Ruins of the shrine of Nebi
Yunus (“the prophet Jonah”) in Mosul, January 2017 (VOA)
Over the past few months,
Iraqi army forces have retaken much of the city of Mosul in Iraqi Kurdistan
from ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). With the capture of much of
the city– where stories of liberation and horror compete for our attention –
these forces have also captured the mounds of Kuyunjik and Tell Nebi Yunus.
These two artificial hills (or “tells”) and their surroundings form the site of
the famous ancient city of Nineveh, now in eastern Mosul. From the end of
February, news outlets started reporting the discovery of an ancient Assyrian
palace at Tell Nebi Yunus, in tunnels that ISIS had dug into the mound. News
reports about the discovery have varied immensely in quality, and it is often
difficult to sort through the many discrepancies. We have also had our share of
sensational-sounding headlines: “Previously Untouched 600BC
Palace Discovered under Shrine Demolished by Isil in Mosul” (the Telegraph);
“Jihadist
tunnels save Assyrian winged bulls of Mosul” (Agence Presse-France); “Iraqi
troops find Assyrian treasures in network of Isis tunnels” (the Guardian). Fox
News unsurprisingly emphasized
the biblical connection of the palace. But what do we really know here?
Let’s take a step back and sum up the situation to date:
Map showing the location of
the shrine of Jonah within the ruins of ancient Nineveh, in eastern Mosul
On July 24, 2014, ISIS
detonated the shrine of Nebi Yunus (“the prophet Jonah” in Arabic),
standing on the top of Tell Nebi Yunus. The shrine is one traditional site of the
tomb of Jonah, revered by local Muslims and Christians alike. After
Iraqi forces retook this mound in the middle of January, archaeologists
surveying damage to the site discovered that ISIS had dug a series of tunnels
through the mound. These tunnels were apparently designed to loot artifacts for
sale in order to fund their activities. The effort was successful: while the tunnels were mostly empty, a handful of important stone relief sculptures and an inscribed slab were found in them by the archaeologists – presumably because they were
too heavy for ISIS to remove them easily through
the tunnels. It is thought that many smaller artifacts of lesser value were
removed from the site: a cache
of more than 100 artifacts discovered in an ISIS commander’s house in
eastern Mosul back in January might have come from these tunnels. Archaeologists
now
warn that there “cave-ins in the tunnels every day,” with danger of
collapse of the entire tunnel system.
Tell Nebi Yunus (with the
shrine of Jonah on top) in 1932
(Matson Photograph Collection, via Library of Congress)
(Matson Photograph Collection, via Library of Congress)
Shrine of Jonah in 1999 (by
Roland Unger via Wikimedia
Commons)
Now to the sensationalist
headlines: First, despite the claims of several
media
outlets,
ISIS did not “save” anything. ISIS looting does seem to have uncovered artifacts from a palace or other royal building – but, if they
hadn’t been uncovered, they would still lie perfectly intact beneath the soil
of the tell. Instead, ISIS has looted a number of artifacts from the site, with
the exact number unknown. Many of these may be lost, many may be illegally
removed from the country. In addition, looting operations are massively – let
me repeat, massively – destructive.
Any artifacts not deemed of sufficient value on the market (and most artifacts
found at sites generally fall into this category) are discarded or destroyed.
On top of this, we lose not only the objects themselves, but also their
archaeological contexts. Artifacts found in contexts can tell us how they were
used by people, the functions of buildings, and all sorts of details of
everyday life at a settlement. All of this information is now gone from these
tunnels.
Second, it is unclear if
ISIS discovered a previously unknown building. As British Institute for the
Study of Iraq (BISI) chair Paul
Collins told Fox News, previous excavations on the mound of Nebi Yunus have
uncovered remains of Assyrian royal buildings. Are the new discoveries related
to one of these buildings? Note also the discrepancy between the claim that
this is a newly discovered palace and the detailed history given of this palace
(which kings founded and renovated it) in several reports. Such a history would
be difficult or impossible to reconstruct if without scientific excavation. How
do we resolve these discrepancies? The history given in the news accounts actually
seems to describe what we know of an Assyrian royal building partially
excavated at the site in the past, a “review palace” or royal arsenal. The new
discoveries could be part of this building, but we cannot be certain without more
information.
Third, are the reliefs left
in the tunnels in danger from collapse? This concern appears to be exaggerated
in news accounts. It is unclear if the handful of large stone slabs would be
seriously damaged by collapses of dirt above, especially since the condition of
the tunnels is little understood outside of Mosul. In AFP’s
story on the palace, Iraqi archaeologist Layla Salih is cited as follows:
“‘We fear it could all collapse at any time,’ entombing the treasures, said Layla Salih.”
The word “entombing” is not
a direct quote from the archaeologist; it is the journalist’s paraphrase or interpretation.
Is this in fact what Salih is worried about? After all, “entombing” is not a
danger to the artifacts themselves; once again, buried artifacts are relatively
safe. They can be dug out again eventually. (Contrast the
National [UAE] version of the AFP
story, which is simply wrong in stating that “[t]he tunnels could collapse
at any time, meaning the treasures would be entombed forever.”
The greater danger from the
instability of the tunnel system is the collapse of a significant portion of
the mound itself. Paul Collins has made
a similar observation, emphasizing that the threat is even greater since
the hill was already damaged by the demolition of the shrine of Jonah. Archaeologically,
there would be significant loss of information from the dirt above the tunnels. This material is stratified
– that is, it records the history of how buildings and dirt layers were
deposited at the site, with artifacts in the contexts where they were abandoned
or discarded in ancient times. When stratified material is excavated properly,
the amount we can learn, about individual artifacts, groups of objects,
buildings, and the entire history of occupation of the settlement for hundreds
and hundreds of years, is nearly limitless. As was already the case with the
looting from the tunnels themselves, all of this information would be lost in
case of collapse.
Beyond this, Tell Nebi Yunus
is still an important part of the living city of Mosul today. The shrine of
Jonah is still a holy place even in its ruined state. A collapse of a
significant portion of the tell would be a major loss, and a setback to any
attempt to restore the shrine.
There are other problems
with the news reports: The British tabloid the Daily Star seems
to have invented some details, as we hear not only of stone sculptures but
also “coins, jewelry and mosaics found in the palace” (Not only have no such
small finds have been reported, but more significantly, coins and mosaics did
not exist in Assyria at this time.) Even in Josie Ensor’s generally good report
on the discovery in
the Telegraph, we read (in connection with the inscribed stone slab) that
there are “only a handful of such cuneiforms recovered from the period,” when Neo-Assyrian
cuneiform inscriptions are quite common. Several new stories refer to these
stone reliefs in the tunnels as “treasures.” This is a poor choice of words,
since it presents archaeology less as scientific study of the past than as
treasure hunting. The New York Post describes a “race
against time to save the archaeological treasures”; compare Maev Kennedy’s “race
against time to save artefacts” in the Guardian. Gone are the realities of
the war. What we are left with is a romantic image of something exciting and
adventurous – like an Indiana Jones film.
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