Victory Stele
Unknown · Neo-Elamite period, 8th-7th century BC
Each face of this square basalt block is carved with scenes of war. Soldiers fight, vultures tear at corpses on the ground, and a family is led away into deportation, all beneath a fortress set among mountains. A hollow in the top shows the block was a base on which a statue stood, so the victorious king would once have towered above the images of his own campaign.
The stele dates to the Neo-Elamite period, in the eighth or seventh century BC, when Elam fought repeated wars with Assyria and adopted some of its enemy's visual language: vultures feeding on the dead and deported families are stock images of Assyrian palace reliefs. Here they are rendered in a rougher, more compact style. Which king commissioned the monument and which victory it celebrates are unknown. The block has been restored. It was found at Susa by the French mission and came to the Louvre through the division of finds. Walk around it to follow the campaign from battle to aftermath.
Did You Know? The empty hollow on top once held the feet of a royal statue that has never been found.
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