One of the great cities of the ancient world, Nimrud was located on the Tigris River, south of present-day Mosul. In the Bible, Nimrud is called Calah. The city?s discovery and excavationis one of the great archeological stories of the past two centuries.
King Shalmaneser I built the city in the 13th century B.C., but its heyday didn?t arrive until four centuries later when, sometime around 880 B.C., Nimrud became the capital of Assyria.
At the height of its fame, the city was home to an estimated 100,000 people. It boasted botanical gardens and a zoo, as well as famous architectural wonders such as the Great Ziggurat (a pyramid-like monument) and a number of royal palaces. But in 612 B.C., the city was destroyed by Babylonian and Mede armies.
In the mid-1800s, Austen Henry Layard excavated Nimrud?s ruins and brought back many sculptures and other works from Nimrud?s glory days to the British Museum.
However, most of the Nimrud ivories were found in the 1950s by Max Mallowan, says Terry Drayman-Weisser of the Walters Art Museum.
Mallowan, the husband of mystery writer Agatha Christie, once wrote, “every reputable king of Assyria from the ninth century B.C. onwards was an ivory collector.”
The Nimrud ivories are delicately carved ivory plaques that reflect Assyria?s rich culture at the height of its creative powers.
These irreplaceable works of art survived nearly 3,000 years of change and warfare in the Middle East, including the tremendously destructive 13th-century Mongol invasion by Genghis Khan.
