Antiquities Exhibits

  Built by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, the palaces and storerooms of Nimrud housed thousands of pieces of carved ivory. Most of the ivories served as furniture inlays or small precious objects such as boxes. While some of them were carved in the same style as the large Assyrian reliefs lining the walls of the Northwest Palace, the majority of the ivories display images and styles related to the arts of North Syria and the Phoenician city-states. Phoenician style ivories are distinguished by their use of imagery related to Egyptian art, such as sphinxes and slender elongated figures wearing pharaonic crowns, and the use of elaborate carving techniques such as openwork and colored glass inlay. Some were also adorned with gold leaf. North Syrian style ivories tend to depict stockier figures in more dynamic compositions, carved as solid plaques with fewer added decorative elements. However, some pieces do not fit easily into any of these three styles. Most of the ivories were p...

Ancient Syrian, Greek, and Roman art at the National Museum of Damascus in Damascus, Syria. This museum's unique displays include the restorations of the Dura Europos Synagogue from the 3rd century CE, the hypogeum of Yarhai from Palmyra, dating to 108 CE, and the façade and frescoes of Qasr Al-Heer Al-Gharbi, 80 km south of Palmyra, which dates back to the 8th century CE. Artifacts include a tablet containing the world's first  alphabet from Ugarit, sculptures, marble and stone sarcophagi, funerary monuments and reliefs, mosaics, jewelry and coinage from the Seleucid, Roman and Byzantine periods. Image: Hypogeum of Yarhai from Palmyra, 2nd century CE, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Arian Zwegers.