Artwork Page for Decorative Plaque: Cow Nursing Its Calf

Details / Information for Decorative Plaque: Cow Nursing Its Calf

Decorative Plaque: Cow Nursing Its Calf

900–800 BCE

Phoenicia, Iraq, Nimrud

Medium
ivory
Measurements
Overall: 4.6 x 12.4 cm (1 13/16 x 4 7/8 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1968.48
Public Domain
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Location
102A Ancient Near East
Print

Description

This small plaque was executed in the Phoenician style with symmetrical compositions, elongated figural proportions, and Egyptian subjects and motifs. Examples have been found throughout the Middle East, but thousands come from Nimrud where most were excavated in the storerooms of a military arsenal built by King Shalmaneser II (858-824 bc). When the Nimrud palace was sacked in the 7th century bc, these ivories were thrown into a well, where Sir Max Mallowan (the husband of Agatha Christie) discovered them in 1951. The monumental wall relief (1943.246) was found at the same Assyrian palace at Nimrud.
A carved ivory plaque is decorated with a cow and calf. Facing our right with her head turned back, the cow displays curved horns and stylized neck folds. A thin horizontal bar runs along the top. Below her belly, a smaller calf stands with its head raised toward her. The weathered, cream-colored surface is pitted and cracked throughout, and the piece is fragmented at the bottom and along the left edge.

Decorative Plaque: Cow Nursing Its Calf

900–800 BCE

Phoenicia, Iraq, Nimrud

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