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Abstract         

The Assyrian gardens at Nineveh were some of the largest and most opulent in ancient Mesopotamia.  Extant sculptural reliefs from the palace complex depict the gardens as microcosms of the empire, including a vast array of plants and animals from the far reaches of the Assyrian world.  However, these gardens were not purely decorative; they conveyed a distinct programmatic message.  The Assyrian gardens at Nineveh provide a symbolic representation of the world, controlled and cultivated by the king.  They represented the essence of civilization which king ritualistically maintained through his stewardship.  However, they were also the visual forum for the king to display his power and status.  Through lion hunts, banquets, and festivals that took place therein, the gardens at Nineveh served to establish and justify the king’s power as ruler of the known world.

Preliminary Bibliography

            Aker, Jülide. “Workmanship as Ideological Tool in the Monumental Hunt Reliefs of Assurbanipal.” Ed. Jack Cheng and Marion H. Feldman. Ancient Near Eastern Art in Context: Studies in Honor of Irene J. Winter by Her Students. Boston: Brill, 2007. 229-265. Print.

Collon, Dominique. Ancient Near Eastern Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. 128-188. Print.

Dally, Stephanie. “Nineveh, Babylon and the Hanging Gardens: Cuneform and Classical Sources Reconciled.” Iraq Vol. 56 (1994): 45-58. Web.

Giovino, Mariana. The Assyrian Sacred Tree: A History of Interpretations.  Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2007. 177-197. Print.

Novák, Mirko. “The Artificial Paradise: Programme and Ideology in Royal Gardens.” Ed. Simo Parpola and R. M. Whiting. Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings from the 47^th Recontre of Assyriologique Internationale. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002. 443-460. Web.

Reade, Julian. Assyrian Sculpture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983. 36-53. Print.

Wantanabe, Chikako E. Animal Symbolism in Mesopotamia: A Contextual Approach. Wien: Institut für Orientaslistik der Universität Wien, 2002. 69-83. Print.

Wiseman, D. J. “Mesopotamian Gardens.” Anatolian Studies Vol. 33 (1983): 137-144. Web.