Global Arab Network | Syrian Archaeologists: 3000-year-old Aramean Gods go on show in Germany

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Syrian Archaeologists: 3000-year-old Aramean Gods go on show in Germany

Friday, 04 February 2011 22:33

Syria_Aramean_Gods_of_Tell_Halaf_in_Syria

Germany (Berlin) - A treasure trove of 3,000-year-old giant birds, lions, and goddesses go on show in Berlin, Syrian Archaeologists told reporters. This treasure was discovered a hundred years ago in the Syrian desert, and destroyed in World War II, then it was renovated in the last nine years after being forgotten for a long time. In a process of re-shaping the broken statues, German archaeologists succeeded in re-collecting properties of Tell Halaf in Berlin to be re-exhibited to audience at the Museum of the city.

The ruins of Syrian Tell Halaf, Hasakeh, northern Syria near the Khabour River had been destroyed and shattered into thousands of pieces during World War II. 20110204-191650.jpgThe exhibition is titled "Rescued Gods of the Palace of Tell Halaf" and includes 60 statues and a number of inscriptions which have been restored through the combination of 27.000 pieces of basalt stone from the rubble of a museum in Berlin.

The exhibition is open to the public until August 14. The Pergamon on Berlin's central Museum Island is expected, at some future date, to be made its permanent home. In the meantime, the exhibition might tour the United States, Britain, and France.

German archaeologist Max von Oppenheim, the son of a banker, led the group of archaeologists and specialists during excavations at Tell Halaf site between 1911 and 1913 while surveying the area to build Berlin-Baghdad railway in north Syria along the Syrian borders with Turkey.

He first put the figures on display in Berlin in 1930, at a private museum in a former iron foundry that was destroyed during the war.

Oppenheim special museum was destroyed by the allied bombing of Berlin in 1943, all artefacts made of wood and gypsum were burnt to a cinder. Only the basalt rock statues survived the inferno, but cold water used by firemen fractured them nearly beyond repair.
(SANA)

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