Word: tombs
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...then took over the whole place in 1875. In the rugged and thinly settled borderlands of Central Asia, the Russians simply invaded. They stormed legendary Tashkent in 1864 and turned the whole of Turkistan into a Russian province. They besieged the sacred city of Samarkand, site of the tomb of the medieval chieftain Timur the Great (the Tamburlaine of Christopher Marlowe's epic play), and pillaged it for four days. It was from these little noticed conquests that there emerged the until recently little noticed Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. "The policy of Russia is changeless...
...also designs for palaces and villas and town houses (including his own house in Via Poma), for heraldic emblems, tapestries, urns, salvers, jewelry and every other class of luxury object a Renaissance patron might feel the itch to have. Indeed, Giulio's first job in Mantua was a tomb for the Duke's favorite dog, a long-legged bitch that had expired while giving birth to a litter of puppies...
...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...
...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...