Water basin, basalt, reconstruction, man in fish clothes

Discovered in one of the courtyards of the Ashur Temple were hundreds of fragments belonging to a stone object which had been destroyed in antiquity. This reconstruction is based on preliminary studies by Walter Andrae, who led the excavations at Ashur and later became the director of the Vorderasiatisches Museum. At the corners and in the middle of each side are images of water deities bearing overflowing vessels. The jets of water come from above the sky and land below - in the ground. In the space between are priests, dressed in fish-skins and carrying buckets and small ritual objects in their hands. Andrae believed the basin may have been used for the ritual cleansing of priests and worshippers. The original fragments still bear remnants of cuneiform script which name the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 BCE).