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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 mids show the manpower needed to lay these behemoths on wooden barges so they could be floated down the nearby Tigris River.
We must concern ourselves with creating shared strategic interests with our most likely ally. Although today Mosul is famous outside of Iraq primarily as a site of conflict, its rich and diverse history forms an important legacy. It also showed damage to a huge statue of a bull at the Nergal Gate into the city of Nineveh. Mosul's Jewish quarter miraculously survived three years of occupation by the "Islamic State" terror group and the battle to evict it. Security forces who had long clashed with Al Qaeda fighters in their neighborhoods were now gone, they said, and the streets were clean and calm. In Mosul, some of the statues smashed in the recent attack appear to be originals, carved from stone. Who will Turkish Americans vote for in US election?
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. 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.
As reports trickle in, archaeologists caution that facts and evidence are still scarce. Except for the video from the Mosul Museum, there's still little information on how much damage has been done to sites such as Hatra and Nimrud, which once were large, thriving cities. Van Ess says the thinking behind the attacks is inconceivable—but that doesn't mean it's not sincere. National Geographic Archaeology Fellow Fred Hiebert puts into perspective the Islamic State's recent, widely publicized destruction of artifacts and archaeological sites in Iraq and Syria.
This is not the first time war has damaged archaeological sites in Iraq. Shortly after the invasion of the country, U. And looting was rampant throughout Iraq in the chaos that followed the invasion.
The Mosul Museum, for example, was plundered in Before ISIS seized the city, many of the objects that remained were taken to Baghdad for safekeeping. But van Ess says the gratuitous nature of the recent destruction—and the way ISIS has proudly packaged and posted it online as propaganda—is hard to take.
Wars have always done this, all through history," she says. Built in the third century B. Its combination of Greek- and Roman-influenced architecture and Eastern features testify to its prominence as a trading center on the Silk Road. It was reportedly damaged or destroyed by bulldozers in late February. Ancient Assyria was one of the first true empires, expanding aggressively across the Middle East and controlling a vast stretch of the ancient world between and B.
The Assyrian kings ruled their realm from a series of capitals in what is today northern Iraq. Nineveh was one of them, flourishing under the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib around B. At one point, Nineveh was the largest city in the world. Its location on the outskirts of Mosul—part of the modern city is built over Nineveh's ruins—put it in ISIS's crosshairs when the group took over the city in Many of the site's sculptures were housed in the Mosul Museum see entry below , and some were damaged during the rampage through the museum documented on video.
Men were also shown smashing half-human, half-animal guardian statues called lamassus on Nineveh's ancient Nirgal Gate. Reports of looting at Mosul's libraries and universities began to surface almost as soon as ISIS occupied the city last summer. The Cairo site was first built in , the museum recently underwent an eight-year multi-million dollar renovation. Shortly after re-opening, a car bomb targeting a nearby police building caused catastrophic damage and forced the museum to close again.
Quaid e Azam residency, Pakistan — This year-old wooden building, humble but elegant, was home to the nation's first governor general Muhammed Ali Jinnah for the last phase of his life. The residency was attacked with rocket fire by a separatist group in , and almost completely demolished. A new structure is being built on the site. Once known for its landscape of swaggering Ottoman, French and Art Deco architecture, officials say just of protected historic buildings remain. The Great mosque of al-Nuri, Mosul — Before-and-after photographs of the destruction.
A Takfiri is a Muslim who accuses another Muslim of apostasy. Where: Khorsabad is about 19 kilometers 12 miles northeast of Mosul in northeastern Iraq. Khorsabad, one of three cities that served as a capital during the empire's reign, was abandoned after Sargon's death in B. Why it's significant: The Oriental Institute says that "Khorsabad is unusual among the Assyrian palaces because of its stylistic innovations, the preservation of paint on its reliefs, and the extensive ancient written documentation concerning the organization of the building project.
Carved stone reliefs from the site are held in Baghdad, Chicago, Paris and Britain, it said. The razing of Nimrud came a week after a video showed ISIS militants using sledgehammers to obliterate stone sculptures and other centuries-old artifacts in the Mosul Museum.
ISIS militants destroy antiquities with sledgehammer Where: Mosul is Iraq's second-biggest city, kilometers miles north of Baghdad. Why it's significant: Mosul Museum is Iraq's second-largest museum. The video showed that these had been destroyed or defaced. Most of the sculptures being destroyed were from the Assyrian period, Webber said.
On February 27, the U. Security Council condemned ISIS' destruction of artifacts in the Mosul Museum as well as the "burning of thousands of books and rare manuscripts from the Mosul Library. What: The library's collection reportedly included 18th-century manuscripts and Ottoman-era books. Why it's significant: UNESCO said the burning could be "one of the most devastating acts of destruction of library collections in human history.
In July , a video was released apparently showing the destruction of Jonah's tomb. What: The holy site is said to be the burial place of the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale or great fish in the Islamic and Judeo-Christian traditions. Biblical scholars are divided on whether the tomb in Mosul actually belonged to Jonah.
In the Jewish tradition, he returns to his hometown of Gath-Hepher after his mission to Nineveh. And some modern scholars say the Jonah story is more myth than history. Why it's significant: The story of Jonah is told often in the Christian tradition and has special resonance for that faith, scholars Joel S. They refer to the destruction of Jonah's tomb as "an attack on both those Christians living in Iraq today and on the rich, if little-known, Christian heritage of the region.
In , ISIS took over the site of the ancient ruined city of Hatra -- or al-Hadr in Arabic -- using it to store weapons and ammunition, train fighters and execute prisoners. On March 8, a spokesman for U. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said reports that Hatra had been razed outraged him. Where: Hatra is kilometers 68 miles southwest of Mosul. What: Established by the successors of Alexander the Great and dating back to B. Hatra is an "excellent example" of a circular fortified city, it says. It provides, moreover, exceptional testimony to an entire facet of Assyro-Babylonian civilization subjected to the influence of Greeks, Parthians, Romans and Arabs," its description of the site continues.
They include the ancient city of Bosra, the eighth-century Great Mosque of Aleppo and the 11th-century Crac des Chevaliers -- a Crusader castle. Syria has been engulfed in conflict since when Bashar al-Assad's regime violently suppressed an uprising and opposition rebels took up arms. The situation has deteriorated, drawing in sometimes competing extremist groups, including ISIS. As the bloodbath continues, it is hard to gauge the level of damage to the country's heritage sites -- both deliberate and collateral.
In March, the United Nations issued a statement saying that Syria's "rich tapestry of cultural heritage is being ripped to shreds. Four of them are being used for military purposes or have been transformed into battlefields: Palmyra; the Crac des Chevaliers; the Saint Simeon Church in the ancient villages of northern Syria; and Aleppo, including the Aleppo Citadel," it said.
Mosul is a major city in northern Iraq. Located churches and monasteries being vandalized and burned down, their ancient Assyrian heritage sites dating back to. City Profile of Mosul, Iraq: Multi-sector assessment of a city under siege | UN-Habitat. TABLE OF Map Destroyed Heritage and Religious Sites in Mosul. Map up an open data portal which will offer live up-to-date GIS mapping.