Face of a Colossal Figure from Nineveh

This carved stone face probably belonged to a head of a sphinx. The Assyrian king Sennacherib ordered several colossal statues to be made in his new palace. Such giant statues were thought to have a supra-natural protective power. From the south-west palace at Nineveh (modern Ninawa Governorate, Iraq), northern Mesopotamia. 700-695 BCE. (The British Museum).