British Museum Department of the Middle East group of stone reliefs from the excavations of Max von Oppenheim at Tell Halaf that was purchased in 1920. More material followed from the excavations of Max Mallowan at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in 1935–1938 and from Woolley at Alalakh in the years just before and after the Second World War. Mallowan returned with his wife Agatha Christie to carry out further digs at Nimrud in the postwar period which secured many important artefacts for the museum. The collection of Palestinian material was strengthened by the work of Kathleen Kenyon at Jericho in the 1950s and the acquisition in
Old Assyrian Empire EA 16 has been contested as a faulty writing of Ashur-nadin-apli, another Assyrian king. He was succeeded by his brother, Eriba-Adad I, the first king of the Middle Assyrian Empire. Old Assyrian Empire The Old Assyrian Empire is one of four periods in which the history of Assyria is divided, the other three being the Early Assyrian Period, the Middle Assyrian Empire, and the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East. Centered on the Tigris–Euphrates river system in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrian people came to rule powerful empires at several