Ancient Statuary: Elaborate Assyrian Beard

This time on Artifactually Speaking, a piece of a blue frit beard (not an Assyrian pirate, but definitely a blue beard).

Frit (sometimes called faience or even referred to by its colorant as Egyptian Blue) is a substance I've talked about before. Its composition is similar to what makes up glass but it isn't fired high enough to vitrify. It was a relatively common substance in Mesopotamia, especially in later periods, and was used to make a variety of decorative objects, embellishments, and inlays. In this case, it would have formed part of a composite statue, as the curls of an elaborate beard. The statue would have been around life size and may have been a cult statue of a male deity.

We've found many pieces of such beards this season at Nimrud and I have wondered if the cult statue had a variety of interchangeable beards. Watch out if the deity is wearing his angry beard on the day you visit! While they probably weren't interchangeable, this beard likely was an addition to a wooden statue that was decorated with many other materials like cloth and even gold. We are revealing new shrines to various gods this season and so we're finding a lot of decorative materials.