2-979-791 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The British Museum - Nineveh Sculptures: Locust-bearer, 1857. Detail of a bas-relief from the South West Palace, the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh, (in modern Iraq). '...bearded men carrying various articles of food, as if ascending the incline into the palace...The baskets containing the fruit are placed on trays carried on the shoulders of two men. The two hindermost servitors carry locusts tied on sticks, as we see cherries at the corners of our streets...Finding this man among the hearers of fruit and game in this passage leading up to the palace, we can have little doubt but that the locusts were intended for the King's table; and thus an indirect testimony is provided by this sculpture of the fact that then, as now, these insects are eaten by the natives of the countries where they abound. Locusts, although "flying, creeping things," were not prohibited by the law of Moses (Leviticus xi. 22)'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.