Cuneiform Tablet, part of the corner stone of the palace at Kalhu (Nimrud)

Inscriptions

"(A palace of cedar, a palace of cypress, a palace of juniper, a palace of boxwood, a palace of mulberry, a pal)ace of pistachio-wood and tamarisk for my royal dwelling (and for my lordly pleasure for all time I founded it. Beasts of the mountains and of the se)as, of white limestone and alabaster I fashioned; I set them up in its gates. (I adorned it, I made it glorious, and put around it fastening bars of bronze. Doors of ce)dar, cypress, juniper, and mulberry I hung in its gates; and silver, gold, (lead, copper, and iron, the spoil of my hands from the lands which I had brought under my rule, in great quantities I to)ok and placed in it." Ferris J. Stephens (The words in parenthesis in my translation do not appear in this fragment, they are in the example of the complete inscription in Yale's collection)

Label

Like the carved relief panels in the adjacent gallery, this fragment of a cornerstone was once part of the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud. The inscription describes the materials used to build the palace: cedar, cypress, and mulberry woods, white limestone and alabaster, and silver, gold, and iron. The missionary and physician Dr. Henry Lobdell was instrumental in the arrangements to deliver Assyrian reliefs to Dartmouth, Yale, and Amherst College. He also collected personally, as reflected in this note from a later owner of this Assyrian cornerstone: “He [Lobdell] sawed this slab off with his own hands and gave it to his mother, who . . . gave it to me after the death of her son, who she fancied I resembled.”

From the 2025 exhibition, From Mastodon to Mosaic: Building an Academic Art Collection in America, curated by Ashley B. Offill, Curator of Collections

Course History

REL 81, Dickinson Distinguished Scholar Seminar: Orientalism and the Origins of Religion, Susannah Heschel, Fall 2012

ANTH 12.2, The Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Jason Herrmann, Spring 2013

History 10.02, Archival Research, Julia Rabig, Summer 2025

Exhibition History

Critical Faculties: Teaching with the Hood's Collections, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 15-March 13, 2005.

From Mastadon to Mosaic: Building an Academic Art Collection in America, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 14, 2025 - Fall 2026

Provenance

Collected by the missionary Dr. Henry John Lobdell (1827-1855), about 1852; to his mother, Almina Meeker Lobdell (1805-1891), Brookfield, Connecticut, about 1855; to her pastor, Bishop Daniel Ayres Goodsell (1840-1909), Washington, Connecticut; to Alice Lyman Goodrich (1877-1971) [Mrs. Nathaniel Lewis Goodrich], Hanover, New Hampshire; given to present collection, 1952.

This record is part of an active database that includes information from historic documentation that may not have been recently reviewed. Information may be inaccurate or incomplete. We also acknowledge some language and imagery may be offensive, violent, or discriminatory. These records reflect the institution’s history or the views of artists or scholars, past and present. Our collections research is ongoing.

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