Ashurnasirpal II and Assistant

The exhibit of Nineveh in Bombay in the 1850s was linked with the constant demands made by the inhabitants of the city for civic amenities. Hence, in 1855 a group of citizens demanded that "the streets and alleys of Bombay be surveyed and laid down with something like the fullness and precision with which the capital of Assyria had been represented." However, the powerful presence of Nineveh in Bombay during the 1850s has left very few visual imprints within the architectural fabric of the old city. Another culturally important fact that emerged was the difference in perspectives in Britain and India while viewing the Assyrian reliefs. While in Britain, by the mid-1850s, the Assyrian artefacts were derided as representations of ‘bad art,' whereas in Bombay, the objects were viewed differently. For example, a journalist for The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce described many ‘Indian features’ within the exhibits, like an armlet corresponding to ‘lower class male Hindoos,' swords resembling those of the ‘Maratha sirdars’ and Muslim rulers etc. Also, it is to be noted that the citizens of Bombay in the 19th century were the first to see the splendour of Ancient Assyria. It was only later that the artefacts were displayed in London and Paris. It is true that the visual histories of Nineveh in Bombay do not appear within the European narratives of the archaeological discoveries of Ancient Assyria. However, the looming presence of Bombay within the travails of the artefacts’ journeys across the seas illuminates the growing cosmopolitan ambience of the Indian port city, which by the 1840s had attained pre-eminence as the facilitator of international commerce.