Incised furniture plaque with two ibexes flanking a stylized palmette tree ca. 9th-8th century B.C. Assyrian Two kneeling ibexes, identified as juveniles by their short, curling horns, flank a stylized palmette tree on this rectangular plaque. It was found with several other plaques carved in a similar style at the base of the throne platform in the Throne Room of the Temple of Nabu (the Babylonian god of writing and wisdom) at Nimrud. The location suggests that these ivories may have originally been used to decorate a piece of royal furniture such as a throne. Two dowel holes that pierce the plaque were probably used to fasten it to a frame or other backing that 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. Certain details, including the stylized palmette tree, and elaborately incised musculature of these ibexes,