TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group has again destroyed cultural treasures. This time bulldozing the site of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq, the Iraqiya TV said. The extent of the damages has not been revealed.
Nimrud is a city in the Assyrian kingdom, which flourished between 900 to 612 B.C. The archaeological site is located south of Mosul in northern Iraq.
The leveling of Nimrud was done after a video that went viral, showing ISIS militants using hammers to destroy stone sculptures and other centuries-old artifacts in the Mosul Museum. The museum strored at least 173 original pieces of antiquity.
Nimrud and Nineveh, which are close to one another, are the sites where two Assyrian kings, Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.) and Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 B.C.), recorded successful military campaigns on their palace wall. According to the World Monuments Fund, a group dedicated to saving the world's most treasured places. The reliefs in the palace looked alive with topographic and ethnographic detail
"The palaces of Sennacherib at Nineveh and Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud are vestiges of the political, cultural and artistic height of the Assyrian Empire," the Fund's website says.
The Encyclopedia Britannica's website mentioned that King Ashurnasirpal II made Nimrud the royal seat and the military capital of Assyria. Buildings at Nimrud, with its distinctive carves, were mostly made in the 9th and 8th centuries B.C.
ISIS have destroyed abundance of historical heritages in Iraq and also demolished sacred places including a tomb of the Prophet Yunus.
IRAQIYA | INDAH P.
