Amy Gansell. The Crown of City Walls and Neo-Assyrian Queenship

The Crown of City Walls and Neo-Assyrian Queenship Dr Amy Gansell, St John’s University, NYC 5th May 2023 BST (London) CET (Rome, Paris, Berlin / GMT 2) (İstanbul, Athens / GMT 3) (New York / GMT-4) The Assyrian Crown of City Walls (the “mural crown“) is most well known for its depiction on Queen Libbali-sharrat, the consort of Ashurbanipal. She wears it on the seventh-century BCE Garden Party relief from Nineveh’s North Palace and on her stele from Assur. The mural crown also appears on queens in several eighth- and seventh-century BCE artworks, such as the bronze plaque depicting the queen mother Naqia with the king (probably Esarhaddon), a well-preserved white chalcedony seal, and several seal impressions. However, there is no certain depiction of a Neo-Assyrian queen wearing the mural crown prior to the Sargonid dynasty. Moreover, the famous ninth- and eighth-century BCE pre-Sargonid Neo-Assyrian Queens’ Tombs from Nimrud’s Northwest Palace preserved an array of elaborate headdresses, but no mural crown. Therefore, the general, logical consensus is that the mural crown was a Sargonid innovation. In this talk, however, I explore the possibility of a continuity in which the mural crown was worn by pre-Sargonid as well as Sargonid queens as an enduring statement of Assyrian queenship that may reach back to a much more ancient second-millennium BCE Middle Assyrian tradition.