NINO PISANO – Madonna and Child Jesus. Polychromed marble – Pisa, S. Maria della Spina.
NINO PISANO – Sculptor and architect, born in Pisa in the early years of the 14th century, died there in 1368. He divided his activity between Florence, Pisa, and Orvieto, where in 1349 he is recorded as capomaestro (master builder) in the construction of the Duomo.
Some documents also mention his activity as a goldsmith, though no trace of this has been preserved. His works include
NIPPUR – Votive tablets discovered by the expedition of the University of Pennsylvania.
NINO PISANO – Madonna and Child Jesus. Polychromed marble – Pisa, S. Maria della Spina.
NINO PISANO – NIRVANA
(tower), restored by Ashurbanipal (668–626?), and earlier by the Kassite king Kadašman-Turgu (1294–1278) and by Ur-Ninurta of Isin (1864–1837), was built by King Ur-Nammu (of the 3rd Dynasty of Ur, ca. 2050–2030), but within it contains an even older tower from the reign of Narām-Sîn (of the 1st Dynasty of Akkad, ca. 2275–2238). Fragments of votive offerings and statues of ancient Sumerian and Akkadian kings of Mesopotamia were unearthed in the temple of the god Enlil. Around the temple, graves were found whose corpses had been subjected to cremation before burial.
In the tell, especially in the “Hill of Tablets,” more than 23,000 cuneiform tablets were excavated, including economic and legal texts from the pre-Sargonic and Sargonic periods, the 3rd Dynasty of Ur, and up to the Persian era; many Sumerian poetic texts also came to light. From the latest period is the archive of the banker and merchant Murašû and sons under Artaxerxes I (465–424 BC) and Darius II (424–405 BC).
Since 1949, a new American expedition by the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) and the Oriental Institute of Chicago, under the direction of Donald E. McCown, has excavated two sites at N. In the temple of Enlil, the results of 50 years ago were thus verified. The other site is the “Hill of Tablets,” the scribes’ quarter, where two sectors were excavated, yielding 750 tablets and a fine collection of pottery.