The Assyrian Reliefs at Virginia Seminary

As Dean Markham mentioned in his on-line Dean's Commentary several weeks back, Virginia Seminary is proud to own some Assyrian Reliefs, which are on display in the school library. The reliefs once lined the walls of the palace and temples of Ashurnasirpal II, king of Assyria, in his capital city of Calah (modern Nimrud). Ashurnasirpal II (884-860 BCE) was one of the founders of the Neo-Assyrian empire, which eventually brought about the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE.

For a while now, I've been meaning to make available in this blog an interpretation of the image on the reliefs and a translation of its Akkadian inscription. The best way to do that, I think, is to post the article on the inscriptions written by Dr. Jim Ross, one of my predecessors in teaching Hebrew Bible here. The article is as follows: James F. Ross, "The Assyrian Reliefs at Virginia Seminary," The Virginia Seminary Journal 28/1 (1976): 4-10.

To download the article (a pdf file), click here.