A decade after jihadist fighters they will loot the Nimrud ruinsin Iraq, archaeologists are busy reconstructing their treasures of Mesopotamiaconverted into thousands of fragments.
The archaeological site, another jewel in the crown of the ancient Assyrian empire, was razed by fighters of the Islamic State (EI) after they took large sectors of Irak and the neighbor Syria in 2014.
Destroyed pre-Islamic works lie in pieces, but archaeologists are not afraid of the colossal task of rearm them.
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“Every time we find a piece and put it in its original place, it is like a new discovery,” he commented. Abdel Ghani Ghadia 47-year-old specialist who works at the site.
More than 500 pieces have been found shattered in the area, about 30 km from Mosul, the northern Iraqi city where the Islamic State developed the capital of his self-proclaimed “caliphate.”
A thorough excavation by the archaeologists Iraqis has allowed them to recover more than 35 thousand fragments.
Slow reconstruction
Scientists have been careful to reconstruct the bas-reliefs and sculptures depicting mythical creatures that adorned the palace of the Assyrian king. Ashurnasirpal II almost 3 thousand years ago.
Little by little the puzzle pieces covered by a green tarp come together.
This is how the image of Ashurnasirpal II begins to appear in a bas-relief next to a winged and bearded figure, curly hair and a flower on his wrist, as the restoration returns the rich details to the stone engraving.
Another piece shows handcuffed prisoners from territories that rebelled against the powerful Assyrian army.
Lying on their sides are some lamassus (portraits of Assyrian deities with human head, body of a bull or lion and wings of a bird), near some tablets with texts in cuneiform writing.
“Those sculptures are the treasure of Mesopotamia”, Ghadi says. “Nimrud is the heritage of all humanity, a history that dates back 3 thousand years.”
Founded in the century a. J., Nimrod It reached its peak in the 9th century BC. C. and was the second capital of the Assyrian empire.
propaganda videos EI showed in 2015 to the jihadists by destroying the monuments with bulldozers, hitting them with pickaxes or dynamiting them.
Another of those monuments was the temple of Nabu, the Mesopotamian god of wisdom and writing, 2,800 years old.
The jihadist fighters also destroyed the Mosul Museum and the ancient city of Palmyra, in Syria.
MESOPOTAMIA…
This piece was found around a temple destroyed by the self-proclaimed Islamic state ISIS, in the city of Nineveh (Iraq). Somewhere in it it is described how and when the first human civilizations originated…What do you think? pic.twitter.com/4xtdhP5XSN
— History and Archeology (@redhistoria) April 7, 2020
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