Selective Naturalism in Neo-Assyrian Relief Sculpture: Familiarity, Function, and Power

by Mary Harrsch © 2026

This detail from the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (ca. 825 BCE) that I photographed at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures at the University of Chicago depicts exotic animals—most plausibly monkeys—presented as tribute to the Assyrian king. Their anthropomorphic facial treatment contrasts sharply with the striking anatomical accuracy seen in Neo-Assyrian representations of horses.

Relief said to depict monkeys or baboons sent to Assyrian King Shalmaneser III (ca. 825 BCE) as tribute portrayed on his Black Obelisk that I photographed at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago. The imperial artists were apparently unfamiliar with the anatomy of these exotic creatures so resorted to depicting them with human-like faces.

Natural depiction of a horse and lancer from a wall of the palace of Assyrian King Sargon II that I photographed at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago. Horses, a crucial element of Assyrian military power, were depicted as accurately as possibly by court artists.

This contrast is instructive. Assyrian sculptors demonstrated sustained empirical observation when depicting animals central to imperial life. Horses, essential to chariotry, cavalry, and royal display, are rendered with careful attention to musculature, proportion, gait, and behavioral nuance across relief programs at Nimrud, Khorsabad, and Nineveh.

Exotic animals, by contrast, occupied a different epistemological category. Monkeys were rare prestige objects acquired through long-distance exchange and likely encountered only briefly at court. In such cases, artists appear to have relied on conventionalized visual schemas—particularly standardized human facial types—applied to unfamiliar bodies. The goal was not zoological accuracy but legibility within an imperial narrative of reach and domination.

The resulting figures are neither mythological hybrids nor cultic symbols. Rather, they exemplify selective naturalism, in which representational fidelity correlates with cultural familiarity and ideological importance. Chains, posture, and scale communicate submission more effectively than anatomical precision.

Seen in this light, the “human” faces of these animals do not encode symbolism so much as they expose the boundaries of observation within Neo-Assyrian visual culture—revealing how knowledge, power, and artistic convention intersect on the surface of empire.

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