Exhibition: Ancient Assyrian treasures at the MFA

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At the height of his power, he ruled an empire that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf and included parts of present-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt. Though trained as a scholar, he was also a fearsome warrior who boasted of cutting off the hands of his enemies and who had a simple solution for dealing with prisoners of war: turn them into human shish-kebobs. An avid hunter, he also claimed to have killed more than 300 lions.

Still, when the Assyrian king known as Ashurbanipal (668-631 B.C.) began building a new palace overlooking the Tigris River, he insisted on some basic safety measures.

At his request, the palace’s interior walls were covered with dozens of carved-stone reliefs depicting Assyrian gods and heroes. The reliefs, which were intended to ward off evil spirits, were especially numerous at two locations: corners, which were regarded as the most likely entry points for harmful spirits, and the royal washroom, where the king was considered most vulnerable.

Today, many of the stone reliefs from Ashurbanipal’s palace reside in the permanent collection of the British Museum. But for the next few months, a selection of these magnificent works is on display in “Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum” at the Museum of Fine Arts.