Relocation and Reinterpretation: The Neo-Assyrian Reliefs from Khorsabad at the Oriental Institute Museum (original) (raw)

Abstract

Submitted Feb 27, 2015 for the conference session: "The Itinerant 'Archives' of the World: Archaeologists, Objects and Values on the Move." This paper explores the physical and conceptual movement of the carved stone wall reliefs from the palace of Sargon II (721–705 BCE) at Khorsabad, excavated by the Oriental Institute expedition to Iraq in the 1920s and 1930s. Archival documents and photographs, scholarly publications, and past museum displays help trace the life histories of these artifacts and the people involved, from the rediscovery of the reliefs by Edward Chiera to their arrival in Chicago, where they were installed in the museum’s galleries, prepared for restoration, and placed in storage. At the time Neo-Assyrian reliefs were treated as exotic works of art, decontextualized objects glorified for their formal qualities. For example, the colossal winged bull—one of the most celebrated objects placed within James Henry Breasted’s new Oriental Institute Museum—captured the monumentality and iconicity of the ancient Near Eastern world. With the recent shift from a strict art historical approach to one of contextualization, the Khorsabad reliefs are starting to be appreciated as elements of a larger built environment, which has helped us to understand the cultural value of these materials in antiquity and to recreate the palace of Sargon as experienced by people of the past. How these objects are presented to a modern audience within the reinterpreted setting of a museum gallery is similarly meaningful. In present day Chicago, the modern Assyrian community places a high cultural value on the Khorsabad reliefs, as a way of connecting with an idealized heritage and forging of a new cultural identity. Continued threats to heritage in Iraq in the past two decades, and the recent acts of vandalism of Assyrian monuments in Mosul and Nineveh, have placed an additional political and ideological value on the preservation and presentation of these monuments in museum settings.

Kiersten Neumann hasn't uploaded this document.

Let Kiersten know you want this document to be uploaded.

Ask for this document to be uploaded.