Incised cosmetic box fragments with a warrior and four women ca. 9th-8th century B.C. Assyrian These slightly curved, incised ivory fragments were found in a private house abutting the town wall at Nimrud. Originally, they probably decorated a pyxis, a small round box used for cosmetics, which may have been salvaged from one of the palace complexes at Nimrud after they were sacked during the final defeat of Assyria at the end of the seventh century B.C. Circular holes drilled through both pieces likely helped to secure the ivory with dowels to the interior of the pyxis, which was perhaps made of wood and has not survived. Because they share motifs and images with the monumental stone reliefs that lined the walls of Assyrian palaces, ivories with incised decoration like this one have been attributed to an Assyrian style. On one fragment, a bearded figure wearing a long, fringed, elaborately embroidered garment and armed with a bow and arrow, sword, and shield with projecting spikes stan