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2,700-Year-Old Assyrian Stele Discovered at the Sun Gate of Ancient Nineveh
A stone monument has been uncovered at Bab Shamash, the ancient Sun Gate of Nineveh, where people once passed into one of the most powerful cities of the Assyrian world. Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage announced the discovery during ongoing excavation work in Nineveh Governorate, northern Iraq. The large stone stele has been…
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2,700-Year-Old Cult Stone Found in Assyrian-Destroyed Mansion Reopens Debate over Hezekiah’s Reform
A massive 2,700-year-old cult stone found inside an Assyrian-destroyed mansion at Tel ‘Eton is adding new weight to the debate over Hezekiah’s Reform, while also showing how religious life may have reached beyond temples and into the homes of Iron Age Judah. The stone, about 1.4 meters high and weighing roughly 750 kilograms, was discovered…
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Ashurbanipal Stele Found at Nineveh’s Shamash Gate, Where Two Catastrophes Struck 2,600 Years Apart
At Nineveh’s Shamash Gate, archaeologists have uncovered an unusually powerful record of destruction: the fall of the Assyrian capital in 612 BC and the scars of the modern battle for Mosul more than 2,600 years later. The discovery comes from recent work at the monumental eastern entrance to ancient Nineveh, one of the most important…
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Luxury in the Age of Empires: An Iron Age Elite Burial Rewrites Life under Assyrian Rule
The Iron Age is often imagined as a world shaped by scarcity—agrarian communities living under imperial pressure, far removed from luxury or global exchange. A single burial in northern Israel now undermines that assumption at its core. At Ḥorvat Tevet, in the Jezreel Valley, archaeologists have uncovered evidence that elite status, wealth, and far-reaching connections…
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Massive Relief Depicting Assyrian Gods and King Ashurbanipal Unearthed in Ancient Nineveh
Archaeologists from Heidelberg University uncover a unique 12-ton royal relief in Iraq’s ancient Assyrian capital A team of archaeologists from Heidelberg University has made a remarkable discovery in the heart of ancient Mesopotamia. During excavations at Kuyunjik Hill—part of the ancient city of Nineveh near modern-day Mosul—researchers uncovered large fragments of a colossal relief depicting…
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Ancient Assyrian Tablets: Science Uncovers 7th Century Writing Techniques
Ancient writing boards excavated from Nimrud are providing incredible clues about how cuneiform script was written in the 7th century BC. These boards were written using a mixture of beeswax and orpiment (a yellow pigment). A Great Discovery by Archaeologists: Found during excavations in the 1950s, these tablets shed light on the administrative and scholarly…