Surely Maurice Sendak was looking at carvings like this when he drew Where the Wild Things Are. Like Sendak’s monsters, this fearsome deity is actually benevolent, tending eagle-eyed to a palm tree in some sacred ritual now lost to us. The carving comes from the palace of a King Ashurnasirpal II. His name, and his kingship, and indeed the Assyrian empire which he ruled for a time, are mostly forgotten now. We sail back over centuries and in and out of years, into the moment when a person like us carved this fantastical souvenir that has survived into our present.

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