Room S

Layard excavated Room S, a reception hall containing 29 reliefs (plus 10 slabs and two lamassu in the doors), in the spring of 1847. Some of the reliefs were badly damaged, but all were of exceptional quality. Layard sent only one slab (S-3) directly to the British Museum. He said about it: “The figure of the king, one of the most carefully sculptured and best preserved in the palace, is included in the collection sent to England” (Nineveh II, p. 7).

When Iraqi archaeologists started new excavations in several rooms of the palace in the 1970s, they rediscovered in Room S four complete reliefs still in situ (S-20 to S-22, S-d-2) and large fragments of others on the floor in the interior of the room. Layard had here, as in many other rooms, simply followed the walls, sometimes in tunnels. In other cases, pieces were found in situ, fragments distributed over several other rooms, and only the heads had been removed (S-10, S-24, S-25, S-28, S-29). Four slabs have been lost entirely (S-c-3) or mostly (S-5, S-9, S-27), and can only be reconstructed with the help of Layard’s drawings.

According to a video published by Reuters, this room may have been leveled by IS militants in early March 2015. Footage shows destruction of several of the in situ reliefs of the north wall, including S-23&29 (large fragments pushed to the ground), S-25&26 (cut with a concrete saw), and S-28 (defaced with a sledgehammer), and the preparation of explosive devices before the reliefs S-24&25 that appear to have been detonated in subsequent scenes.

Click on S in the middle of the room to see all panels positioned in their respective walls, or on the individual panels along the inner walls and in the entryways to go to CDLI pages associated with them.

Relief Slabs by Collection
(duplication results from individual fragments in different places)

Amherst College, Amherst, Masssachusetts, USA
   S-7:   AC S.1855.4

Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, USA
   S-17:   Haskell Coll. 1860.2

British Museum, London, UK
   S-3:   BM 124563
   S-18:   BM 102401
   S-c-4:   BM 118803
   S-e-1:   BM 118872

Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, USA
   S-12:   Brooklyn 55.149
   S-13:   Brooklyn 55.150

Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbay, India
   S-29:   SMVS —

Collection Merrin, New York, New York, USA ?
   S-24:   CM —

Manchester University, Museum, Manchester, UK
   S-26:   VII-A-8

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, USA
   S-2:   MMA 1917.190.2079
   S-11:   MMA 1931.72.3
   S-a-1:   MMA 1917.190.2077
   S-a-1:   MMA 1917.190.2078
   S-a-2:   MMA 1917.190.2080
   S-a-2:   MMA 1917.190.2081
   S-d-1:   MMA 1931.72.2
   S-e-2:   MMA MMA 1932.143.1

Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Belgium
   S-28:   MRAH O.1934

Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany
   S-23:   1965, 101

Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
   S-6:   43.246

Nimrud, Iraq
   S-1:   in situ
   S-2:   in situ
   S-5:   in situ
   S-8:   fragment 88
   S-9:   fragment 80
   S-9:   fragment 54
   S-9:   fragment 89a-d
   S-10:   fragment 55
   S-10:   fragment 56
   S-10:   fragment 57
   S-10:   in situ
   S-16:   in situ
   S-18:   in situ
   S-19:   in situ
   S-20:   in situ
   S-21:   in situ
   S-22:   in situ
   S-23:   fragment 58
   S-23:   fragment 59a-b
   S-23:   in situ
   S-24:   fragment 74
   S-24:   fragment 75
   S-24:   fragment 60
   S-24:   fragment 73
   S-24:   fragment 76
   S-24:   in situ
   S-25:   in situ
   S-26:   fragment 61
   S-27:   fragment 62
   S-28:   fragment 63
   S-28:   fragment 65
   S-28:   fragment 77
   S-28:   fragment 64
   S-28:   fragment 66
   S-28:   fragment 67
   S-28:   fragment 68
   S-29:   fragment 69
   S-29:   fragment 70
   S-29:   fragment 71
   S-29:   fragment 78
   S-29:   fragment 79
   S-a-1:   in situ
   S-a-2:   in situ
   S-c-1:   in situ
   S-c-2:   in situ
   S-d-2:   in situ

private: anonymous
   S-23:

Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst, Munich, Germany
   S-15:   Gl.WAF 6

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
   S-10:   AI 1986.978

Tigris, Iraq
   S-c-3:   (lost)

Virginia Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
   S-14:   Va.1

Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany
   S-b-1:   VA 944
   S-b-2:   VA 945

Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
   S-4:   1854.2.1-2
   S-8:   1854.1

missing (incl. fragments)
   S-1
   S-2
   S-5
   S-6
   S-8
   S-9
   S-15
   S-16
   S-18
   S-19
   S-24
   S-27
   S-29
   S-c-1
   S-c-2