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Dr. Amy Gansell presents her paper, “Neo-Assyrian Goddesses in Art and Myth: Eternal Models for the Mortal Queens of Nimrud”. Neo-Assyrian royal seals show the queen in the presence of a goddess, and texts record the piety of royal women. As divine devotees, queens were proximally, visually, and conceptually associated with goddesses and their divine characteristics. This paper interprets goddesses as personifications of Neo-Assyrian ideals of feminine beauty across categories of age, and, as such, as eternal models for mortal queens. Dr. Gansell examines visual representations and mythological descriptions of goddesses and compare them, as the ancients themselves might have, to Neo-Assyrian royal women as depicted in art and as they were presented physically, in life and death, in palace and tomb, in their regalia. In particular, this paper interprets material from Nimrud’s Northwest Palace, where headdresses, jewelry, seals, and inscriptions have been excavated from the tombs of royal women. Dr. Gans
