Investiture of Zimri-Lim

The Investiture of Zimri-Lim is a large wall painting on white plaster, about 1.7 metres high and 2.5 metres wide, excavated between 1935 and 1936 by the French archaeologist Andre Parrot at the Royal Palace of Mari in what is now eastern Syria. Dated to around the eighteenth century BC, it shows King Zimri-Lim of Mari receiving the symbols of kingship from the goddess Ishtar, arranged in three vertical panels with the central section divided into two registers, including a winged lion representing the power of Ishtar and a lesser deity pouring water. The painting is now in the Musee du Louvre in Paris, and its iconography is often compared by scholars to the imagery on the Stele of Hammurabi, making it an important surviving example of Old Babylonian palace art and royal symbolism. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/