Ancient palace art reveals spread of culture

In the royal palaces of Assyrian kings, art served one ultimate purpose — to awe. And not a single square inch was spared.

Take for example a bronze band measuring about 30 centimeters in width and 185 cm in length. Once attached to the wooden gate of the palace of Assyrian king Shalmaneser III, who ruled between 859 and 824 BC, this decorative piece teems with details — man and horses, boats and chariots. Together, they tell of Assyria's dominance over Phoenicia, a collection of city-states along the eastern Mediterranean whose strategic coastal location and maritime trading prowess made it too valuable for the expanding Assyria to ignore.

Throughout much of Assyria's control over Phoenicia, which extended from the 9th century to the 7th century BC and involved multiple military actions and sieges, Phoenician city-states like Sidon and Tyre operated largely as the empire's vassals, paying regular tributes to avoid destruction. That's the story told by the bronze band, on the far left side of which a Phoenician king and queen watch, perhaps with a brooding sense of reluctance, as boatloads of valued local products are ferried by their men to the mainland. Once there, they are carried by processions of men to King Shalmaneser III, who, standing under a parasol holding a bow, occupies the mid-to-left section of the band.