Deported women

By comparing this fragment with the original drawings made in the 19th century, it is possible to attribute it to the series of reliefs found in Courtyard J of the North Palace at Nineveh, which depicted mass deportations from a Babylonian city. Fragment MB 56 must have belonged to the same series.
The deportation policy that the Assyrian rulers followed constantly, and on a large scale, had two purposes: to repopulate the Assyrian cities and countryside, whose men had been drained off in numerous military campaigns; and to crush the conquered peoples’ national and cultural identity. This was especially the purpose of mass deportations from one province to the other and vice versa.