Iraqi artist recreates ancient monuments

ARBIL, Iraq - Reuters

As Iraqi forces fight to retake the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an artist in nearby Arbil is chiseling at clay in a tiny, unheated studio to recreate historic Assyrian monuments destroyed by the group. 

Ninos Thabet, an 18-year-old Christian who studied art at Mosul University, is creating miniature replicas of statues jihadists destroyed when they overran the 3,000-year-old Assyrian city of Nimrud, south of Mosul, two years ago. 

Once the capital of an empire stretching across the ancient Middle East, Nimrud was one of the several historic sites that ISIL looted and ransacked when they seized large swathes of Iraq and neighboring Syria in 2014. 

The statues included winged bulls with human faces, known as lamassu, and a bronze head of King Sargon of Akkad. 

“Seeing the antiquities of your country, a civilization that is thousands of years old, destroyed within minutes is very painful. It was difficult seeing such a setback to our culture and history,” he said.  

ISIL, whose ultra-hardline doctrine deems pre-Islamic religious heritage idolatrous, released video footage last year showing its militants bulldozing, drilling and blowing up murals and statues at Nimrud. 

“I wanted to send a message to the world saying, ‘We ... want to rebuild our civilization and to continue to grow artistically,’” he said. 

Iraqi forces pushing through eastern Mosul took control over the weekend of Mosul University, once a premier institution in the Middle East that became a strategic site for the militants, as part of a three-month, U.S.-led offensive to recapture the entire city, ISIL’s last major stronghold in the country. Western Mosul remains under ISIL control. 

Thabet fled with his family from the Christian town of Qaraqosh, east of Mosul, to the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital Arbil when ISIL took over. He says art brought him comfort while he was away from his home and friends. 

Since leaving his home, he has created more than 50 statues and figures. Some of them have been displayed in exhibits and museums, and others he sold to collectors. 

Iraqi troops pushed ISIL from Nimrud in November, giving officials a clearer idea of the scale of the damage. 

During a visit days later, Reuters found shattered remains of intricate carvings lying broken in the dust. A ziggurat, or terraced pyramid, had been reduced to a pile of dirt, apparently flattened by bulldozers. 

Nimrud was excavated in the 19th century by British archaeologist Austen Layard. Fellow archaeologist Max Mallowan and his wife, and crime writer Agatha Christie, worked at Nimrud in the 1950s. Christie’s experiences in Iraq formed the background to several of her novels.