Warfare is a significant theme in Neo-Assyrian art but it is limited to specific media and contexts, most famously as stone reliefs that once lined the walls of rooms and courtyards in Assyrian palaces dating between c. 870 and 620 BCE. Traditionally, these scenes have been interpreted as having mimetic and propagandistic functions, a selected historical reality intended to intimidate and astonish the viewer. The images are thus understood as visual representations of royal ideology: the successful fulfillment of the king’s religious obligation to extend the lands of the god Assur, and a means to glorify the ruler as the embodiment of perfect kingship. Recent work, however, has begun to probe other levels of meaning embedded in the imagery. Among the areas explored are the role of Assyrian scholars in shaping the content of the imagery; the relationship between the violence of battle and that of the hunt; and the important part played by representation in royal ritual where it may have served to link the natural and supernatural world. Indeed, these visual statements of divinely sanctioned violence were themselves performative and essential components of the affective properties of the royal palace.
