A decade after jihadists ransacked Iraq’s famed Nimrud site, archaeologists have been painstakingly putting together its ancient treasures, shattered into tens of thousands of tiny fragments.
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Once the crown jewel of the ancient Assyrian empire, the archaeological site was ravaged by Islamic State (IS) fighters after they seized large areas of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in 2014.
The precious pre-Islamic artefacts destroyed by the jihadists are now in pieces, but the archaeologists working in Nimrud are undaunted by the colossal task they face.
“Every time we find a piece and bring it to its original place, it’s like a new discovery,” said Abdel Ghani Ghadi, a 47-year-old expert working on the site.
More than 500 artefacts were found shattered at the site, located about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Mosul, the city in northern Iraq where IS established the capital of their self-declared “caliphate”.
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Meticulous excavation work by Iraqi archaeologists has already yielded more than 35,000 fragments.