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Symposium
FROM DISCOVERY TO DARTMOUTH:
THE ASSYRIAN RELIEFS AT THE HOOD MUSEUM OF ART, 1856-2006
November 3-4, 2006
The year 2006 will mark the passage of 150 years since the arrival at Dartmouth of one of the college's most prized possessions in the realm of art and culture: the Assyrian reliefs, currently on display in the Kim Gallery of the Hood Museum of Art. Originally part of the decorative scheme of the so-called "Northwest Palace" of King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE) in Nimrud, Iraq, six large-scale reliefs depict a ritual performance undertaken by the king.Human and supernatural beings are also in attendance. Scholarly understanding of Assyrian art has increased considerably over time, as its visual, cultural, and historical meanings have been studied from a variety of perspectives and their role as visual propaganda has been recognized.
A symposium co-organized by the Department of Art History and Hood Museum of Art and sponsored by the Fannie and Alan Leslie Center for the Humanities at Dartmouth College, the Hood Museum of Art, and the Departments of Art History, and Religion, will examine and advance the state of scholarship on the reliefs, the culture from which they derive, as well as their afterlife in Hanover. A highly respected group of speakers will address topics such as the nineteenth-century British excavations in Iraq, the architecture and outfitting of Ashurnasirpal's palace, the rich iconography of the reliefs and its range of meanings, the reception and history of the reliefs in Hanover, aspects of Mesopotamian art and culture, as well as the current state of archaeological research and antiquities in Iraq. A special installation on the reliefs and other ancient Near Eastern works from the collection will be also on view in the Hood Museum of Art and will include special interactive 3D computer reconstructions that show the reliefs in their original contexts.
