CDLI tablet
Monumental inscriptions: The Decorations on Ashurnasirpal II’s Robes (2023-05-17)
Created by: Englund, Robert K.
The decorations of Ashurnasirpal II’s robes depict the king in a popular ceremony of fertilization. The decoration was found on one of the reliefs in the king’s palace of Nimrud.
The scene that decorates the edges of the king’s robes, as mentioned before depicts the scene of fertilization. Having a fertile land in ancient Mesopotamia was one of the important aspects of the daily lives of the people if not the most important. The scene shows a winged creature, most likely Assur, assisting the king in dipping the pinecone, which is in the right hand (the masculine hand) into the bucket of the left hand (the feminine hand). Then sprinkling the tree in front of them in order to have fertile land. The significance of this scene is that is shows the bond between the king and the God – showing that the king is the representative of the God on Earth. Furthermore, the sheer amount of detail that went into these reliefs shows how important the palatial propaganda was to the elites and to the people.
credit: Aslanyan, Rafayel
Cite this Cdli Tablet
@misc{CDLI2025,
note = {[Online; accessed 2025-08-08]},
author = {{CDLI contributors}},
year = {2025},
month = {aug 8},
title = {},
url = {https://cdli.earth/cdli-tablet/607},
howpublished = {https://cdli.earth/cdli-tablet/607},
}
TY - ELEC AU - CDLI contributors DA - 2025/8/8/ PY - 2025 ID - temp_id_927637702863 M1 - 2025/8/8/ TI - UR - https://cdli.earth/cdli-tablet/607 ER -