The marble slab carvings were found through a team of experts in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, who worked to repair the site of the ancient Mashki Gate, which rampaged Islamic State militants in 2016.
The Islamic State organization invaded large portions of Iraq and Syria in 2014 and has carried out a crusade to systematically destroy priceless archaeological sites in both countries. Extremists have vandalized museums and destroyed primary archaeological sites in their quest to erase history.
The territory of present-day Iraq is home to some of the oldest cities in the world. Thousands of archaeological sites are scattered throughout the country, where Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians once lived.
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