Beneath layers of earth in the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh, a team of archaeologists from Heidelberg University has uncovered one of the most significant finds in decades in the region. The colossal stone slab is five meters long and weighs about 12 tons. But what’s more impressive is who it depicts: Ashurbanipal flanked by the gods Ashur and Ishtar.

They are followed by a fish-cloaked figure — a “fish genius” — who, according to ancient beliefs, conferred salvation and life. Just behind him stands another figure, its arms lifted in what archaeologists interpret as reverence or invocation. It may once have been a scorpion-man, a hybrid being that guarded the gates of the divine realm in Mesopotamian mythology.

Researchers found many relief images in Assyrian palaces, but until now, there were no depictions of major deities, says Aaron Schmitt, a professor at Heidelberg University.

A throne room unlike any other

The relief work is part of the Heidelberg Nineveh Project, a long-term collaboration between Heidelberg University and Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. Since 2018, researchers under the direction of Prof. Dr. Stefan Maul have been working to piece together the layers of Nineveh’s lost splendor. Schmitt’s excavation began in 2022 and has focused on the palace’s core sector, once the seat of power for one of history’s most formidable empires.

The Assyrian Empire shaped the ancient world for centuries. At its height, it stretched from the Persian Gulf to Egypt, fusing military power with administrative innovation and cultural ambition. But its fall was swift and brutal. By the late seventh century BC, Nineveh was destroyed, its palaces burned, and its gods cast into the shadows.

Nineveh lies near the modern Iraqi city of Mosul. Under King Sennacherib in the late eighth century BC, Nineveh became the capital of the Assyrian Empire, and under Ashurbanipal — its last great king — it reached unprecedented intellectual and artistic heights. But as the empire fell, so did its capital. It was only at the end of the 19th century that British researchers rediscovered the North Palace of ancient Nineveh, discovering large-scale reliefs that are now exhibited in the British Museum.

“The fact that these fragments were buried is surely one reason why the British archeologists never found them over a hundred years ago,” assumes Prof. Schmitt.

The new discoveries will take a different path: one closer to home. The relief will remain at the original site and be placed in a local exhibition open to the public.

Reassessing a legendary king

The discovery comes amid renewed efforts to preserve and better understand Mesopotamia’s cultural legacy, much of which has been threatened by war, looting, and neglect. In addition to being a remarkable find in itself, the relief also offers some insights about the featured legendary king.

King Ashurbanipal was the last great ruler of the Assyrian Empire, but there’s much we don’t know about him. He’s remembered as both a ruthless conqueror and literary patron and seems to have left a complex legacy. The image of him standing among the gods is more than just flattery — it hints at political theology. It could be, that for Assyrians, mortal rule and cosmic order were inseparable.

As the relief emerges from the soil after more than two millennia, it gives us something rare: not just a window into a vanished empire, but a glimpse of what that empire believed about itself.

The fragments are being carefully documented and digitally reconstructed. A 3D model is already in the works. Over the coming months, the researchers will analyze every figure and every groove to understand the story the stone is telling.