Women and power
this relief seems to be celebrating this imperial victory. The striking thing is that the focal point of this celebratory scene is Libbali-sharrat and not the King, who is reclined and crownless. And although Aššurbanipal has not been completely
Relief from the North Palace of Aššurbanipal, now part of the British Museum Collection.
diminished to standing status (as the slaves were shown), his wife’s importance in the scene is elevated by her throned position. Libbali-Sharrat’s mural crown (which mirrored features of a castle wall) and royal attire add a sense of greater presence over her husband. The attending slaves are also all female, so part of the Queen’s staff. Significantly, then, women dominate the glorifying ‘Garden party’ relief (Aššurbanipal being the only complete male figure).
Similar sentiment is seen in an earlier neo-Assyrian royal woman, Naqi’a. She is depicted with her son King Esarhaddon in the relief here, which commemorates the reconstruction of Babylon. Here like Libbali- Sharrat, mother and son seem equals—with Naqi’a wearing a mural crown and performing the same religious gesture as Esarhaddon. Naqi’a is the best documented neo-Assyrian woman and was granted a surprising amount of power by Esarhaddon following his ascent to the throne (possibly due to estranged relationships with several male relatives). So, even though these Queens broke traditions in Neo- Assyrian royal art, they do show how the depiction of women in imperial or royal promotional art was valued at times by neo-Assyrians.
A relief from Babylon’s temple of Marduk, now in the Louvre Museum
In Assyria and Mesopotamia, female deities, however, played a slightly different role in relation to royal power as compared to in Egypt. For example, while the Assyrian goddess of love and war Ishtar (often represented stepping on a lion) was deemed protector of Assyrian kings in literature, she is less frequently depicted alongside kings in Assyrian reliefs or monumental art. More typically she is seen by herself or in votive scenes. This may be since, unlike in Egypt, kingly power or legitimacy in Assyria seemed to be achieved mainly from the King himself and his personal actions, likely due to Assyria’s long history of usurping kings. As a result, most large representations of kings, and royal power showed kings in battle, hunts or taking other people into submission with often limited divine symbology (demonstrated in other reliefs from the aforementioned palace of Aššurbanipal). Thus, representations of Ishtar, and other goddesses, could be seen as projecting a generic vision of royal power but were not often used for specific promotion of kings.
Jumping forward a couple centuries, ancient Greek—particularly Athenian—society also seemed to favour female representation in imperial or royal promotion but in quite a different way. An example
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