I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM
The Ashurnasirpal II Palace Reliefs
▶ Listen · narrated
You walk down a palace corridor and the same winged figure appears again and again, performing a gesture you cannot quite read. That repetition was deliberate, and so was the uncertainty.
At a glance
- Culture
- Assyrian
- Reign
- 883–859 BC
- Original location
- Palace at Nimrud
- Material
- Gypsum alabaster
Look closer
The bucket and the cone
The figure holds a small bucket in one hand and raises a cone-shaped object in the other. Scholars have read this as a ritual gesture of purification or blessing. The cone may be a date-palm spathe — the sheath that encloses the flower cluster — dipped in liquid from the bucket and used to sprinkle or anoint. The gesture recurs in Assyrian art, but no surviving text describes the ritual in detail, so the interpretation rests on visual pattern and context rather than written confirmation.
Wings and human face
The figure is bearded and human-faced, but equipped with wings. This combination marks it as a supernatural being, not a mortal priest or courtier. The term often used is apkallu, a class of protective spirit in Mesopotamian tradition, though whether that label fits every winged figure in Assyrian palace art is debated. What is clear is that the wings signal a boundary-crosser: a being that operates between the human and divine realms, appropriate for a ritual that sanctifies space.
Repetition as design
The same figure appears panel after panel along the walls of certain rooms and corridors. This is not a narrative sequence where each scene advances a story. It is a pattern, like wallpaper with a ritual function. The repetition may have been intended to reinforce the protective or purifying effect, surrounding the visitor with the gesture rather than showing it once. The effect would have been cumulative and immersive, not illustrative.
The story
The palace at Nimrud was built during the reign of a king whose name is recorded as Ashur-nasir-pal, meaning that the god Ashur is guardian of the heir. He ruled from 883 to 859 BC. The palace walls were lined with gypsum alabaster panels carved in shallow relief, and many of those panels show the same image: a bearded, winged figure holding a bucket in one hand and a cone-shaped object in the other.
The figure is usually described as performing a purification ritual. The cone is often interpreted as a date-palm spathe — the fibrous sheath that wraps around the flower cluster before it opens — which may have been dipped in liquid from the bucket and used to sprinkle or daub. No cuneiform text survives that describes this specific ritual in step-by-step detail, so the reading is based on the visual evidence and the context in which the image appears: doorways, thresholds, and processional routes where protective or sanctifying gestures would make sense.
The figure is not human. The wings mark it as a being that crosses boundaries, and scholars often call it an apkallu, a term from Mesopotamian tradition for a class of protective spirit. Whether every winged figure in Assyrian palace art should be grouped under that label is debated, but the wings consistently signal a role that is ritual and supernatural rather than courtly or military.
What matters for the visitor is the repetition. The same figure, performing the same gesture, appears panel after panel. This is not a story told in sequence, where you follow a protagonist from one scene to the next. It is a pattern. The effect would have been immersive: you walk down a corridor and the gesture surrounds you, repeated at regular intervals, reinforcing the idea that the space itself has been purified or protected. The ritual is not illustrated once; it is performed continuously along the wall.
The reliefs were originally painted. Traces of pigment survive on some panels, showing that the stone surface was coloured, though the palette and the full effect are now largely lost. The carved detail would have been sharpened and made more legible by colour, and the repetition of the figure would have been even more striking when the wings, the bucket, and the cone were picked out in paint.
The palace was abandoned in the seventh century BC and buried under earth and debris. European excavators uncovered the reliefs in the nineteenth century, and many panels were removed and distributed to museums. The original arrangement is known from excavation plans, but the reliefs now stand in galleries far from the corridors they once lined, and the cumulative effect of walking past them in sequence is no longer available to most viewers.
Why it mattered then
The palace at Nimrud was a statement of power, and the reliefs were part of that statement. A visitor walking through the building would have seen military campaigns, hunts, tribute processions, and these repeated images of ritual purification. The combination was deliberate: the king's authority was both martial and sacred, and the palace walls were meant to demonstrate both. The repetition of the purification gesture would have reinforced the idea that the palace was a sanctified space, protected by supernatural forces. The visitor was not just entering a building; they were entering a zone that had been ritually prepared and continuously maintained by the gestures carved into the walls. The effect would have been both reassuring and intimidating: reassuring if you were an ally, intimidating if you were not. The choice to use relief rather than freestanding sculpture or painting alone also mattered. Relief is permanent, carved into the fabric of the building. It cannot be moved or easily altered. The ritual gesture, repeated in stone, was fixed into the architecture itself, making the purification inseparable from the structure of the palace.
Why it matters now
The reliefs are now studied as evidence for Assyrian religious practice, artistic convention, and the use of architecture to shape experience. The repetition of the purification figure is a clear example of how an image can function as more than illustration: it can be a tool, a pattern, a way of structuring space and affecting the people who move through it. The question of how to interpret the gesture without a surviving text that describes it in detail is also instructive. Scholars work from visual pattern, context, and comparison with other images and objects, but the interpretation remains provisional. The cone-as-spathe reading is plausible and widely accepted, but it is not confirmed by a written source that says, in so many words, what the figure is doing. That uncertainty is worth acknowledging rather than smoothing over. The dispersal of the reliefs is another reason they matter now. Panels from the same palace are in museums across Europe, removed during nineteenth-century excavations. The original arrangement is recorded in excavation plans, but the experience of walking past the figures in sequence is no longer available except in reconstruction. The reliefs are now objects in cases rather than walls in a corridor, and that change affects what they can communicate.
The surprising detail
The reliefs were not hidden or restricted to inner sanctums. They lined corridors and reception rooms where visitors would have walked. The repetition of the purification gesture was public, not secret. The ritual was being displayed, not concealed, which suggests that its function was as much about demonstrating that the palace had been purified as about performing the purification itself. The visitor was meant to see the gesture and register its presence, even if they did not understand every detail of what it signified.
How it got here
The reliefs were excavated in the nineteenth century and removed from the site at Nimrud. Panels from the palace are now in museums across Europe. The original arrangement is recorded in excavation plans, but the reliefs are no longer in the corridors they once lined. The site at Nimrud was damaged in recent conflict, and some reliefs that remained in Iraq were destroyed.
Remember this
Repetition was the point. The gesture was carved again and again to surround the visitor, not to tell a story.
Test yourself
Why does the lack of a surviving text describing the ritual in detail matter for how we interpret the reliefs?
Because it means the interpretation rests on visual evidence and context rather than written confirmation. Scholars can see the gesture repeated, can identify the objects as a bucket and a cone-shaped item, and can observe where the figures are placed — near doorways and thresholds — but they cannot point to a cuneiform tablet that says what liquid was in the bucket or what words were spoken. The cone-as-spathe reading is plausible and fits the pattern, but it is provisional. That uncertainty is not a failure of scholarship; it is an accurate reflection of what the evidence permits. The lesson generalises: an image without an explanatory text can be described and contextualised, but the interpretation will always carry a degree of openness that written sources might close.
Go deeper
Image: Ángel M. Felicísimo from Mérida, España, CC BY 2.0. Licence: CC BY 2.0. Source.