Queens' tombs at Nimrud
[3] All four tombs discovered within the palace were built during the ninth and eighth centuries and were primarily constructed of the mudbrick, baked brick, and limestone[3] ––materials commonly used in Mesopotamian architecture.
[4] The architecture of the tombs as well as the Northwest Palace within which they are housed provide historical insight into the Assyrian Empire's building techniques.
The most notable items found within the queens' tombs included hundreds of pieces of fine jewelry, pottery, clothing, and tablets.
[5] Each tomb was built in advance of a queen's death and construction began as early as the 9th century under Assurnasirpal II and continued under Shalmaneser III.
[7] Mallowan's excavations included the southern section of the Northwest Palace where, in 1951, he discovered the so-called “Harem Quarters” underneath room DD.
[3] In the late 1980s the Iraqi Department of Antiquities started excavating the Northwest palace of King Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud and discovered four tombs of Neo-Assyrian royal women.
[2] In the same general area Mallowan discovered the burial, Muzahim Mahmoud Hussein and his team noticed parts of the brick floor in the Southern Section were sticking up at odd angles.
The tombs not only housed the bodies of various royal women of the Neo-Assyrian Empire––identified by inscriptions, stamps, and adornment, but contained priceless artifacts such as jewelry, decorations, and ceramics that provided new insight into Assyrian culture and craftsmanship.
The unusual arrangement of the coffins and the lack of a body or objects in the main burial suggests that the tomb was looted and possibly rearranged in antiquity.
[8] In addition to the rushed excavation, archeologists also faced budget cuts, lack of supplies, and insufficient funding due to the outbreak of Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and its subsequent sanctions.
[3] From April 10–12, 2003, the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH), which is located in the same complex as and administers the Iraq National Museum, was looted.
[3] In the aftermath of the looting, programs such as the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) funded the reconstruction of destroyed information and manuscripts.
In 2010, Christie's New York, a prominent private auction house, withdrew a pair of earrings that were for sale when it was discovered that they were a trafficked part of the archeological finds from Nimrud's royal tombs.
[9] The discovery of the tombs originally received substantial coverage, including a full-color spread in Time Magazine, but the attention drifted with the Gulf Wars on the horizon.
Additionally, the original reports were largely in Arabic and local to Iraq, which limited Western access to them due to an international embargo.
[2] The Tombs were built under the residential wing of the Northwest palace by Assurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III prior to the queens’ deaths.
Such foreign objects may have been obtained or brought by the queens as “a part of their bridal wealth.”[5] These far-flung artifacts show the extent of the empire's power and the importance of strategic royal marriages.
[8] Below the floor of room 57, Hussein and his team found a slab of limestone covering a third vault, also made of baked brick.
[3] The Tomb held a sarcophagus in the main chamber made of grey alabaster, but it was empty except for a bone shard and a single bead.
[3] Around 888 B.C.E., Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II began constructing what is widely considered to be the most significant architectural achievement of his 24 year reign: the Northwest Palace at Nimrud.
The Southern Section of the Northwest Palace was a residential dwelling for Nimrud's royal women, the wives and cohorts of Neo-Assyrian kings.
[12] There is vast evidence to suggest that the palaces of Nimrud were decorated with intricate wall reliefs, blue Mosul marble, paintings, glazed-brick, strips of ivory, and bronze.
[13] The most common Near East building material, mud-brick is made of earth, straw, and water, which is blended into a mixture, shaped, and dried in the sun for up to two weeks.
[8] Scholars have analyzed the materials, craftsmanship, design, arrangement, and origins of these objects in order to learn more about Neo-Assyrian culture, relations, social structure, and ways of life.
Thus, while the body lay in the tomb, its spirit would travel through the netherworld and face gatekeepers at seven thresholds before standing before a panel of judges.
As displayed by documentation of grave robbing anxieties, it was believed that when items were removed from tombs, the social status and privilege of the buried individual in the afterlife was lost.
)[3] Queen Hama Because of the gold stamp seal pendant, most likely worn around her neck and the famed crown atop her head, scholars identified Queen Hama, wife of Shalmaneser IV, daughter-in- law of Adad-nirari III as the sole and primary burial in Tomb III, coffin 2.
[2] This is furthered by the gold and precious jewelry befitting a queen that was interred with her, and was similar to other royal burials in Tombs I and II.
This gold and lapis lazuli crown's cap-like shape and configuration has no known historical parallels, and it is distinctively different from the queenly dorsal diadems seen in the other tombs, imagery, and on Hama's stamp seal.
ISIL condemned Nimrud for its pre-Islamic, idolatrous imagery and architecture, and has destroyed other Iraqi and Syrian historical sites.
