狮子头碎片 - 美国大都会艺术博物馆展品查阅

品名（中）	狮子头碎片
品名（英）	Lion head fragment
入馆年号	1957年，57.27.14
策展部门	古代近东艺术（Ancient Near Eastern Art）
创作者
创作年份	公元前 900 - 公元前 600
创作地区
分类
尺寸	0.79 x 0.75 英寸 (2.01 x 1.91 厘米)
介绍（中）	这个雕刻的狮子头可能是在公元前七世纪末亚述最终失败期间尼姆鲁德的宫殿建筑群被洗劫时因暴露在火中而变黑的。只保留头顶。鬃毛以程式化的八角星的形式描绘。眼睛被钻孔以接收对比材料的镶嵌物，现在不见了。狮子与皇室和好战的女神伊什塔尔有关，似乎经常被描绘成象牙，并被用作精致椅子或宝座的支撑。在亚述首都尼姆鲁德的皇家储藏室中发现了许多代表狮子腿或头部的大型雕刻象牙，包括大都会博物馆收藏的几个例子（60.145.8，62.269.1，62.269.7）。尼姆鲁德的宫殿和储藏室由亚述国王阿舒尔纳西尔帕尔二世建造，存放了数千件雕刻象牙。大多数象牙用作家具镶嵌物或小贵重物品，如盒子。虽然其中一些雕刻的风格与西北宫殿墙壁上的大型亚述浮雕相同，但大多数象牙都展示了与北叙利亚和腓尼基城邦艺术相关的图像和风格。腓尼基风格的象牙的特点是使用与埃及艺术相关的图像，例如狮身人面像和戴法老王冠的人物，以及使用精致的雕刻技术，例如镂空和彩色玻璃镶嵌。北叙利亚风格的象牙倾向于以更动态的构图描绘更粗壮的人物，雕刻成实心牌匾，添加的装饰元素较少。但是，有些作品不容易融入这三种风格中的任何一种。大多数象牙可能是亚述国王从附庸国收集的贡品，以及被征服的敌人的战利品，而有些可能是在尼姆鲁德的作坊中制造的。为这些物品提供原材料的象牙几乎可以肯定来自非洲大象，从埃及南部的土地进口，尽管大象确实居住在叙利亚的几个河谷，直到公元前八世纪末被猎杀灭绝。
介绍（英）	This carved lion’s head was probably blackened through exposure to fire when the palace complexes at Nimrud were sacked during the final defeat of Assyria at the end of the seventh century B.C. Only the top of the head is preserved. The mane is depicted in the form of a stylized eight-pointed star. The eyes were drilled to receive inlays in a contrasting material, now missing. Lions, which were associated with royalty and with the warlike goddess Ishtar, seem to have been frequently depicted in ivory and used as the support for elaborate chairs or thrones. Many large pieces of carved ivory representing the legs or heads of lions have been found in royal storerooms at the Assyrian capital of Nimrud, including several examples in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum (60.145.8, 62.269.1, 62.269.7). Built by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, the palaces and storerooms of Nimrud housed thousands of pieces of carved ivory. Most of the ivories served as furniture inlays or small precious objects such as boxes. While some of them were carved in the same style as the large Assyrian reliefs lining the walls of the Northwest Palace, the majority of the ivories display images and styles related to the arts of North Syria and the Phoenician city-states. Phoenician style ivories are distinguished by their use of imagery related to Egyptian art, such as sphinxes and figures wearing pharaonic crowns, and the use of elaborate carving techniques such as openwork and colored glass inlay. North Syrian style ivories tend to depict stockier figures in more dynamic compositions, carved as solid plaques with fewer added decorative elements. However, some pieces do not fit easily into any of these three styles. Most of the ivories were probably collected by the Assyrian kings as tribute from vassal states, and as booty from conquered enemies, while some may have been manufactured in workshops at Nimrud. The ivory tusks that provided the raw material for these objects were almost certainly from African elephants, imported from lands south of Egypt, although elephants did inhabit several river valleys in Syria until they were hunted to extinction by the end of the eighth century B.C.