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 Slab Nimrud Slab The Nimrud Slab, also known as the Calah Orthostat Slab, is the top half of a "summary inscription" of the reign of Adad-nirari III (811 to 783 BC) discovered in 1854 in by William Loftus in his excavations at Nimrud on behalf of the "Assyrian Excavation Fund". It is the best known of the inscriptions of Adad-nirari III, since it includes a description of early Assyrian conquests in Syria and Palestine. The inscription was carved on a gypsum slab, and the surviving part of the inscription is thought to represent the top half of the original slab. The