Resumen de Gesture and Alterity in the Art of Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria
The narrative scenes carved in low relief on the massive stone slabs that decorated the palaces of first-millennium B.C.E. Assyrian kings in northern Mesopotamia participated in the construction of an Assyrian cultural ideology that was based in part on a negative view of cultural difference. This essay suggests that images of non-Assyrian people--created for an audience that was largely Assyrian, male, and elite--use a visual language that identified intercultural difference with intracultural transgression. Non-Assyrians were depicted with postures and gestures that carried negative connotations; moreover, these representations positively reinforced Assyrian identity and power structures.
