Plaque fragment ca. 9th-8th century B.C. Assyrian This small ivory fragment is blue-gray in color, probably due to 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. It depicts the head and neck of a goat carved in high relief with mouth slightly open, perhaps to graze on vegetation, although the rest of the scene is not preserved. 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 with colored glass or stone pieces to create a dazzling effect of gleaming surfaces and bright colors. Grazing goats, deer, and other ungulates were frequently depicted in carved ivory plaques, including two well-preserved pieces from Nimrud which are also in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum (58.31.3, 61.197.6).Built