Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Nimrud, a ruined ancient city

in the Iraqi desert,

once the capital of a great empire,

Assyria.

After years of conflict here,

our cameras have unique access to follow archaeologists as

they return to unearth

the buried secrets of this war-torn land...

Yeah, this is what we're looking for, right?

...and rescue priceless ancient artifacts

targeted by terrorists.

NARRATOR: The city hides tombs

full of unimaginable discoveries...

It was one of the largest treasures that were found with

any royal tomb, that includes with tombs that were found

in Egypt.

...that could help decode the secrets of the king

who builds this city

and solve the mystery of why it is destroyed.

SEBASTIEN: The power of Assyria would be

completely nullified, would be obliterated from history.

NARRATOR: How does this one city rule the greatest empire

NARRATOR: How does this one city rule the greatest empire

of its time, and what gruesome fate befalls its people?

To solve these mysteries, we digitally reconstruct

this city to reveal its secrets,

unearth mysterious rooms, and decipher ancient texts.

We rebuild extraordinary palaces

and discover the long-forgotten

royal tombs buried below

to reveal the hidden secrets of the Assyrian kings.

Mesopotamia,

the cradle of civilization,

home of the world's first cities

and the world's first true empire.

Twenty miles south of modern-day Mosul in Iraq,

a 3,000-year-old city emerges from the sand.

a 3,000-year-old city emerges from the sand.

This was once the great capital of one

of the most influential empires in the ancient world.

NARRATOR: When the ancient Greeks

first discover these ruins,

its people are long forgotten.

Their story is lost in texts that they cannot decipher.

Clues remain of the city's former glory,

fragments of elaborately carved stone reliefs

and grand entrances to the remains of huge buildings.

This is the city of Nimrud.

In its heyday, it is a city

like nothing the world has ever seen.

In 800 BCE,

five miles of walls run around Nimrud,

towering 42 feet high.

Palaces and gardens fill the citadel,

and a magnificent ziggurat temple connects

the citizens with the gods above.

the citizens with the gods above.

In the northwest is the largest and most

luxurious palace ever constructed to date.

Outside the walls of the palace citadel lies

the residential quarter, with enough homes for 75,000 people.

Who builds this incredible capital city?

Modern conflict has left scars at this mysterious site.

Modern conflict has left scars at this mysterious site.

The standing remains of the city are tragically

destroyed when the site is

taken over by Islamic extremists,

Daesh, in 2015.

They claim they are removing false idols that offend Islam,

but the destruction is a smokescreen to hide

their lucrative trade in looted ancient artifacts.

Iraqi American Mark Altaweel returns to the site for

Iraqi American Mark Altaweel returns to the site for

the first time since the destruction.

Many parts of the city are still dangerous to explore.

He is part of a global effort

to recover what's left of the city.

MARK: The plan for Nimrud is some form of rehabilitation,

reconstruction -- specifically, there are large remains of

the reliefs, which can be brought together, consolidated,

perhaps even fixed to some extent -- that's probably

the first major step.

The once magnificent gateways in Nimrud are no more.

And inside, Mark finds only fragments of huge carved

reliefs that once stand in the palace throne room.

Some of the restoration work is being

done here in the museum at Mosul.

Daesh also target the museum

and loot many of its ancient treasures,

destroying the rest.

These artifacts reveal who builds this once great city.

These artifacts reveal who builds this once great city.

Stefan Maul is an ancient language expert.

He's attempting to reconstruct a stone block, or stele, from

the palace throne room, smashed by Daesh into thousands

of pieces.

It is inscribed with cuneiform,

the writing system used in the ancient city.

For the moment, we still are working on the surface

with the inscription but there are

other parts, which are un-inscribed

and smashed, as well, and we have to find

and smashed, as well, and we have to find

these pieces and to put them together.

NARRATOR: Stefan faces an almost impossible task.

To rebuild the block,

he needs to know what the inscription says.

Complete cuneiform is tough to translate,

but when it smashed into pieces, it's tougher still.

STEFAN: The biggest problem is that we don't have

a photography of the stele which still was intact.

So it's difficult.

So it's difficult.

NARRATOR: Stefan and the Iraqi team at the museum are

trying to piece together the world's most difficult

jigsaw puzzle.

[sing-songy] Da da da!

Wonderful. Yes, exactly.

Good.

NARRATOR: The words on the stele are 3,000 years old,

and Stefan is just one of a few

experts in the world who can read them.

experts in the world who can read them.

They contain clues that identify the builder of Nimrud.

What is written here is, in the Babylonian language...

[speaking Babylonian]

...which means "in the city of Kalhu."

This is the ancient name of Nimrud.

"The center of the mighty dominion."

And continues, "The temple of Enlil

and the temple of Ninurta.

I founded them in the midst of the city."

I founded them in the midst of the city."

NARRATOR: These are the words of a king,

the creator of the capital city of Nimrud

and also the ruler of a vast empire known as Assyria.

This is a stele, which one of the most famous Assyrian kings

Ashurnasirpal II.

So this stele basically celebrates

and describes the building activities of this king.

NARRATOR: King Ashurnasirpal II carefully plans

the city of Nimrud in 880 BCE.

He boasts about ships loaded with wood, ivory, and stone

that travel up the River Tigris

to the city's bustling docks.

Animals from around the world also arrive on the ships.

Lions, monkeys, and gazelles are herded

into the botanical gardens and hunting grounds.

into the botanical gardens and hunting grounds.

Ashurnasirpal celebrates the completion

of this new city with a lavish feast

for 70,000 people from across the empire.

The Mosul Museum also partners with

the Louvre Museum in Paris on this important project.

Daniel Ibled is one of their master stone restorers

and has the skills to restore

Ashurnasirpal's finest sculptures.

This sculpture is once a 9-foot-tall lion

that stands in the sacred temple of the goddess Ishtar.

Iconic symbols of the Assyrian Empire,

statues like these are colossal gateway guardians.

statues like these are colossal gateway guardians.

Many have the body of an animal with a human head,

a creature known as a lamassu.

Lamassu statues tower over every major gateway in Nimrud.

They are there to protect the city's inhabitants from harm

but are also designed to intimidate

and impress -- the twin lamassu that

guard the throne room

to Ashurnasirpal's palace are each made of

eight tons of alabaster and are vibrantly painted.

eight tons of alabaster and are vibrantly painted.

In the throne room itself,

the walls are covered with elaborate reliefs

that depict kings,

gods, and warfare.

What can these reliefs reveal about Ashurnasirpal

and his new capital at Nimrud?

Ashurnasirpal gathers the best craftsmen,

engineers, and architects to realize his vision.

He is the first Assyrian king to cover

He is the first Assyrian king to cover

the interior of his palace in reliefs of his own exploits,

an artistic style that is copied by every king that follows.

Sebastien Rey is the Near Eastern curator

at the British Museum.

Many of the reliefs are removed from the palace

at Nimrud in the 19th century

during excavation work and are now in his care.

SEBASTIEN: Looking at the reliefs, the sense we have

is that we are indeed in a man's world.

is that we are indeed in a man's world.

The themes, the iconographic themes that we see, are

military scenes, battle scenes, hunting scenes.

It's always about the triumph of the Assyrian king.

Ashurnasirpal etches the same cuneiform inscription across

every panel to send the message

that he is an all-powerful leader.

It's the same text over and over again,

which always starts with the title of Ashurnasirpal.

which always starts with the title of Ashurnasirpal.

Then the inscription goes on to describe the military

victories of the king

and ends with the building program of the king, including,

of course, the city of Nimrud

and the Northwest Palace.

NARRATOR: By the time Ashurnasirpal takes the throne

in 883 BCE,

the Assyrian Empire is already 100 years old,

but at his new capital in Nimrud,

but at his new capital in Nimrud,

he ushers in a fresh age of artistic expression

and military aggression

with his own image at the center.

Does an astonishing discovery under the floor of

the Northwest Palace

show this all-powerful king doesn't rule

the empire alone?

And how does he govern such a vast area from a single city?

NARRATOR: Nimrud,

the ancient capital of the mighty Assyrian Empire.

At its heart, the ruins of Ashurnasirpal II's

long-lost palace,

once the largest palace in the world.

This palace, it was one of the first

great new palaces built by the new Assyrian empire.

NARRATOR: The palace conceals secrets about

the rulers of this vast territory.

Beneath the palace floor,

archaeologists find a vaulted room.

It's filled with bronze cups, lamps,

and ceramic jars and a tablet on display.

A second doorway leads to a dark chamber, where

the marble floor is littered with more bronze

and marble objects.

At the back of the room lies a heavy white sarcophagus.

Inside,

they find hundreds of precious gold objects,

they find hundreds of precious gold objects,

including elaborate jewelry and crowns.

Beneath the cloth are two women,

one placed on top of the other.

Who are these people, and what

do they reveal about the Assyrian Empire?

An Iraqi team of archaeologists discovers this

tomb and three more under the palace floor

in the late 1980s.

Islamic extremists, Daesh,

destroy the palace structure in 2015.

But the treasures recovered from the tombs are

already safe, locked away in the Iraq Central Bank.

MARK: It was one of the largest discoveries of treasures

that were found with any royal tomb,

and that includes with tombs that were found in Egypt.

NARRATOR: Mark Altaweel believes the tomb's inhabitants

leave behind clues that identify them by name.

Fortunately, there were inscriptions that were found.

You can see so many bricks are still inscribed.

There's even a curse tablet that

There's even a curse tablet that

says you should not disturb this tomb.

But there's a kind of famous,

almost like mummy's curse, if you will.

NARRATOR: The curse tablet found in

the tomb contains the Assyrian word "segallu."

Its literal translation is "woman of the palace."

The closest modern-day interpretation

of this word is "queen."

At least one of the women buried in the tomb is a queen,

part of the royal court.

One of the tablets in the tomb reveals her name.

One of the tablets in the tomb reveals her name.

MARK: In this curse tablet,

the name of the queen was given.

So we shouldn't be disturbing Yaba's tomb, basically --

Yaba being the queen.

NARRATOR: This is the first time Queen Yaba's name

appears in the historical record,

and the tomb's other occupant is also named in inscriptions,

Atalya, another queen

not known before this discovery.

The cuneiform texts on other objects in the tomb

also link Queen Yaba to a powerful known king.

also link Queen Yaba to a powerful known king.

Yaba's husband is the king that rules nearly

100 years after Ashurnasirpal,

King Tiglath-Pileser III.

Tiglath-Pileser becomes king of Assyria around 744 BCE.

To help the declining empire, he reforms the large

conscript army into an elite fighting force.

He creates an engineering corps that builds and repairs

He creates an engineering corps that builds and repairs

infrastructure across the empire.

He increases production of iron

to manufacture masses of arrowheads, knives,

chains, and swords.

And he expands his empire outside of Mesopotamia,

perhaps with a queen by his side.

Amy Gansell is a Near Eastern art expert.

She analyzes the tomb's contents for further

She analyzes the tomb's contents for further

clues about the appearance of these women.

Her work might reveal how powerful the queens really are.

Queens are rarely depicted in Assyrian art.

Amy turns to one palace relief that could reveal

how the queens wear the treasures found in the tomb.

I have this blown-up version of the queen so

that we can look at her in a bit more detail.

We've been trying to crack the code of

We've been trying to crack the code of

what this would have looked like

in 3D, in 360 degrees.

NARRATOR: Among the objects in the Nimrud tombs,

archaeologists unearthed hundreds of tiny pieces of

mysterious gold foil.

AMY: Right away,

you notice the garment has these circles all over it.

Those are probably referring to gold medallions.

So this would have been a very shimmery, shiny dress,

reflecting light, so radiance was equality of royalty.

reflecting light, so radiance was equality of royalty.

NARRATOR: The queen is dressed in gold from head to toe.

She wears other objects that could give clues to her power.

AMY: Each of these queens had a different crown,

and it has a row of winged

fantastical figures, divine women.

So this is a blessing and protecting the head,

protecting the presence of the queen, and maybe also

imparting divine power on her.

NARRATOR: The lower layers on the crowns

NARRATOR: The lower layers on the crowns

are rosettes and pomegranates,

symbols of fertility and life.

They suggest the queen has the ultimate responsibility

to secure the king's dynasty by producing an heir.

Amy believes that the queen's

physical appearance has a political function.

AMY: If you have these exotic precious stones,

things like agate and carnelian that are coming from

the reaches of the empire.

What this is all about, though, is

the wealth of the empire being embodied by the queen.

the wealth of the empire being embodied by the queen.

NARRATOR: The queen appears to her subjects as

the embodiment of the power of the empire.

AMY: Much of Assyrian history

has been focused on Assyrian kings.

Now we can see queens as powerful

and having a significant role in royal power.

The queen is the core of that empire.

She's also the womb of the empire.

She's the reproductive center of it.

NARRATOR: From the physical appearance

NARRATOR: From the physical appearance

of its rulers to the imposing architecture,

the royal court at Nimrud is designed to inspire

awe and fear.

Is this the key to the empire's success?

Or does the Northwest Palace have more secrets to

reveal about how the Assyrian rulers

control this vast empire?

NARRATOR: Nimrud, an ancient city in the Iraqi desert

built by the Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal II.

His impressive palace in the northwest corner of

the city has been reduced to rubble by Daesh terrorists.

But excavation work before the destruction uncovers some

extraordinary clues to how the king rules his empire.

Among the ruins of the Northwest Palace,

archaeologists discover what looks like

an ancient waste dump.

Over 300 clay tablets lie in one room,

some broken and some intact.

Each is covered in cuneiform writing.

Beneath the tablets, lining the walls of the room, is

a long brick bench, and against it, two rows of brick boxes.

a long brick bench, and against it, two rows of brick boxes.

It's an ancient filing system for important documents.

Some of these tablets are stored here for decades.

What does this room reveal about how

the empire is controlled from a single city?

Mark Altaweel investigates the impact

the city of Nimrud has on the world around it.

He uses satellite technology to

study the Assyrian Empire from above.

MARK: Some of the work I've been doing includes looking

MARK: Some of the work I've been doing includes looking

at spy satellite imagery, specifically in the late 1960s.

Um, and this is a period before major agricultural

development occurred, as well as urbanization

at a large scale.

So allows us to look at sort of

archaeological features that are preserved on

this landscape.

NARRATOR: Mark can identify Assyrian towns and cities

by matching the satellite imagery with known archaeology.

So here, we can see the ancient city of Nimrud, for instance.

You can see the massive walls around the city, the citadel.

You can see the massive walls around the city, the citadel.

NARRATOR: He discovers that as the empire reaches

its peak in the first millennium BCE,

it leaves a distinct imprint on the landscape.

MARK: In the ninth century,

but really continuing into the 8th and 7th centuries,

the Assyrians really start a major program of settlements.

NARRATOR: Assyria's major cities grow

to an unprecedented size, and remote,

rural settlements are abandoned.

Mark can even see how the cities begin to

link together.

link together.

Here, you can see some remnants of ancient roads going,

uh, from -- coming from the west and going to the east.

Some of these roads, we've been able to trace for really

hundreds of kilometers -- across into Syria, for instance.

NARRATOR: The roads reveal

the purpose of the stored documents in Nimrud.

MARK: They have a system similar to the Pony Express,

in many ways, in the 19th century in the United States,

or even the sort of highway system

created by Eisenhower in the 1950s -- they were kind of

created by Eisenhower in the 1950s -- they were kind of

meant to be a military communication network.

NARRATOR: The documents that the archaeologists

find in the Northwest Palace

are the personal correspondence

of the royal household.

The roads are the missing piece of the puzzle.

They are how the messages travel across the empire.

The roads also reveal that the location of

Ashurnasirpal's new capital is no accident.

It is ideally placed to gather up the spoils of war.

Looting and the removal of objects of conquered cities was

Looting and the removal of objects of conquered cities was

a typical part of warfare in these periods.

That was one way to pay your soldiers.

Another way to enrich the empire.

NARRATOR: The Assyrians gather all the valuables of anywhere

they conquer -- ivories,

precious stones, and fine pottery --

and take them back to Nimrud.

People are also a valuable commodity

and are forced from their homeland

to relocate across the empire.

And whole populations are transformed as a result.

And whole populations are transformed as a result.

MARK: They can potentially rebel against you

if you conquer them,

so moving them around prevents them,

at least, from rebelling against you.

NARRATOR: Ashurnasirpal sets the precedent for Assyria's

main weapon of war -- terror.

Inscriptions written by the king himself

proudly celebrate his cruelty.

He subjects his prisoners to horrible mutilation.

Hands, ears, and feet are cut off.

Others are decapitated, their heads displayed as

trophies on the walls of conquered cities.

Ashurnasirpal boasts of how he

forces other cities to pay tribute to him,

a tax that enriches him and Nimrud.

The king transforms the ancient world when he builds the city.

MARK: What the Assyrians were effectively doing was changing

the social fabric of the Near East -- by moving people around,

they transformed identities in the region.

They transformed loyalties.

They transformed loyalties.

They even transformed language, and that had long-term

repercussions that really influences even current

circumstances in the Middle East.

NARRATOR: As the might of the Assyrian army grows,

the empire's borders continue to expand.

Can the king still keep control of the empire from the city?

Or do new discoveries show that Nimrud's days

as the greatest city on earth are numbered?

NARRATOR: Nimrud in Northern Iraq.

Transformed into the capital of the ancient empire of

Assyria by King Ashurnasirpal in 883 BCE.

But more mysterious ruins 35 miles to the north

may reveal a sudden change in the fortunes of Nimrud.

This is the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh.

This bustling city is enclosed by seven miles of walls.

A large moat wraps around it as an extra layer of protection.

The water is channeled to lush gardens that

surround the palaces and houses.

Green oases dotted throughout Nineveh.

A busy dock and waterfront sits along the River Tigris

And at the center of it all,

an 80-room mega structure described in inscriptions as

an 80-room mega structure described in inscriptions as

a palace without rival.

What does this new city mean for Nimrud,

the greatest city on earth?

This palace lies beneath the foundations of a sacred

Ottoman mosque for over a millennium and cannot

be investigated.

But Islamic extremists target both

the ancient city and the mosque for destruction.

The mosque is one of 20 the Daesh

The mosque is one of 20 the Daesh

blow up during their occupation of northern Iraq.

And they raze Nineveh's monumental gateways

to the ground.

Today, our cameras have access to follow

a team of archaeologists from the University of Heidelberg.

They're running the first excavation project

here since Daesh were driven out.

Site director Peter Miglus is mapping

the site and has made incredible new discoveries.

[speaking indistinctly]

NARRATOR: Beneath the mosque,

the Daesh terrorists dig a network of tunnels

to smuggle looted artifacts out of the site.

NARRATOR: The lamassu is the iconic

NARRATOR: The lamassu is the iconic

protective deity of the Assyrian people.

Statues of them are placed at

the doorways of the city's most spectacular buildings.

Peter maps the tunnels and realizes they run

right through never-before-seen parts of the palace.

His investigations reveal the true scale of the largest

room ever found in any Assyrian building.

NARRATOR: This room is nearly 200 feet long and 60 feet wide.

Every wall is once decorated with stone reliefs,

just like the Northwest Palace at Nimrud.

NARRATOR: Some inscriptions have survived in this room,

buried beneath the mosque's foundations.

They reveal the names of kings.

They suggest a date for the building of this

palace and what it means for the capital at Nimrud.

NARRATOR: King Sennacherib takes the throne of the empire

in 705 BCE, 180 years after Ashurbanipal.

He inscribes his name all over the buildings in Nineveh,

and the team believes it reveals one

of the reasons he creates this new city.

STEFAN: We find here, for example, hundreds and hundreds

of inscribed bricks giving the name of the king.

And you see, 2,500 years after the destruction of the palace,

And you see, 2,500 years after the destruction of the palace,

we still find these documents.

So -- so the idea of the king being kept in mind

of the people for hundreds and hundreds of years,

this worked perfectly.

NARRATOR: Peter and his team are still

mapping the full extent of the palace.

But contemporary inscriptions suggest it is twice

the size of the palace at Nimrud.

Sennacherib moves the capital of the Assyrian Empire

from Nimrud here to Nineveh,

and to outshine the kings that rule before him,

he builds his palace without rival

to ensure Nimrud is no longer the greatest city on earth.

Stefan believes the move from Nimrud to Nineveh

might also be strategic.

STEFAN: A capital which is more in the north, from such

a capital could reach much easier Syria and Palestine.

So for practical and strategical reasons,

this would make sense.

this would make sense.

NARRATOR: Sennacherib rules the Assyrian Empire

at the very height of its power.

Its army is unmatched

and expands the empire's borders even further.

When he dies in 681 BCE,

the empire extends from modern-day Iraq to

Syria, Turkey,

Israel, and Lebanon.

But 65 years later, evidence at both Nineveh

and Nimrud suggests catastrophe strikes in

and Nimrud suggests catastrophe strikes in

both cities.

Assyria is the most powerful empire

in the known world for 200 years.

So what triggers its downfall?

NARRATOR: The ancient city of Nimrud,

one of the most important cities in the world

for 200 years, since Ashurnasirpal II

declares that his capital in 883 BCE.

When Alexander the Great's Greek army arrives here over

500 years later, the city is deserted.

Clues to the fate of Nimrud lie undiscovered

for a further two millennia.

Modern-day archaeologists unearth a series of wells

at Nimrud.

In a room in the Northwest Palace,

they find one over 80 feet deep

and make the dangerous descent to investigate.

At the bottom, they make a gruesome discovery --

180 skeletons stacked on top of each other.

Some have their wrists and ankles shackled, signs

they may have been thrown into this well alive.

Forensic analysis reveals they are all males.

Forensic analysis reveals they are all males.

What happens to these men?

And what do they reveal about the downfall

of Nimrud and the last days of the empire?

Mark Altaweel is on a mission to find out.

But first, he has to uncover the skeletons once again.

MARK: The remains were moved from this well

into a storage house near this well.

And as ISIS approached the area of Nimrud,

the responsible excavators of

the responsible excavators of

the site put them in a pit, effectively,

next to the storage house.

So the remains were buried,

effectively, to protect them from ISIS.

NARRATOR: Mark is one of the few

people trusted with their secret location.

His team has just one day to find

and recover the bones.

So they were not labeled separately.

Sounds like there is nothing

really organized about it whatsoever.

-Yeah. Skeleton in a box. -Basically.

NARRATOR: The bones were buried in a hurry, so the team

has no idea if they've survived in the ground.

I am worried that these skulls have fallen apart.

NARRATOR: After two hours of digging,

the excavation team finds what they're searching for.

-WOMAN: Oh, there's a jar. -It's a jar.

Yeah, this is what we're looking for, right?

Yeah? The teeth, right?

So at least some teeth survived. That's a good thing.

You can sample one of those teeth -- that's good.

You can sample one of those teeth -- that's good.

NARRATOR: This is an extraordinary discovery.

In total, the team finds at least

90 intact skulls buried on the site.

They can now examine them for vital clues

about the last days of the city of Nimrud.

The team transports the skeletons to a sterile lab.

The team transports the skeletons to a sterile lab.

Here, they prepare samples to test for diseases and DNA.

The archaeologists who originally unearth

the skeletons believe that these are

the remains of soldiers from the Assyrian army, taken

prisoner after Nimrud is ransacked.

Mark inspects the bones

and begins to doubt the archaeologists' theory.

MARK: Funny how a lot of them are just quite young.

I didn't expect that.

I guess they weren't Assyrian soldiers after all.

I guess they weren't Assyrian soldiers after all.

Or maybe they were child soldiers, or I suppose

they could have been just normal people.

NARRATOR: Mark's team uncovers injuries that also suggest

these men are unfit for the Assyrian army.

MARK: We do have, actually, some evidence.

There are some pathologies and injuries,

in fact, on the bones.

For instance, one of the bones seems to show evidence

of spina bifida, a kind of debilitating disease to

the spinal area.

NARRATOR: The team's examination reveals what

happens at the downfall of Nimrud.

The city is ransacked by its enemies, and they are as

brutal and as merciless as the Assyrians had been to them.

No one is spared, not even the young

or the disabled --

shackled and drowned in the palace wells,

a harrowing death.

One set of inscriptions known as the Babylonian

Chronicles reveals the identity of Assyria's brutal enemy.

Chronicles reveals the identity of Assyria's brutal enemy.

In 631 BCE,

the last great king of Assyria dies

and political disputes leave the empire weakened,

with rebellions across the kingdom.

In 614 BCE, two neighboring people,

the Medes and the Babylonians, attack

and conquer the major Assyrian cities one by one.

These allies combined their men into a single

force large enough to confront the empire's massive army.

They overwhelm and destroy Nineveh and Nimrud,

and the mighty empire falls.

At the British Museum, curator Sebastien Rey

finds evidence that the rebels ransacked

the throne room of the Northwest Palace

and find its elaborate wall decorations.

and find its elaborate wall decorations.

SEBASTIEN: And so they targeted the image of the king,

the symbol of his power.

And if you look closely, you will see that he has been

blinded in an important and symbolic way

to make sure that the symbol of the power of Assyria would

be completely nullified, would be obliterated from history.

NARRATOR: Nimrud lies in ruins,

and the legacy that the mighty Assyrian kings try

so hard to preserve in inscriptions and sculpture is

so hard to preserve in inscriptions and sculpture is

lost to the desert sands.

But do the creators of the world's first true

empire leave behind a surprising invention

that will benefit every empire builder that follows?

NARRATOR: The ancient city of Nimrud,

once the most spectacular city on Earth.

But in 612 BCE,

it meets a sudden and unexpected end,

destruction by the enemies of the Assyrian Empire.

It lies forgotten for over 2,000 years.

When investigators rediscover the city in the 19th century,

language experts

work for decades to translate the writing tablets

work for decades to translate the writing tablets

uncovered at the site.

They realize that many of the tablets are letters

and that they reveal a sophisticated system that

the Assyrians use to run their successful

global enterprise.

Stephanie Dalley and Lara Bampfield are some of the few

people in the world that can read Akkadian,

the ancient language of the Assyrian people.

The Nimrud letters

are correspondence that involve the king.

They are correspondence that involve elites.

They are correspondence that involve elites.

NARRATOR: The letters show how the empire functions

as a whole unit.

There were messengers coming and going all

the time with orders directly from the king.

A lot of the letters are from the provincial governors,

for example -- it's quite extraordinary

how far the reach goes.

NARRATOR: The letters reveal that there is a large

number of high-ranking officials beneath the king,

number of high-ranking officials beneath the king,

the king's most trusted bureaucrats.

Ancient scribes use wooden writing tools to press shapes

into the wet clay, writing messages on their behalf.

They entrust messengers to transport these clay

tablets from city to city over enormous distances.

One letter comes from the city of Tyre in modern-day Lebanon,

500 miles from Nimrud.

The letters also show the softer side of the kings,

very different to how they portray themselves

very different to how they portray themselves

in their palace reliefs.

One letter describes a group of

prisoners taken from a conquered city.

They say things like, "Please make

"sure there's enough for them to eat,

"and if anybody is ill among the deportees,

"take him out of the group and look after him

until he's well again."

Another tiny object, found in large numbers

in excavations across

the empire, reveals how administrators can trust that

the empire, reveals how administrators can trust that

the letters are genuine.

So here, we have the impression

from a stamp seal of the king,

which shows the king on the left-hand side in combat

with a rearing beast.

The seals are important, because they are a signature.

They mark it

as being overseen and condoned by the owner of the seal.

NARRATOR: This strict bureaucracy

may seem obvious today,

but in the first millennium BCE,

it is revolutionary.

Every empire that follows, from the Romans to

the Persians, adopts it to control their own territories.

This administration system is Assyria's greatest legacy,

an invention that survives even after

its once great cities are forgotten.

The Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal,

builds the spectacular capital city of Nimrud.

The jewel in the city's crown is

the impressive Northwest Palace, decorated with

distinctive wall reliefs

and giant wing statutes that become

the iconic symbols of the world's first true empire.

For 200 years, the city flourishes and grows

wealthy before its citizens meet their terrible fate

wealthy before its citizens meet their terrible fate

when Assyria's enemies rebel.

Assyria's true legacy,

their efficient administration,

their harsh management of the people

they conquer, and their professional standing army

sets the standard for every empire that follows,

and the city of Nimrud changes

the landscape of the Near East forever.