Lioness head ca. 8th-7th century B.C. Assyrian This flat piece of ivory 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 lioness head, seen from above, with a central disc on the forehead framed by two symmetrical curved vertical lines. The ears and nose are small and the focus is on the large eyes, emphasized by a pair of curved eyebrows. Carved ivory pieces such as this were widely used in the production of elite furniture during the early first millennium B.C. They were often inlaid into a wooden frame using joinery techniques and glue, and could be overlaid with gold foil or inlaid to create a dazzling effect of gleaming surfaces and bright colors. This piece is one of many elaborately carved ivories with motifs adapted from Egyptian art that have been attributed to Phoenician workshops, as Phoenician art shows strong Egyptian influence.