Head ca. 8th-7th century B.C. Assyrian This carved head was probably blackened through exposure to fire when the palace complexes at Nimrud were sacked during the final defeat of Assyria at the end of the seventh century B.C. Originally, this piece may have been part of a composite statuette made of various materials and overlaid with gold foil. The figure is depicted with fleshy cheeks, large eyes and nose, and a small mouth. The hair appears as a row of curls along the forehead, held back by a plain fillet. A striated pattern and fragmentary additional element at top may represent hair topped by a headdress, although this is an unusual image not paralleled by other headdresses known from this period. Alternatively, the figure may be represented as a caryatid, a column in the form of a human figure, and the fragmentary element at top may be a column capital. As the head is beardless, it could represent either a male foreigner, a woman, or a eunuch. Eunuchs, who were castrated men, ser