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
Nimrud ivories any other Assyrian site, and it is thought that they had been brought to Nimrud as booty or imported as luxury goods from cities on the Mediterranean coast. Some centuries later it seems that these objects fell out of fashion, and were put into storage. The first group of ivories was excavated from the site of the palace of Shalmaneser III (ruled 859–824 BC) at the Assyrian capital of Nimrud. The palace was rediscovered in 1845 by Austin Henry Layard, on the very first day of his excavations; on the second day, he made the first discovery of ivories. More