The Secret of Nimrud

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Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city located south on the river Tigris in Mesopotamia. In ancient times the city was called Kalhu. The Arabs called the city Nimrud after the Biblical Nimrod, a legendary hunting hero (cf. Genesis 10:11-12, Micah 5:6, and 1Chronicles 1:10).

The city covered an area of 360 hectares (890 acres). The ruins of the city are found within one kilometer of the modern day village of Noomanea in Nineveh Province, Iraq. This is some 30 kilometres (19 mi) southeast of Mosul. Nimrud has been suggested as the site of the biblical city of Calah or Kalakh. - Wikipedia

Gold jewelry and other precious items recovered from royal tombs excavated at the ancient Assyrian capital of Nimrud, and objects from the royal cemetery at Ur, have been found where they were stashed for safety—in a vault below the Central Bank in Baghdad—before the onset of the Gulf War in 1990.

The 2,800-year-old treasures—which are regarded by some archaeologists as rare and precious as the objects found in Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb—were in three cases that had been sealed and secured in the underground vault. The cases were not found until last week because the basement of the bank was flooded, possibly deliberately by bank officials as a way to protect the treasures from looters.

There’s a stunning set of photos of the Nimrud treasures on the Iraq Museum website.

http://www.baghdadmuseum.org/secret/index.htm

The first seven sections (347 photos!) cover the opening of the flooded bank vault in which these and other treasures (including the gold helmet of Meskalamdug, and the headdress of one of the “female attendants,”

and at least one of the gold bull’s head harp decorations, all found in Ur) were hidden, and which are shown being unpacked from sodden crates. Sections 8 and 9 show the items cleaned and on display in the museum.

All should be thankful for the beautiful photography of Noreen Feeney, especially in her extreme closeups, showing us in unprecedented detail the extraordinary Nimrud finds, especially....


For more information: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105485037080424400,00.html