Archaeologists have discovered a 6.5-foot-high door lintel in the ancient Iraqi city of Nimrud. The sill was found during the first major excavation in the area since then widely destroyed from the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2016.
The door lintel was found in the palace of the Assyrian King Adad-nirari III, who ruled from 810 BC – 783 BC.
Michael Dante, the archaeologist leading the team from the University of Pennsylvania, called the find “significant” after excavations began in mid-October. Not only because it survived the Babylonian siege and destruction by ISIS intact but also because of its size. said the Art Newspaper, who reported the news for the first time. “I’ve seen smaller tablets of one form of signal [cuneiform letters] on this board.”
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British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard first excavated the Adad-Nirari Palace in the 1840s. Since then, many tablets inscribed with the king’s royal ancestors have been found in the area. The tablet found by Dante and his team was one of two excavated by Layard that was not taken to the British Museum, and then likely reburied after the collapse of the palace.
said Dante to Art Newspaper. “We had to re-excavate the ancient fossils.”
Dante knew what the tablet was from reading Layard’s books as a young student and recovering them during excavations. Another surprising thing about the discovery of the doorstep, Dante said, is that “ISIS may have been aware of its existence.” “However, it has been well preserved.”
The vast majority of excavations in the ancient city of Nimrud were destroyed by ISIS through multiple attacks in the area. While the site’s iconic buildings, statues, and ziggurat were destroyed, the debris was used to bury some of the nearby buildings. As a result, Dante and his team must now navigate the layers of destruction and construction in order to excavate and reconstruct thousands of years of Iraqi history, including modern elements added in the mid-20th century. He described the work as “like a jigsaw puzzle”.
Earlier this year, Dante and his team at Iraqi Heritage Fixation Program Also unveiled several decorated Assyrian marble carvings Its history goes back about 2,700 years.
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