Ancient Near Eastern Collection

Head of standing winged genie (apkallu), Nimrud, Iraq, Neo-Assyrian (883–858 BCE).

The Ancient Near Eastern collection, though small, contains a number of objects of significance to the history of religion in the ancient Middle East. Smaller pieces include cuneiform tablets, cylinder seals, and votive objects dedicated in building foundations. The tablets were purchased by the Academy of the New Church Museum in the 1920s from Edgar J. Banks, an archaeologist who sold to many American museums, libraries, and universities at this time. The cuneiform tablets, foundation cones, and a large foundation cylinder describing the rebuilding of the walls of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar were digitally imaged in 2016 as part of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, an open access database of cuneiform texts in collections around the world. 

Five Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs were among the Near Eastern objects collected by Raymond Pitcairn in the 1920s. Two are from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II, one is from the Central Palace of Tiglath-Pileser III, and the last two are from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal. The two reliefs from Ashurnasirpal’s Northwest Palace show apkallē—protective spirits—recognizable as supernatural beings because of their horned helmets. The reliefs in the Northwest Palace portrayed hundreds of these spirits, usually tending stylized trees as in one of the reliefs at Glencairn. In 2013 several of Glencairn’s reliefs were included in an international project using state-of-the-art computer technology to create a 3D-reconstruction of the wall reliefs in the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE). 

In addition, the Ancient Near East gallery features a scale model of the Tabernacle of Israel. Children from the Bryn Athyn Elementary School constructed this model in the 1920s under the supervision of Bishop George de Charms. De Charms and the students, with the help of skilled craftsmen, built the Tabernacle using the original materials and scale dimensions described in the text of Exodus in the Bible. The Tabernacle was a sacred tent that served as a portable place of worship for the Children of Israel while they wandered in the wilderness.

Cylinder foundation deposit of Nebuchadnezzar, Neo-Babylonian (early 6th century BCE).