• Ann

    A real archaeological puzzle: Germans reassemble ancient sculptures destroyed in WWII

    After nine years of shifting through WWII bombing debris, restoration experts have puzzled back together over 30 Aramaean sculptures and reliefs. Watch the slideshow. When in November 1943 an air raid on Berlin destroyed the Tell Halaf Museum and its contents, it was thought one of Germany’s most important Near Eastern collections was lost forever. A year later more than 27,000 fragments were recovered from the museum’s ruins and taken to the cellars of the Pergamon Museum for storage. Luckily, archaeologists never throw something away. Restoration of the 3000-year-old sculptures and bas-reliefs eventually started in 2001. Now, after almost a…