October 27, 2019: Dressing Up as an Ancient Assyrian Queen in Life and Death

Sunday Oct 27, 2019 at 3pm                                       The Dr.Esther Grushkin Memorial Lecture

Dr. Amy Rebecca Gansell

Dressing Up as an Ancient Assyrian Queen in Life and Death 

This presentation takes us into the palaces of ancient Assyria in northern Iraq to discover the robes and regalia worn by queens during the 800s to 600s BCE. Based on artifacts from royal tombs found beneath Nimrud’s Northwest Palace, I reconstruct dress ensembles from head to hem, presenting a variety of gold headdresses, jewelry, garment decorations, and even surviving pieces of fabric. I will then demonstrate a sample ensemble on a digital 3-D model that also draws inspiration from the few surviving depictions of queens in Assyrian art. To better understand how queenly dress looked and felt in life, I will introduce striking ethnographic comparisons to traditional Middle Eastern wedding dress.

To dress up as an ancient Assyrian queen, a royal woman exercised the privilege of transforming her body into a personification of queenship. Through the visual and material aspects of her dress, a queen embodied an integral part of the empire, and, after her bones had turned to dust in the tomb, the durable artifacts of her regalia preserved her identity. Her outfitted corpse was also believed to carry her identity as queen into the afterlife where she was dressed to live in the netherworld palace of the gods, in whose image her earthly appearance was fundamentally cultivated.

Unless otherwise noted Lectures are on Sundays at 3pm in Spiro Hall 2, Wagner College, 631 Howard Avenue (1 Campus Road), Grymes Hill, Staten Island, NY 10301

Please enter through the basement doors, accessible via the parking lot in the back of the building.

AIA lectures (Sept 15 & March 29) are FREE and open to all

ASSI lectures are free for ASSI and AIA members, students 22 years or younger

And Wagner Faculty and Staff – Please show ID

Others may attend ASSI lectures for a $10.00 donation or may join the ASSI at the door.

Meet the speaker over coffee and cake following each lecture

For more information write: The Archaeology Society of Staten Island P.O. Box 140504

Staten Island, NY 10314-0504

Email: info@siarchaeology.org

or visit our website www.siarchaeology.org