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From 1903 to 1914, the Royal Museums in Berlin and the German Orient Society conducted excavations in Aššur under the direction of Walter Andrae (1875–1956). One of the aims of the excavation was to study the great ziggurat (stepped temple tower). In April 1914, in search of the foundation layers, the excavators widened an existing old tunnel.In doing so, they uncovered several thousand beads of shell, stone, glass and pottery lying directly on the bedrock beneath the first layer of mudbricks. On the basis of find-sharing agreements, parts of the find ended up in the collection of the Vorderasiatisches Museum...

In the middle of the 19th century, an archaeologist discovered fragments of multiple clay tablets in what is modern-day Iraq. Translated, the cuneiform writing on these and other tablets subsequently found revealed the “Enuma Elish,” the Babylonian account of the creation of the world. The Enuma Elish starts with formless chaos and water. The waters divide into a god and a goddess, who have children who are also gods. War breaks out between mother and father, and between mother and children. Ultimately, the offspring of the first two gods create human beings to be their servants. Other ancient cultures have...

Feb. 3 — An Iraqi dam under construction on the Tigris River threatens to submerge the remains of the spiritual capital of the ancient Assyrian empire in an act archaeologists liken to flooding the Vatican.Much of the city of Ashur, which thrived for more than 1,000 years until the Babylonians razed it in 614 B.C., could vanish under a lake to be created by the Makhoul dam, U.S. and European archaeologists said.More than 60 outlying historical sites are also threatened.Ashur, or Assur, was of such importance that it lent its name to the Assyrian civilization itself."Losing it would be...