Furniture plaque carved in relief with stylized tree ca. 8th-7th century B.C. Assyrian This plaque was found in a storage room in Fort Shalmaneser, a royal building at Nimrud that was used to store booty and tribute collected by the Assyrians while on military campaign. It depicts a stylized tree that combines fan-like papyrus flowers and stylized rounded blossoms that may represent pomegranates. A delicate network of eleven branches radiates out from a central trunk, bound together at the midpoint by a horizontal element; above, a pair of curled leaf-like forms called volutes springs from the single vertical branch. Five branches end in papyrus flowers, and six end in rounded blossoms. The tree combines features of two different types of plants to depict a symbol of abundance and fruitfulness connected with the agricultural cycle. A plain border extends at the upper and lower edges of the plaque. Carved ivory pieces such as this were widely used in the production of elite furniture du