more likely to have ended up in Nineveh, Kalḫu’s palaces did not ossify. The palacesremained in continuous use, irrespective of whether the royal family was among its occupants. Their historymoreover did not stop in 612 B.C. with the end of the Assyrian empire. The palaces were reoccupied andabandoned, perhaps abruptly, only later (Curtis 1989: 51–54; Herrmann 1992: 7). The archaeological recordreflects this long history.

Building Activity under Esarhaddon (Aššur-aḫḫe-iddina)(680–669 B.C.)

Kalḫu saw royal building activity at least once more during the reign of Esarhaddon. The Northwest Palaceand Fort Shalmaneser, the city’s two royal palaces,2 were treated quite differently. This had considerableconsequences for their status during the final decades of the empire. Rather than restoring the almost200 years old Northwest Palace, construction of a new palace was started to its south, the so-called South-west Palace (Barnett / Falkner 1962). The new palace appears to have been relatively modest in size (Kertai2013). A single monumental suite, which can be described as a dual-core suite (Kertai 2015: 222–224), is allthat is legible from the architectural remains of the palace. Nevertheless, this suite allows us to hypothesizeabout the palace’s original size and organisation (Kertai 2015: 156–158). It seems that the palace was similarto the North Palace in Nineveh. Although monumental, it was a secondary palace and considerably smallerthan, for example, Sîn-aḫḫe-erība’s (Sennacherib’s) Southwest Palace in Nineveh. Esarhaddon’s buildingactivity at Kalḫu was probably aimed at providing the city with a set of palaces where the court could staywhen visiting the city rather than signalling an intent to move the court back to Kalḫu.

The Northwest Palace came to be used like a quarry for reliefs. The reliefs were not removed randomly,but were mostly taken from the throne room suite and the monumental suite to its southwest (Albenda 2010;Paley / Sobolewski 1987: 65–79) (Fig. 1). These places might have been chosen for their ease of access,especially if the reliefs were taken southwards along the edge of the citadel. A more deliberate selectionmight, however, be indicated by the type of rooms from which the reliefs were taken. Reliefs were mostlytaken from the main reception rooms of the palace. These had formed the places for royal receptions andwere closely connected to the activities of kingship. Whether these locations were chosen intentionallyremains unclear, but the result was that the main reception rooms of the palace were stripped of their primarydecoration.

Esarhaddon’s Southwest Palace was never finished, but neither was the Northwest Palace restoredthereafter. The stripped nature of the Northwest Palace’s main reception suites makes it less likely that thispalace would have been chosen for the royal court to reside or hold receptions. In fact, the citadel of Kalḫuwas left without a fully functioning royal palace.

In contrast to the Northwest Palace, Fort Shalmaneser was restored and improved during the reign ofEsarhaddon (Herrmann 1992: 5; Kertai 2015: 159–165). A new outer wall was added and the deteriorated

2 This article is limited to these two royal palaces andwill not discuss the othermajor buildings in Kalḫu.

David Kertai – After the Court Moved Away 113



terraces were filled in and repaved. An elaborate back entrance connected the palace to the outside through along descending corridor, a common 7th century palatial feature (Reade 2013: 355–359). The area to the eastof the throne room was probably also remodelled, raising it above the surrounding area, during this period.Whether any work was done on the throne room area T remains unknown. These restorations and improve-ments make it more likely that Fort Shalmaneser would have accommodated the royal court during theirvisits to Kalḫu in the final decades of the 7th century.

The Ivory Finds from the Northwest Palace (Fig. 1)

The Northwest Palace functioned as the primary palace of the empire for c. 150 years until Sargon II movedthe court to Dūr Šarrukīn, Sargon’s new city located c. 18 km northeast of Nineveh (Kertai 2013; Russell 1999:234–243). The use of the palace is likely to have changed considerably after this. These changes will bediscussed by looking at the main ivory collections found within the palace.

Room A was the first room within the palace that Layard excavated (1849a: 44–46). The room turned outto belong to a large suite located just southwest of the throne room. Similar suites were found in manypalaces of the 9th and 8th centuries B.C. (Turner 1970a: 204–209). This type of suite is characterized by itsclose association with the throne room suite (Kertai 2015: 219–220). It is defined by its two-sidedness, withone side being connected to the throne room (Room WG) and the other to the throne room courtyard (RoomWK). The “external” reception room (RoomWK) formed a secondary throne room and was directly accessiblefrom the throne room courtyard through Corridor WZ.

Room A represents a storage room within the service area of the suite, which fills the area between thetwo reception rooms. Storage rooms are easily identifiable in the monumental part of the Northwest Palacedue to their homogeneous architecture (Kertai 2015: 195–196). Each is decorated with reliefs inscribed withthe Standard Inscription, but otherwise left blank (Russell 1998: 668; Russell 1999: 11–41). Their floors werepaved with large stone slabs. This sets them apart from bathrooms, whose floors were made of baked brickscoated with bitumen with a drain set in a niche within one of the walls (Kertai 2015: 190–195).

During the final decades of the Assyrian empire, Room A might still have been in use as a storage room,but the suite it belonged to had been stripped of most of its reliefs during the reign of Esarhaddon. In fact,Room A was the only room whose reliefs were not taken away.

As it contained imported ivories, Herrmann (Herrmann / Laidlaw 2009: 37–38) interprets Room A as atreasury3 without referring to the suite of which it was a part.4 By contrast, Rooms U and AB, which are singlerooms unconnected to the suite, are described as functioning as the suite’s storage rooms, primarily becausethese rooms contained Assyrian ivories and are therefore assumed to have been in active use (ibidem: 38,101). These different interpretations are reflected by the words used to describe the rooms. A “treasury”suggests the storage of valuables for safe keeping rather than a room whose contents is actively used. Theopposite seems more likely. Room U, a single well-protected storage room, is arguably the most treasury-likespace within the palace. Sargon’s inscription found on its walls identifies the room as the location of hisKarkamiš booty (Kertai 2015: 84–85; Russell 1999: 99). Room U had once been filled “to bursting withluxuries” (Luckenbill 1926: 73), including 345 kg of gold and 63,012 kg of silver (Barjamovic 2011: 35), butwas found mostly empty, indicating that its contents had been removed in antiquity. The same appears tohave been true for Rooms I and L, where only a few inscribed objects still attested to Sargon’s use of thesespaces as storage rooms (Layard 1849a: 277–279).

Like the rest of the palace, the throne room had seen better days. Discussions about the decoration of theroom tend to focus on the surviving reliefs, but these only represent two-thirds of the original reliefs as mostreliefs from its northern wall had been taken away. While this makes it a less likely place for royal events, thesuite still offered considerable advantages for the officials present in the palace. Foremost amongst these was

3 This interpretation follows Oates / Oates (2001: 55).4 It must be noted that in the catalogue Room A is associated with the throne room, both being placed under the heading “StateApartments” (Herrmann / Laidlaw 2009: 138–149).

114 Altorientalische Forschungen 2015; 42(1)



Fig. 1: Plan of the Northwest Palace at Kalḫu, indicating the findspots of ivories. Based on Kertai (2015: pl. 4).

that the throne room remained the largest andmostmonumental spacewithin the palace. Although the throneroom suite forms a unique and specific suite (Kertai 2015: 210–219), this type of suite was not restricted to royalpalaces. In fact, similar suites were included in most elite residences. This suggests that most members ofAssyria’s elite required similar settings to conduct their lives andorganise their households. The throne roomoftheNorthwest Palace provided the added advantage of allowing its users to partake in the royalty thatmust stillhave been inherent in the room. The evocation of royalty must have been enhanced by the preservation –perhaps intentional –of the two largeniches inwhich thrones are assumed tohaveonce stood.




It is in this context that a group of Assyrian ivories found close to the throne base by Max Mallowan couldbe understood (Herrmann / Laidlaw 2009: 37, 138–143; Mallowan 1952: 10–11). Georgina Herrmann (Herr-mann / Laidlaw 2009: 31) suggests that these “may represent the remains of Ashurnasirpal’s throne or someother piece of ninth century royal furniture”. While it might originally have functioned as a throne, aroundthe end of the 7th century the chair’s user(s) were more likely royal officials or even post-Assyrian occupants.Regardless of its original owner, the quality and age of the chair will certainly have added to the royalassociations that the room emanated.

Rooms V and Wwere part of the main residential suite of the palace, which can be assumed to have beenintended for the king’s use (Kertai 2015: 40; Reade 1980: 84; Russell 1998: 697–699). Within the suite, Room Vfunctioned as the bathroom, with RoomW forming an anteroom to Room X. Most ivories were found in RoomV, close to its doorway to Room W (Layard 1849b: 15–16). Herrmann (Herrmann / Laidlaw 2009: 42) arguesthat the room had become a treasury over time. Although the use of bathrooms for storage purposes is notuncommon (Kertai 2015: 193–194), an interpretation as treasury is problematic as, judging by the absence ofpivot stones, neither Room V nor Room W possessed doors; these rooms were therefore unsuited for thestorage of precious objects. Moreover, whereas it is possible that Rooms V and W were no longer in activeuse, this seems less likely to have been the case for the remaining rooms of the suite. The suite was located inthe centre of the palace and was among its best preserved suites. The objects in Room V were thus more likelynot important enough to have been placed in treasuries or were still in use.

The largest ivory collections were not found in the rooms, but in the four wells of the palace. This showshow little of the actual inventory of the palace was found in situ. It is impossible to reconstruct the location ofthese objects prior to their disposal. Yet, the finds make clear that ivories had been quite abundant within thepalace. Although they represent very rich find contexts, the wells are unlikely to be reflective of the palace’soriginal inventory. Many, if not most, objects will have been taken away before, and certainly during andafter, the final sack of the palace.

Of the four wells, Well AJ was located most centrally within the palace. Its location in Courtyard AJ placedit in the middle of the residential area of the palace. Whether this area, and the palace in general, was stillused for living after the court had moved out remains unclear, but even if that were the case, Well AJ’scontent cannot simply be equated with these residential areas. While objects from the area surrounding itmight well have ended up in Well AJ, the well was also close to most other parts of the palace. In fact, Well AJformed the closest well for large parts of the palace. It was easily reached from the State Apartments to itsnorth and from the southern part of the palace through Rooms 43 and 46. If objects were deposited into theclosest available well, most of the palace’s objects would have ended up in Well AJ. The actual dispersionpatterns are, however, unlikely to have followed such a simple rule.

Well AJ included both imported and Assyrian ivories. Georgina Herrmann (Herrmann / Laidlaw 2009: 46)assumes that these would have originated from separate places, following her hypothesis that Assyrianivories originated from actively used spaces whereas imported ivories were located in treasuries. Such anassumed separation forms a circular argument and remains unprovable.

Ivories were few in the famous Well NN, but it did include the so-called “Mona Lisa” (Herrmann /Laidlaw 2009: pl. U). Herrmann (Herrmann / Laidlaw 2009: 50) argues that the “absence of quality Assyrianpanels is significant, for Well NN is relatively far from the State Apartments”. This argument seems to becountered by her association of the contents of Well NN with that of Well AJ (Herrmann / Laidlaw 2009: 50–51), which suggests that the original contexts of these wells had been similar. Moreover, Assyrian ivorieswere found in the adjacent rooms and especially in Well 4, which was located even further away from theState Apartments.

Strikingly, the queen’s tombs escaped the sack of the palace (Damerji / Kamil 1999; Hussein / Suleiman2000). They are arguably the only 9th and 8th century contexts preserved within the palace. Herrmann(Herrmann / Millard 2003: 389, 398; Herrmann / Laidlaw 2009: 29) notices that ivories were missing from thetombs, arguing that this reflects the Assyrian dislike of ivories. However, as Erica Fischer (2012: 366) pointsout, the catalogue actually mentions numerous, as yet unpublished, ivories. The graves in Tall Šaiḫ Ḥamad(Kreppner 2008) and Ziyaret Tepe (Wicke 2009; Wicke 2010: 69, n. 120) have moreover shown that ivorieswere not uncommon in Late Assyrian elite graves. More importantly, the tombs represent specific sets of




curated objects that cannot straightforwardly be used to reconstruct the popularity and use of objects in dailylife.

The Ivory Finds from Fort Shalmaneser (Fig. 2)

Although the introduction has argued that Fort Shalmaneser is likely to have formed Kalḫu’s main royalestablishment at the end of the 7th century, its relationship with the Assyrian court is nonetheless far fromstraightforward. Nineveh remained the empire’s primary city throughout the 7th century and contained itsown military establishment on and around Nabī Yūnus, the town’s second citadel (Kertai 2015: 147–153;Turner 1970b). Fort Shalmaneser, like several other places, housed functionaries of the queen, even thoughthis primarily represents an economic and administrative entity rather than a residential one.

Excavations of Fort Shalmaneser have resulted in an exceptionally large collection of ivories. Only a verysmall number of these ivories were “Assyrian”, with Georgina Herrmann (Herrmann / Laidlaw 2009: 101)estimating that they represented c. 5 percent of the total. This number is, however, somewhat arbitrary as ittreats each piece of ivory as a single object. The count of ivory pieces can be misleading because many piecesdo not represent objects as such, but formed part of the decoration of larger objects such as furniture. In thesecases, the number of ivory pieces reflects the size of the object and the number of pieces used for itsdecoration. By treating each piece as a single object, differences in the nature of the associated objects tendto be neglected.

The small number of Assyrian ivories is moreover skewed by the large amount of ivories from area SW ofFort Shalmaneser. Although the Italian excavations of the late 1980s have indicated that this area might havecontained some representative spaces as well (Pappalardo 2008: 495), its primary function appears to havebeen long-term storage. The contents of area SW representing booty and/or tribute, Assyrian ivories are lesslikely to be found within these rooms. Arguably, booty and tribute could have included Assyrian ivories aswell if these had been present at the foreign courts where the ivories were taken from. But if so, they musthave ended up at other locations within Assyria. If one sets these special collections aside, the differencesbetween Assyrian and imported ivories become much less uneven.

The main predominantly Assyrian collection found within Fort Shalmaneser comes from Rooms S4 andS5. With bathroom S3, they formed a small, but richly decorated, suite within area S. This area is perhapsmost famous for the paintings on the walls of Room S5 showing a row of courtiers, probably walking towardsthe king (Oates 1959: 117–119, pl. 28). Herrmann (1992: xi) argues that the preponderance of Assyrian ivorieswould “indicate the primacy of Assyrian art in ceremonial areas”. The larger context of the suite, however,does not seem to support such a conclusion. The few ivories found in the other rooms of this area (S16 andS30) and the corridor (D) surrounding its courtyard had mixed origins (Herrmann 1992: 60–62). These ivoriesrepresent a very selective remainder of the area’s original inventory. Rather than being contrasted with thefew imported ivories found in the surrounding areas (Corridors E and C; Rooms S74, S22, S48, S53, X3, C7, seeHerrmann 1992: 62–63, 77–79), especially to the large collection from nearby Room S10 (ibid.: 64–77),5 theyshould be considered in relation to them.

Room S10 probably formed a storage room. Some ivories might already have been stored there inAssyrian times, but others are likely to have been brought there only during the looting of the palace with thespecific aim of burning them (Oates 1959: 121). In the latter case, Room S10 would be comparable to the wellsof the Northwest Palace, all functioning as places where objects from surrounding areas were discarded. Ifso, the contents of Room S10 is likely to have originated from the surrounding areas S and T. Considering thesmall number of ivories found in most rooms and the effects of the plunder and reoccupation in area S, thisarea is better understood as a single integrated context.

Room T10 is comparable to Room A of the Northwest Palace, both functioning as storage rooms for thereception suite south of the throne room suite. However, Room T10 is connected more directly to the throne

5 So Herrmann /Millard (2003: 390–392).




Fig. 2: Plan of the Fort Shalmaneser at Kalḫu, indicating the findspots of ivories. Based on Kertai (2015: pl. 9).




room and thus likely to have functioned as a storeroom for the entire area T. In contrast to the NorthwestPalace, the throne room area of Fort Shalmaneser seems to have remained in good shape until the end of theAssyrian empire. The objects from Room T10 could therefore have still been in use within the palace duringthe 7th century. If the actual finds cast some doubt on whether the objects were still usable as they appear tohave been rather fragmentary, this might simply reflect the sack and later deterioration of the palace ratherthan the original state of the room’s contents. The assemblage of Room T10 is notable for its mixed contents.Georgina Herrmann interprets it as the only context to combine imported and Assyrian ivories (Herrmann /Laidlaw 2013: 249–296). This, however, depends on how one defines a single context. What is beyond doubtis that in the midst of the main reception rooms of the palace, a large collection of imported ivories waspresent.

The archaeology of the so-called rab ekalli office in area SE is complicated by the uncertainty about thenature and size of the “office” (Kertai 2015: 64). Most ivories were found in Rooms SE1 and SE10. Theadjacency of both rooms might suggest a functional relationship even if the rooms are not directly connected.David Oates (1959: 108), however, argues that the ivories originated from an upper storey. The ivories arevaried, though there seems little to support Herrmann’s suggestion (1992: 14) that the few Assyrian pieces“had ‘spread’ from elsewhere”. Herrmann (Herrmann / Millard 2003: 388) later argues that the few Assyrianivories reflected the restricted distribution of such ivories. As a high official, the rab ekalli might havepossessed a few ivories, although it is generally assumed that Assyrian ivories would have been a royalprerogative. A distinction between royals and court officials seems difficult to test, especially during a timewhen the palaces are likely to have been predominantly occupied by officials rather than the royal court.

The exquisite ivories found in the adjacent Room NE2 should not be included in the rab ekalli office. Evenif a second storey covered the area, the ivories from Room NE2 were mostly found in its niches and aretherefore thought to have originated from the room itself. The distance between Room NE2 and the rooms inarea SE was substantial as no direct connection existed. A functional correlation therefore seems unlikely.

Conclusion: Ivories in Assyria

The debate on the appreciation of “foreign” items within Assyria has largely focussed on the objects depictedon Assyrian reliefs. While Assyrian state art seems to have diminished the otherness of foreign objects –either implicitly through a “period eye” (Thomason 2005: 141) or more actively by Assyrianising the other(Feldman 2014: 94–110) – this does not necessarily diminish the value that was placed in actual foreignobjects. The queens’ tombs, with their wide range of collected objects, are perhaps the best demonstration ofthe value that could be associated with foreign objects within Assyria.

In contrast to the imported ivories, the Assyrian ivories remain understudied and are often treated as ahomogeneous group whose primary role is defined in relation to the imported ivories. This has skewed thedebate towards the Levant. From such a point of view, Assyrian ivories are clearly set apart and arguably notbecause of their intricate workmanship. Viewed from Assyria, however, the ivories reflect all the qualitiesthat define Assyrian art, which, to quote Marian Feldman (2014: 86), “combines clarity of form with richnessin detail” and “employs an emphasis on line, detail, and elaboration/ornamentation confined with contoursof relatively flat planes”. Assyrian ivories fit comfortably within Assyrian material culture. This is supportedby the diversity in object types, carving techniques and repertoire of motifs within the corpus (Herrmann1992: xi; Herrmann 1997: 290).

The focus on Levantine ivories runs the risk of downplaying the importance of Babylonia in the culturalinteractions of Assyria. Babylonia’s ivory production and use is, however, still mostly unknown. Šamši-AdadV (725–722 B.C.) took away “elephant hides, elephant tusks… [and] a bed made of ivory and ebony” fromBabylonia (Grayson 1996: 191 [A.0.103.2: iv 11'–29]), but their origin remains unknown. Dirk Wicke (2010:102–119) discusses a group of Late Bronze Age ivories likely to come from Babylonia.

Separating Assyrian and imported ivories within the archaeological record of Kalḫu is problematic. A re-examination of the archaeological contexts suggests that Assyrian and imported ivories were generallyintermixed within the Northwest Palace and Fort Shalmaneser. These contexts are easiest to explain if one




assumes that Assyrian and imported ivories were used side by side. Nimrud’s complicated history during the7th century, however, argues against such a simple equation. To use the ivory finds and their findspots todiscuss the value attached to them by the Assyrian court is even more problematic. Ideally, this debateshould focus on the finds from Nineveh, but by the coincidence of archaeological discovery most ivories havebeen found in Kalḫu. While the court, or part thereof, might sometimes have resided in Kalḫu, their mainresidences were certainly located in Nineveh. After the royal court had moved out of Kalḫu’s palaces acentury before their sack, the palaces were probably mostly occupied by Assyrian officials. The finds mightrepresent their values. But even such a correlation is complicated by the history of the palaces. The type ofcontext that would have allowed Assyrian use and appreciation to be reconstructed is very unlikely to befound in palaces that were abandoned, looted and reoccupied.

As a result, most rooms, such as the former residential rooms, were found to be mostly empty. In mostrooms only a few ivories were found. The significance of these contexts for the use of ivories is limited. Thethrone room of the Northwest Palace is reflective of the problems inherent in using such sparse finds to drawbroader conclusions. A room in which probably only a single object decorated with ivories was recoveredcannot be used to draw significant conclusions about the absence of non-Assyrian ivories.

A more appropriate question is why certain objects were still present within the rooms of the palaces.This is especially relevant for understanding rooms in which objects were still abundant, such as Room AB,the only room with a large collection of objects still in situ within the Northwest Palace (e.g. the NimrudBowls). Perhaps partial collapses had made rooms like AB inaccessible after 612 B.C. More often objects werestill present because they had broken or were otherwise chosen not to be taken away or reused. Whether thisreflects a general lack of appreciation of ivories remains uncertain. Max Mallowan (1966: 413) suggested thatthe SW7 ivories had only been placed in this room after the sack of the building in 614 B.C., representingthose objects that could still be restored. Their preservation would therefore reflect their deteriorated status.Georgina Herrmann (1992: 2) compares the ivories to the distribution of tablets, which she argues had mostlybeen found in their original locations. Tablets were however only of value to the administration that hadproduced them and will have been of little value after the sack of the palace. The objects that the ivories hadbeen part of are likely to have been of more value if they were still in a state that allowed them to be reused.This evaluation would have been made by the looters and later occupants.

The ivories appear to have been mostly stripped of their gold overlays and inlays of other preciousmaterials. This is true for most ivories thrown into the wells of the Northwest Palace as well as the ivoriesfound in storage rooms T10 and T20 in Fort Shalmaneser. Herrmann (1992: 2) originally argued that thiswould have been done by the looters at the locations where they had found the ivories, suggesting that theivories had remained in their original locations. The removing of the overlays is however a time-consumingactivity for which more suitable places than storage rooms might have been chosen. Herrmann (Herrmann /Laidlaw 2013: 114) later suggests that the stripping is more likely to have occurred already in Assyrian timesrather than during the “the ‘smash and grab’ of a sack”.

The conclusion that most contexts within the two royal palaces of Kalḫu mix Assyrian and importedivories is unsuited for generalisations about the use of ivories on part of the Assyrian kings. Yet it providesample material for the study of preferences of local individuals and groups. Recontextualising the ivories intotheir 7th century contexts brings to the fore different, non-royal agents within the Assyrian palaces. Whiletheir activities remain to be analysed in detail, the 9th century royal furniture pieces found in the NorthwestPalace’s throne room indicate how the appropriation of objects could add value and status to people, placesand situations in a royal palace after its kings had left.

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Documents

After the Royal Court Moved Away: A Reinterpretation of the Ivory Finds within the Royal Palaces of Kalḫu