The Project
The project was conceived with a new sustainable exhibition formula with the aim of communicating to the public historical content related to the Neo-Assyrian empire (Mesopotamia, 9th-7th centuries BC), through 3D printed digital models, als recounting some specificities and challenges of the Italian scientific collaboration and cooperation with the Republic of Iraq and the city of Mosul in particular.
After the liberation of the city in June 2017 from the occupation by ISIS that had lasted since 2014, the Iraqi-Italian Archaeological Mission was called to make a contribution to the exploration and protection of the eastern sector corresponding to ancient Nineveh, the legendary capital of Assyria now seriously threatened by urban expansion, so much so that today more than a third of the site can be said to be lost to archaeological exploration. Between 2019 and 2023, five annual joint campaigns were conducted between the University of Bologna and Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, directed by Nicolò Marchetti, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, as well as the Volkswagen Foundation, with the KALAM project, and the J. M. Kaplan Fund as part of restoration projects and training of local personnel.
6 exact replicas of Neo-Assyrian cuneiform texts from the excavation project in the 750-hectare large and 12-km-walled mega-site of Nineveh have been chosen to tell ancient and modern stories. In addition to them, there is a reproduction of the brick of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC) with a cuneiform inscription revealing its provenance from the ziggurat (stepped temple-tower) of ancient Kalkhu (modern Nimrud), the first capital of the Neo-Assyrian empire, destroyed in 2016 by ISIS. The brick has been seized by the Carabinieri and returned to Iraq in occasion of the exhibition The Assyrians in the Shadow of the Two Towers. An inscribed brick from the Kalkhu ziggurat in Iraq and the excavations of the Iraqi-Italian Archaeological Mission in Nineveh at the Museo Civico Medievale in Bologna (June-September 2023).
