Travel Tuesday: Visiting Nimrud before it was Destroyed

As regular readers of this blog know, I visited Iraq in 2012. One of the places I got to see was Nimrud, an ancient Assyrian capital. I wrote about it recently for Black Gate in the article Memories of Mosul before ISIS.

Actually, I was writing an obituary. ISIS has recently trashed Nimrud and another important Assyrian site called Nineveh. They destroyed all the statues, including this winged bull at the Nimrud palace gate. They also continued their practice of digging up artifact to sell on the international black market. They only destroy the big showy stuff for the cameras, the rest they sell so they can buy weapons. I'll be writing a post for Black Gate about Hatra tomorrow, another ancient site they destroyed.