However, both the bowls and the ivories pose a significant challenge as no examples of either – or any other artefacts with equivalent features – have been found in Phoenicia or other major colonies (e.g. Carthage, Malta, Sicily).

Many of the ivories would have originally been decorated with gold leaf or semi-precious stones, which were stripped from them at some point before their final burial.

In 2011, the Museum acquired most of the British-held ivories through a donation and purchase and is to put a selection on view.

A significant number of ivories were already held by Iraqi institutions but many have been lost or damaged through war and looting.

[6] The ivory used to make these objects would originally have been derived from Syrian elephants which were endemic in the Middle East in ancient times, but by the 8th century BC the Syrian elephant had been hunted close to extinction, and ivory for later objects would have had to be imported from India,[7] or, more likely, Africa.

[4] The ivory plaques are thought to have been used to decorate chariots, furniture and horse trappings, and would originally have been covered in gold leaf or ornamented with semi-precious stones such as lapis lazuli.

The gold may have been removed from the ivories before they were put in storage,[9] or it may have been taken by the Babylonians when they sacked and razed Nimrud in 612 BC.

[9] The first group of ivories was excavated from the site of the palace of Shalmaneser III (ruled 859–824 BC) at the Assyrian capital of Nimrud.

Palace at Nimroud has just yielded a large collection of beautiful ivories, relics of a throne or furniture, &c. They have been fitted together by means of rivets, slides, and grooves – a complete Assyrian puzzle, and somewhat dangerous to sit on!

There is a decided Egypto-Assyrian character about the whole collection, perfect Egyptian heads being mixed with Assyrian Bulls and Lions.

[14]Further discoveries were made between 1949 and 1963 by a team from the British School of Archaeology in Iraq led by the archaeologist Max Mallowan.

[13] Mallowan's wife was the famous British crime novelist, Agatha Christie (1890–1976), who was fascinated with archaeology, and who accompanied her husband on the Nimrud excavations.

Other ivories that were stored in a bank vault in Baghdad were damaged by water when the building was shelled.

[9] In March 2011, the British Museum purchased one third of the Mallowan ivories (comprising 1,000 complete ivories and 5,000 fragments) from the British Institute for the Study of Iraq for £1.17 million, following a public fundraising campaign that raised £750,000 in six months, and with the support of grants from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund.