Archaeologists are working hard to rebuild Nimrud, an old Assyrian city in Iraq after Islamic State fighters damaged it back in 2014. It was a really important city but got trashed including the temple of Nabu, it was bad. They found more than 35,000 pieces of broken stuff like art and sculptures from King Ashurnasirpal II’s palace.
This project started after Islamic State was defeated in 2018. Then got slow because of covid but Iraqi archaeologists are putting these pieces together carefully. They keep finding new details like historical scenes in the old carvings. Some show the king with a winged figure and others of captured prisoners dating back 3,000 years and they’re a treasure for us.
The Academic Research Institute in Iraq is helping supported by the Smithsonian and money from America. They’ve done about 70% of the collection, cataloging and figuring out the pieces. They need another year of fieldwork to finish the whole thing. They hope to restore the story of Nimrud not just the old stuff.