Ivory Plaque with a Cow and Calf, Facing Right
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, eighth century BC
The largest of the cow and calf plaques, over twelve centimetres long, shows the animals facing right. The cow's head bends back to the calf and her long tail hangs behind her hind legs. The calf's eye still holds its white inlay, which gives the small animal a lively spark that the others have lost. The relief is fairly deep for a veneer, and the edges of the cow's body are undercut so that she stands out from the ground. Look for the vegetation at the sides, reduced here to simple stems.
The museum record notes that some of the Arslan Tash ivories may come from Damascus, which the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser the Third captured in 732 before our era, carrying off its palace furniture. Arslan Tash, ancient Hadatu, was an Assyrian provincial residence in northern Syria, and the ivories were found in 1928 in the Building of the Ivories by François Thureau-Dangin's mission. This plaque was in room fourteen with most of the set and came to the Louvre in the partage of 1929.
Did You Know? The white inlay in the calf's eye is the only one of its kind to survive across the whole set of cow plaques.
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