The British Museum

Shot Friday, October 5, 2007

Friezes of a royal lion hunt from an Assyrian palace in northern Iraq, circa 645 B.C. The gist of the lion hunts were a bit like Dick Cheney’s bird hunts — handlers released captive lions and the king’s hunting party chased the unfortunate lion down. The catch was that only the king himself could actually kill the lion. But at the end of the day, you could rest assured that an undeserving someone got shot in the face.

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