The head is all that survives of a statue knocked over in antiquity, perhaps when the Medes, a people that occupied the land south of the Caspian Sea , sacked Ninevah in 612 BCE. But the damage to the portrait was not the result solely of the statue's toppling. There are also signs of deliberate mutilation. To make a political statement, the attackers gouged out the eyes (once inlaid with precious or semiprecious stones), broke off the lower part of the beard, and slashed the ears of the royal portrait.