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 Nimrud Nimrud (; ) is the name that Carsten Niebuhr attributed for the ancient Assyrian city of Kalhu (the Biblical "Calah"), located south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah (), in the Nineveh plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a major Assyrian city between approximately 1350 BC and 610 BC. The city is located in a strategic position north of the point that the river Tigris meets its tributary the Great Zab. The city covered an area of . The ruins of the city were found within of the modern-day Assyrian village of Noomanea