This is the Statue of Ashurbanipal in San Francisco! It was made by Assyrian artist Fred Parhad in 1988. Ashurbanipal was an Akkadian king, known as a patron of arts and culture, and thus was chosen as the subject for the sculpture at the San Francisco Civic Center.

The tablet reads (in Akkadian): “Peace unto heaven and earth / Peace unto countries and cities / Peace unto the dwellers in all lands / This is the statue presented to the City of San Francisco by the Assyrian people in the 210th year of America’s sovereignty.” I can’t find a good-quality image of the tablet’s cuneiform, or a version in transliteration, but if anyone has one, let me know below!

he also made a library that later allowed archaeologists to discover a LOT of cuneiform texts in one place.

when i had to memorize different kings for my ancient mesopotamia course i remembered him as “the nerd king” because he was super into being learned and stuff, compared to other kings of his time

like he boasted about being able to read auguries, recognize some stars/planets, do arithmetic, and to read i think (kings generally had people do those things for them. their big jobs were to win wars and like… lead people overall. most kings of that time were illiterate!)

super cool that they made a modern statue like this tho 😍 i wish i could see it irl