Openwork Ivory Fragment: Hindquarters of a Sphinx with Papyrus Flowers
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, eighth century BC
A fragment of openwork ivory, seven and a half centimetres high, preserves the hindquarters of a sphinx, part of the band beneath it, a small tongue-shaped tenon at the bottom and two stylised papyrus flowers. Gold leaf and purple traces survive on the palmettes. The museum's record pairs this piece with the tall sphinx fragment catalogued as AO 11474, displayed in the same case: the two creatures faced each other across a panel of papyrus. On the back of the right thigh you can see marks of the knife used to hollow the ivory.
The museum notes that some of the Arslan Tash ivories may come from Damascus, sacked by Tiglath-pileser the Third in 732 before our era. Arslan Tash, ancient Hadatu, was an Assyrian provincial residence in northern Syria, and its Building of the Ivories yielded the furniture fittings displayed here in François Thureau-Dangin's excavations of 1928. This fragment came from room fourteen and reached the Louvre through the partage of 1929.
Did You Know? Knife marks on the back of the thigh show the carver hollowing the ivory to make the openwork panel lighter.
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