Libbali-sharrat in the Garden: An Assyrian Queen Holding Court

The Garden Scene is one of the most famous images to have survived from Assyria, the world’s first empire. The scene, one of the gypsum reliefs from the North Palace at Nineveh (ca. 643 BCE), shows the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal reclining on a couch while the queen Libbalisharrat sits next to him in a lush garden. The scene’s tranquility initially seems to diverge from the violent images of warfare that traditionally dominate Assyrian palace reliefs, but this impression is belied by the presence of a severed head hanging in a tree situated to the left of the royal couple, usually attributed to the Elamite king Teumman, who was defeated by Ashurbanipal’s army in 653 BCE.