The remains of this object were found in a grave in the Royal Cemetery at Ur.  The archaeologist, Leonard Woolley, hypothesized that the box was on a staff and used as a standard.  Another hypothesis is that the object was used to make music.  The original wood and bitumen that acted as glue for the mosaic of shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone has deteriorated.  What is shown in the photograph is the restoration.  One side of the box shows a banquet and is called the peace panel.  The other panel shows the oldest image of the Sumerian army and is known as the war panel.  Chariots, each pulled by four donkeys, trample enemies; infantry with cloaks carry spears; enemy soldiers are killed with axes, others are paraded naked and presented to the king who holds a spear.

Stela, or stele, are stone or wooden tall monuments often used to exhault royalty or religion or conquest.  The Stele of Hammurabi is seven feet tall and commemorates King Hammurabi, the first formal lawmaker from whom we get many of our own laws today.  Hammurabi, from the city state of Babylon conquered more of Mesopotamia than any predecessor.  Here the legal code is given on one side of the stela and the other shows Hammurabi recieving the laws from the god Shamash, who is seated.  Stela were displayed publicly, here to remind citizens of the law.

The earliest form of writing, proto-cuneiform, dates back to around 3300 B.C.  This was based on pictograms that were drawn on clay tablets. Gradually, the pictograms became abstracted into cuneiform.  This tablet contains an incantation addressed to the gods Gula and Marduk, who oversaw healing.  The gods are asked to heal a patient who has been haunted by a ghost.  

Portal sculptures are one of the most characteristic forms of Assyrian art.  They are relief sculptures meant to be viewed from the front or side.   Carved from a single block, roughly shaped at the quary and then finished on site, this sculpture stands more than 4 meters high by 4 meters wide and is a meter deep. The head is sculpted in the round, the rest of the body in high relief. 

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These bulls are motifs of Syrian inspiration and one of the characteristic features of the decoration of Assyrian palaces.  Human-headed winged bulls were protective genies called shedu or lamassu, and were placed as guardians at certain gates or doorways of the city and the palace. Symbols combining man, bull, and bird, they offered protection against enemies. 

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 The culture of the Assyrians was brutal, the army seldom marching on the battlefield but rather terrorizing opponents into submission who, once conquered, were tortured, raped, beheaded, and flayed with their corpses publicly displayed. The Assyrians torched enemies’ houses, salted their fields, and cut down their orchards.

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Jehu is robed and wearing the cloth cap of royalty. Behind him a Jewish official is holding part of a huge tribute paid by Jehu in gold and silver.

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The inscription reads "Tribute of Jehu, son of Omri, silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden beaker, golden goblets, pitchers of gold, lead, staves for the bed of the king, javelins, I received from him."

Jews are shown being deported from Judah, after the Assyrian capture of the city of Lachish in 701 B.C.  They were forced to walk hundreds of miles.  Assyrian king Sennacherib set out to conquer Judah.  He conquered more than 40 towns, drove out more than 200,000 Judeans, and laid siege to Jerusalem, their capital.  The city was saved when the Assyrian besiegers were struck by Plague, but Sennacherib extorted massive tribute from King Hezekiah of Judah before he withdrew.

The palace room, where the relief was discovered in 1845-47, was fully covered with the Lachish relief and was 39 feet wide and 16.7 feet long.  

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia from 605-562 B.C. was a tireless builder who made Babylon the most splendid city of its time. Of eight gateways in the massive walls, each sacred to a different god, the most imposing was the huge Ishtar gate, built in honour of the Babylonian Goddess of love and battle, and rising 50 feet above a sacred, processional way into Babylon. The walls of flanking towers were clad in glazed blue bricks, which were decorated with yellow and white reliefs of dragons, symbol of the Babylonians' chief god Marduk., and bulls, symbols of the lightning god, Adad. Baked bricks cemented into bitumen formed a solid core for the wall, and the foundations went down as deep as the wall was high. Overlooking the Ishtar gate rose the famous Hanging Gardens (one of the "Wonders of the Ancient World"), underground chambers found this century probably housed the mechanism for raising water to the gardens.