ISIL rampage reveals lost palace

Ninevah site recaptured from Islamic militants

BEIRUT • Archeologists documenting ISIL’s destruction of the ruins of the tomb of the prophet Jonah say they have made an unexpected discovery that could help our understanding of the world’s first empire.

The Nebi Yunus shrine — containing what Muslims and Christians believe to be the tomb of Jonah, as he was known in the Bible, or Yunus in the Qur’an — was blown up by ISIL militants in 2014.

The shrine is on top of a hill in eastern Mosul called Nebi Yunus — one of two mounds that form part of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh. The Iraqi army retook the area last month, revealing the extensive damage wrought by the jihadists.

Local archeologists say ISIL also dug tunnels deep under the demolished shrine and into a previously undiscovered 600 BC palace.

Inside one of the tunnels, Layla Salih, an Iraqi archeologist, discovered a marble cuneiform inscription of King Esarhaddon thought to date back to the Assyrian empire in 672 BC.

While the king’s name is not visible on the slab, a historian who has seen photographs of it says phrases are legible that were used only to describe him.

Eleanor Robson, chair of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, said: “There’s a huge amount of history down there. It is an opportunity to finally map the treasure house of the world’s first great empire, from the period of its greatest success.”

Salih, a former curator of the Mosul museum who is supervising the emergency documentation, said she believed ISIL looted hundreds of objects before Iraqi forces recaptured the eastern side of the city.

“I can only imagine how much Daesh discovered down there before we got here,” she said.