{
"data": {
"id": 144148,
"accession_number": "1968.47",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Decorative Plaque: Ram-Headed Sphinxes Flanking a Sacred Tree, 900\u2013800 BCE. Phoenicia, Iraq, Nimrud. Ivory; overall: 15.1 x 9 x 1.1 cm (5 15/16 x 3 9/16 x 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1968.47",
"current_location": "102A Ancient Near East",
"title": "Decorative Plaque: Ram-Headed Sphinxes Flanking a Sacred Tree",
"creation_date": "900\u2013800 BCE",
"creation_date_earliest": -900,
"creation_date_latest": -800,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Phoenicia, Iraq, Nimrud"
],
"technique": "ivory",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art",
"collection": "Near Eastern Art",
"type": "Ivory",
"measurements": "Overall: 15.1 x 9 x 1.1 cm (5 15/16 x 3 9/16 x 7/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.151,
"height_inch": 5,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.9375,
"width": 0.09,
"width_inch": 3,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5625,
"depth": 0.011,
"depth_inch": 0,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.4375
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 301285,
"title": "Year in Review for 1968",
"description": "Year in Review for 1968. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 29-March 9, 1969).",
"opening_date": "1969-01-29T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Atikot: 5,000 Years of Civilization in Israel. The Temple Museum of Religious Art, Cleveland, OH (May-September 1, 1969).",
"opening_date": "1969-09-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "British School of Archaeology in Iraq",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1951-1968",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1968-",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "This small plaque was executed in the Phoenician style with symmetrical compositions, elongated figural proportions, and Egyptian subjects and motifs. Examples have been found throughout the Middle East, but thousands come from Nimrud where most were excavated in the storerooms of a military arsenal built by King Shalmaneser II (858-824 bc). When the Nimrud palace was sacked in the 7th century bc, these ivories were thrown into a well, where Sir Max Mallowan (the husband of Agatha Christie) discovered them in 1951. The monumental wall relief (1943.246) was found at the same Assyrian palace at Nimrud.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60757025"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1968.47-decorative-plaque-ra"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Lee, Sherman E. \"The Year in Review for 1968.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 56, no. 1 (1969)",
"page_number": "p. 5",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25152250"
},
{
"citation": "Kozloff, Arielle P. \u201cA Toast to the Gods.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 2 (February 1973): 44\u201351.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 48-49, fig. 11",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152470"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 7",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1991/page/n22"
},
{
"citation": "Herrmann, Georgina. Ancient Ivory: Masterpieces of the Assyrian Empire. London: Thames & Hudson, 2017.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 2; p. 74, fig. 79",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1968.47",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1968.47/1968.47_web.jpg",
"width": "651",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "420134",
"filename": "1968.47_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1968.47/1968.47_print.jpg",
"width": "2479",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "5550778",
"filename": "1968.47_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1968.47/1968.47_full.tif",
"width": "4244",
"height": "5820",
"filesize": "74136388",
"filename": "1968.47_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [
{
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1968.47/1968.47_alt0_web.jpg",
"width": "629",
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"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1968.47/1968.47_alt0_print.jpg",
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"full": {
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},
"date_created": "2009-11-30T20:35:19",
"annotation": ""
}
],
"creditline": "Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 144148,
"creators": [],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1968-03-09T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": -900,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "900\u2013800 BCE",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Ivory Plaque: Crio-Sphinxes"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 07:23:53.667000"
}
}