Georgina Herrmann

Stuart Laidlaw

Helena Coffey

The great, ninth century palace which Ashurnasirpal II (883-859) built at his new capital of Kalhu/Nimrud has been excavated over 150 years by various expeditions. Each has been rewarded with remarkable antiquities, including the finest ivories found in the ancient Near East, many of which had been brought to Kalhu by the Assyrian kings. The first ivories were discovered by Austen Henry Layard, followed a century later by Max Mallowan, who found superb ivories in Well NN. Neither Layard nor Mallowan was able to empty Well AJ: this was achieved by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage, who retrieved arguably the finest pieces found at Nimrud. Finally, an interesting collection of ivory and bone tubes was found by Muzahim Mahmud, the discoverer of the famous Royal Tombs, in Well 4. This volume publishes for the first time the majority of the ivories found in the Palace by location. These include superb examples carved in Assyria proper and across the Levant from North Syria to Phoenicia and provide an outstanding illustration of the minor arts of the early first millennium. In addition ivories found in the Central Palace of Tiglath-pileser III and fragmentary pieces found in the domestic contexts of the Town Wall Houses are also included. In addition to a detailed catalogue, this book also aims to assess the present state of ivory studies, discussing the political situation in the Levant, the excavation of the palace, the history of study, the various style-groups of ivories and their possible time and place of production. This volume is the sixth in the Ivories from Nimrud series published by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq now known as the British Institute for the Study of Iraq.

Ivories from the North West Palace (1845-1992)

Hugh N. Kennedy

The survival of the mudbrick monuments of Merv against all the odds is little short of a miracle. Mudbrick and rammed earth are not building materials famed for their longevity, rather for their economy. However, some buildings of the Merv oasis in the Karakum desert in Turkmenistan have survived for more than seven centuries and some, unbelievably, for a millennium. Mud was the building material of choice, wonderfully flexible and a superb insulator, ideal for the extremes of the Central Asian climate, and one used by the architects of Merv with ingenuity and virtuosity to construct a wide variety of vaults and domes. The survivng monuments include palatial residences, small houses, summer pavilions and watch towers, as well as the earliest examples of tall conical icehouses. Perhaps the most remarkable are the extraordinary corrugated buildings, which, like the icehouses, dominate the flat landscape of the oasis. These are a distinctly Central Asian type of building with a surprising dearth of parallels elsewhere. Merv's key position during the eighth and ninth centuries may suggest that these remarkable buildings originated in the oasis, and they continued to be built through the Seljuk period. They present a unique record of an otherwise lost architechtural heritage and are of such importance that they form a major part of Merv's application to UNESCO for World Heritage Status. Merv was, of course, one of the great cosmopolitan capitals of the day, a centre of learning, industry and of long-distance trade: it was strategically located on the Great Silk Road'.

Traditional Buildings of the Karakum

Monuments of Merv

The Iranian Revival

Joe Cribb

British Academy

Offering a study of the history and archaeology of Central Asia, crucial for our understanding of the ancient and early medieval world, this book provides a complex analysis of the symbiosis between the city life based on oases, and the nomadic peoples grazing their animals in the surrounding semi-deserts.

After Alexander: Central Asia Before Islam

A beautiful and vital document of the ancient masterpieces of ivory from the Middle East, many of which have been lost or destroyed in the recent political turmoil of the region

Georgina Herrmann

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