The Pedestal of Tukulti-Ninurta I
Artifact: Stone monument
Provenience: Assur
Period: Middle Assyrian period (ca. 1400-1000 BC)
Current location: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin
Text genre, language: Royal inscription; Akkadian
CDLI page
Description: Although the cult pedestal of the Middle Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta mentions in its short inscription that it is dedicated to the god Nuska, the relief on the front that depicts the king in a rare kind of narrative, standing and kneeling in front of the very same pedestal was frequently discussed by art-historians. More strikingly on top of the depicted pedestal there is not the lamp, the usual divine symbol for the god Nuska, but most likely the representation of a tablet and a stylus, symbols for the god Nabû. (Klaus Wagensonner, University of Oxford)
Editions: Grayson, A.K. 1987. The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia. Assyrian Period, I: Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Second Millennia B.C. (to 1115 B.C.), Toronto, p. 279ff.; Bahrani, Z. 2003. The Graven Image. Representation in Babylonia and Assyria. Philadelphia, 192ff.
