Getting it wrong in Assyria: Some bracelets from Nimrud

Abstract

In 1989 Muzahem Mahmud Hussein found the second of four rich tombs in the harem section of the NorthWest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud. The tomb contained the burials of Yaba, queen of Tiglathpileser III, and of Atalia, queen of Sargon II, and the tomb can therefore be dated to the last decades of the eighth century BC. This paper concerns three pairs of bracelets from Tomb II, and focuses in particular on the strange iconography of one of the pairs.