Only faces ever change

Although the previous steps mostly looked at the relief as a historical source, it is first and foremost a work of art. For Sennacherib it was a way of displaying his might, to show what happened if you dared oppose him. To us modern viewers, however, it is a monument of the never-ending brutality of war. The deportees and burning cities have not gone away. All you need to do is modernize the clothing and war-machines and this could be a scene in a modern battlefield.Neil Macgregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects (London: Allen Lane, 2010), 87-89.