Nimrud: Ishtar/Ninurta Temple, Spring 2024

Описание: Excavations at Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) continued in Spring 2024. Nearing the end of our short season, I filmed this walk-through of our excavations in the connected temples of Ishtar and Ninurta near the base of the ziggurat. We completed excavation of the gate chamber between the two temples, damaged by ISIS in 2015, and expanded to begin connecting this ancient chamber with maps of the ancient walls in the surrounding area made by archaeologists long ago.

The maps from the late 19th century are particularly unreliable, but we expected that those of the 1950s would be better. But we were hindered by the fact that those maps are not linked to modern coordinate systems and that the landmarks they referenced (like the ziggurat) had been badly disturbed by ISIS and thus no longer functioned as good measuring points.

We will continue to unveil areas of this important temple complex, that of the most important deities to the Assyrians, in future seasons, but part of the adventure is the current work and the hurdles we have to overcome, the mysteries we have to solve, along the way. That's why I like making these in the moment videos for all of you.