ISIS Bulldozes One-of-a-Kind Ancient Palace in Iraq

Attack may have shattered royal sculptures from the ninth century B.C.

Iraqi workers clean a winged-bull statue at the archaeological site of Nimrud in July 2001.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KARIM SAHIB, AFP, GETTY IMAGES  

The ancient city of Nimrud is the latest target of Islamic militants now ravaging the cultural treasures of Iraq.

site, but it offered no information on the extent of the damage.

Spreading along the east bank of the Tigris River south of the modern city of Mosul, the site was one of four consecutive capitals of the Assyrian Empire.

"Nimrud is the modern name," says Nicholas Postgate, a professor of Assyriology at the University of Cambridge. "The ancient name was Kalhu. It's mentioned in the Bible, under the spelling 'Calah.' "

A city had already taken shape at this location by 1400 B.C., but in the early ninth century B.C. King Ashurnasirpal II made it into his new administrative capital, adding a five-mile-long wall, a monumental stepped tower called a ziggurat, new temples, and a large palace covered in elaborate decorations.

It's those royal decorations that are of greatest concern. They consist of large stone panels of intricately carved reliefs that line the base of the building's mud-brick walls. In boldly delineated detail, the panels show military campaigns, conquered peoples offering tribute to the king, ritual ceremonies undertaken by the king (sometimes alongside an ornamental, sacred tree), and many winged mythical figures known as geniis.

"I think there must be hundreds of meters of those reliefs," says Postgate. "Many of the rooms in the palace had them."

The city also had sculptures in the round—winged bulls and lions that flanked some of the gateways. These were similar to the figures that the Islamic militants destroyed just days ago at the ancient Assyrian site of Nineveh.

Archaeologists have also uncovered sculptures from the time of kingTiglath-Pileser III, who ruled between 745 and 727 B.C.

Assyrian Palace Is One of a Kind

"The attack is hugely significant and can't be underestimated," says John Curtis, president of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq. "This is the best preserved Assyrian site."

Nimrud was first properly excavated between 1845 and 1851 by Austen Henry Layard, an English politician and historian who exposed many of the sculptures from the time of Ashurnasirpal II. A number of those works of art were then transported to the British Museum, where they're on display today, and to other institutions in Europe and the United States.

But many more of the reliefs were left at the site—and were among what may have been lost in the recent attack.

From 1949 to 1957 Max Mallowan—mystery writer Agatha Christie's husband—excavated at the Nimrud palace and other buildings.

David Oates, a Mesopotamian archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, continued work at the site from 1958 to 1962. He focused on the military palace built by Ashurnasirpal II's son Shalmaneser III.

"That was a very large building, but it didn't have the stone reliefs that we're concentrating on at the moment—that's the stuff at risk," says Postgate.

A Polish expedition also worked at the site, exposing additional reliefs from the time of Ashurnasirpal II and Tiglath-Pileser III. Italian and British expeditions followed.

Finally, in the 1980s and 1990s, Iraqi archaeologists worked at the site.

"They actually had the most spectacular finds, which were the tombs of the queens of Assyria," says Postgate. "The tombs were absolutely stuffed with gold and carved ivory."

The Iraqis also continued to clear out the rooms of the main palace, exposing even more reliefs. To protect what they'd uncovered from the weather, they constructed a roof over part of the building.

Damage Unknown

The nature and extent of the damage inflicted by ISIS is unclear. "The militants may have bulldozed the excavated earth back into the palace, just to cover it up," Postgate explains. "Or they could have driven their machines straight into the walls."

In that case, the reliefs have likely been obliterated. "They were made of a type of gypsum called Mosul marble," says Curtis. "It's very fragile. I imagine if you hit a relief hard with a big digger, the whole thing would shatter."

Reports are also circulating about sculptures being loaded into a truck and driven away, perhaps with the misguided idea that they could be sold on the international black market.

"That's not going to be much use to them," says Postgate. "These reliefs are very big. A segment of a scene won't be very attractive, and there aren't any small sculptures."

Of course, this latest assault can't compare with the current humanitarian crisis in the region. But Nimrud was an invaluable tourist resource, and someday, when peace finally comes to Iraq, visitors may no longer be able to walk along ancient halls and experience the art in its original location, as it was meant to be seen.

ISIS Smashes Priceless, Ancient Statues in Iraq

Shattered treasures include winged bulls that guarded entrance to ancient Nineveh.

A video posted on the Internet on February 26 shows Islamic State militants destroying statues in Mosul Museum in Iraq. Dating from about 100 B.C. to A.D. 100, the figures were from nearby Hatra, now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

VIDEO STILL BALKIS PRESS, SIPA, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Islamic State militants released a video on Thursday showing the destruction of priceless antiquities in northern Iraq.

statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, this latest rampage against the cultural heritage of the Middle East has sparked outrage and concern around the world.

The shattered artifacts, from archaeological sites near Mosul, represent two very different civilizations. (Read: "Q&A: Why Sunni Extremists Are Destroying Ancient Religious Sites in Mosul.")

The militants also ravaged nine-ton statues of human-headed winged bulls that once guarded the entrance to Nineveh in the eighth century B.C.

VIDEO STILL BALKIS PRESS, SIPA, ASSOCIATED PRESS

The first moments of the video show stone statues under assault in the Mosul Museum. Dating from about 100 B.C. to A.D. 100, the figures come from nearby Hatra, now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

"There were so many statues at the site when I visited in the 1960s that we had to jump over them," says Lamia al-Gailani Werr, an Iraqi archaeologist now living in London.

"They probably represent officials or priests, and they stood in temples in the ancient city."

With a largely Arab population, Hatra was a trading city in the buffer zone between two powerful empires-the Romans in the west and the Parthians in the east.

Many statues and smaller artifacts from Hatra were on display in the Mosul Museum when the Gulf War broke out in 1990.

But as looting began to ramp up amid the chaos of the conflict, the Iraqi government moved many of the portable antiquities from this and other provincial museums to Baghdad for safekeeping.

"I remember two whole rooms devoted to Hatra in the Iraq Museum," says al-Gailani Werr.

This 1867 engraving shows the manpower needed to move one of the massive winged bulls, known as lamassu in antiquity.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DEA, M. SEEMULLER, GETTY IMAGES

In Mosul, some of the statues smashed in the recent attack appear to be originals, carved from stone. But others seem to have been plaster copies, judging from how easily they shattered in the video.

Experts outside of Iraq are now engaged in remote triage, watching the footage frame by frame and trying to create a list of the real artifacts that were destroyed.

Winged Bulls Guarded Assyrian Palaces

The militants also ravaged monumental statues of human-headed winged bulls that once guarded the entrance to Nineveh, the capital of the neo-Assyrian empire from about 700 B.C. to 612 B.C.

Weighing some nine tons, the massive sculptures were easy targets. For starters, they were too big to smuggle out of the country and sell on the black market. And, as globally recognized icons of ancient culture, they were sure to draw attention to the militants' agenda.

Similar statues were discovered at three neo-Assyrian cities-Nineveh, Nimrud, and Khorsabad. Known as lamassu in antiquity, they combined the strength of a bull, the swiftness of a bird, and the intelligence of a human, all of which were harnessed to protect the royal Assyrian palaces from evil forces.

Early archaeologists transported a number of these statues to museums in Europe and the United States. Sketches from the mid-1800s show the manpower needed to lay these behemoths on wooden barges so they could be floated down the nearby Tigris River.

Today, examples are on display at the British Museum in London, theLouvre museum in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Oriental Institute in Chicago.

Al-Gailani Werr contrasts the latest militant rampage in Mosul and Nineveh and the widespread looting that is ravaging sites in the Middle East. Ripping stolen artifacts out of their cultural context is criminal, but all is not lost.

"Those artifacts get passed down to grandchildren," explains al-Gailani Werr. "Eventually no one in the family wants them, they're sold, and museums can recover them."

But in the case of the attacks in the video, art that has managed to survive for many centuries is gone forever.

Al-Gailani Werr and other experts characterize this as a cultural tragedy with a global impact. "These things are part of the history of humanity," she says. "If you destroy them, you're destroying the history of everyone."