Word: cuneiform
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...conquer much of the Middle East, from roughly 900 B.C. to 612 B.C. They were known for their ferocious cruelty. In addition to their biblical role as the oppressors of Israel, there was the testimony of Ashurnasirpal II, an Assyrian king of the 9th century B.C. who boasted in cuneiform inscriptions of having rebellious chieftains impaled on stakes, dismembered and skinned alive. Ashurnasirpal made Nimrud, known in the Bible as Calah, his capital. The fortress city on the banks of the Tigris was dominated by an elaborate palace and a towering ziggurat and was populated in part by peoples subjugated...
...July, digging a few yards from the original find, Muzahim discovered the roof of another tomb and sarcophagus, which contained only dust. But near the sarcophagus were three bronze containers filled with 22 kg (48.5 lbs.) of gold -- more than 440 pieces in all. From cuneiform clues, archaeologists believe these jewels represent the private collection of an Assyrian queen, perhaps the wife of Ashurnasirpal himself...
...that the full magnificence of the Nimrud find is known, Muzahim is intensifying his search, hoping to find the tombs of Nimrud's all powerful kings. The hunt is not without its dangers, however. Only after opening Princess Yabahya's grave did Muzahim's team decipher the ancient cuneiform curse inscribed on a marble tablet: "If anyone lays hands on my tomb . . . let the ghost of insomnia take hold of him for ever and ever...
...cuneiform figures scratched into the tablets provide instructions for dozens of Mesopotamian stews, vegetable dishes and meat pies...
...They are recipes and as such practically a unique genre that one simply has not encountered before in cuneiform literature," said Hallo, a professor of Assyriology and Babylonian literature at Yale...