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The Documentary: The Museum Of Lost Objects: Looted in Iraq

Carved Figure from Nimrud

27/08/2016 GMT

Looted in Iraq

The Museum Of Lost Objects

BBC World Service - The Documentary, The Museum Of Lost Objects, Looted in Iraq

The treasures that have been destroyed or looted during the wars in Iraq and Syria

Kanishk Tharoor traces the histories of treasures that have been destroyed or looted during the recent wars in Iraq and Syria.

Kanishk Tharoor goes on the murky trail of the missing Genie of Nimrud – a huge, 3,000-year-old carved figure that once protected a palace. It disappeared about 20 years ago, only to re-emerge in London and since 2002, it has been languishing in police vaults at Scotland Yard; the Winged-Bull of Nineveh was an Assyrian sculpture that guarded the gates of one of the most fabled cities in antiquity – it was destroyed by IS when they took the northern Iraqi city of Mosul; and a looted Sumerian seal that depicted a Goddess so mighty that she made her chair out of a man. This is the smallest and oldest object in our Museum. It was stolen in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has still never been found.

(Photo: Assyrian winged-genie from Nimrud, very similar in style to the genie in possession of Scotland Yard. Credit:Brooklyn Museum)

The Documentary: The Museum Of Lost Objects

Kanishk Tharoor traces the histories of destroyed or looted antiquities and landmarks

Series tracing the histories of antiquities and landmarks that have been destroyed or looted in Iraq and Syria, India and Pakistan

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