Word: nimrud
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...Nimrud's glory ended abruptly in 612 B.C., when the Assyrians, badly overextended, were taken by surprise by the combined armies of the Medes, the Babylonians and the Scythians. Nimrud was overrun. The palace caught fire, and its ceilings collapsed. Over time, the Tigris changed course, and the glorious ziggurat was reduced to a formless mound...
...Nimrud find is especially interesting because it was made in sands that had been sifted and resifted by some of the world's most accomplished treasure hunters. Nimrud created a scientific sensation in the 1840s, when the British archaeologist A.H. Layard uncovered the lamassu, colossal, winged bull-men that guarded the palace entrances. One hundred years later, the site was extensively re-excavated by Max Mallowan, whose mystery-writing wife Agatha Christie kept an office at the Nimrud Digs House and composed portions of an Hercule Poirot novel, Murder in Mesopotamia, at the site...
...mysteries of Nimrud were far from solved. Last year, exploring an inner room of the palace, a team of laborers stumbled across a tomb that contained a small collection of necklaces, earrings and gilded pins. In February, Muzahim was granted permission to extend the explorations. Last April, digging near the spot where Christie plotted her thriller, he found what looked like a piece of pavement. When he and his workers cleared off the dirt, they uncovered a small ceramic pipe resembling an air vent. The "pavement" turned out to be the arched roof of a small rectangular tomb. Inside...
...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...
SCIENCE: The golden treasures of mighty Nimrud...