  About the Artwork
  
  
  An eagle-headed, winged divinity stands facing a tree of life (the ends of the branches are visible at the right edge). The figure was a small section of the wall decoration in the state apartments of the royal palace at Nimrud in northern Iraq, built by Ashurnasirpal II, king of Assyria. The deity holds a bucket in one hand and in the other a spathe (leaf-like sheath for the flowers) of the date palm. He is tending the tree, a symbol of vegetal life and fertility. He, and many more like him—original brightly highlighted with black, white, red, and blue paint—formed the ornamentation around a room near the throne room thought to have served as a place of ritual bathing. The motif stresses the political and religious importance of nurturing both the kingship and the land for the prosperity of Assyria.
  
  
  Title
  Eagle-Headed Winged Genius
  
  
  Artwork Date
  883 - 859 BCE
  
  Artist
  ----------
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  ----------
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Mesopotamian
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
  Assyrian
  
  
  Medium
  Gypsum alabaster
  
  
  Dimensions
  Overall: 39 3/4 × 25 × 3 inches (101 × 63.5 × 7.6 cm)
  Overall (irregular rectangle, bottom): 22 1/2 inches (57.2 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Sculpture
  
  
  Department
  Ancient Near Eastern Art
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie H. Green
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  47.181
  
  
  Copyright
  Public Domain
