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Recycled replica of Assyrian statue destroyed by Daesh unveiled in London

The replica of Assyrian statue is made up of 6,000 recycled date syrup tin cans.

March 29, 2018 at 9:59 am

The fourth plinth of Trafalgar square, central London, has become the new home for a replica of an Assyrian statue, created by Michael Rakowitz, a 44-year-old Iraqi-American artist. The statue replicates one destroyed by Daesh in the ancient Iraqi city of Nineveh, in February 2015.

The 14ft statue is part of a broader project by Rakowitz, designed to rebuild some 7,000 objects known to have been looted from the National Museum of Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion by the US-led coalition.

“The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist” is a sculpture of a lamassu, a mythological winged bull creature with the head of a man that stood guard over the city of Nineveh for over a thousand years until it was desecrated by Daesh.

It is made up of 6,000 recycled date syrup tin cans in an effort to highlight the importance of the date industry in Iraq before the wars that have damaged the country and its economy.

Read: Contradictions abound in Turkey’s military incursions in Iraq and Syria