06/04/2026
Dr. Kiersten Neumann, Curator at the ISAC Museum, and Research Associate and Lecturer of Near Eastern Art and Archaeology, gives the audience at the Assyrian Renaissance lecture 2026 a glimpse of the artistic contents of an Assyrian grave during the middle Assyrian period.
Assyrian art evolved from the relatively modest and functional style of the Old Assyrian period (c. 2050 BC), centered in the merchant city of Aššur, where we find cylinder seals, small-scale religious objects, and trade-related imagery. During the Middle Assyrian period (c. 1400 BC), Assyria emerged as a regional empire, and its art became more imperial and martial, with stronger royal symbolism, monumental architecture, and reliefs portraying kingship, divine favor, and military authority.
In the Neo-Assyrian period (c. 911–609 BC), Assyrian art reached its height under rulers such as Ashurnasirpal II, Sargon II, and Sennacherib, becoming highly sophisticated, monumental, and narrative-driven. Vast palace reliefs depicted warfare, lion hunts, deportations, rituals, and courtly life with incredible detail and realism, designed both as propaganda and as expressions of cosmic order. After the fall of Assyria, many artistic traditions survived in the art of the Babylonians, Achaemenid Persians, and later Near Eastern cultures, while Assyrian motifs, such as winged guardian figures, heroic combat scenes, and royal iconography, continued to influence the visual language of empires for centuries.
For modern Assyrians, art remains one of the clearest expressions of historical continuity and collective memory. Contemporary Assyrian artists frequently draw upon ancient Assyrian motifs, such as the lamassu, cuneiform inscriptions, winged disks, royal beards, sacred trees, and imagery from the palaces of Nineveh and Nimrud, to reconnect modern identity with the ancient past.
