Mosul discoveries brought to light in new documentary

In 2014, Mosul fell under the control of ISIS (also called Daesh). During its three-year reign, the militants destroyed artifacts and buildings saying they were forms of idolatry. As the CBC news channel explains, they also targeted sites for looting and to get attention, filming the destruction and sharing it in propaganda videos online. 

But ISIS’s actions inadvertently created opportunities. Sifting through the wreckage after ISIS’s occupation, archaeologists have gained new insights into this great ancient city. The city of Mosul in northern Iraq encompasses what was once Nineveh, the largest city in the seventh century BC and capital of Assyria, the world’s first superpower. 

Lost World of the Hanging Gardens looks at new discoveries in the ashes of ISIS’s occupation and explores whether Nineveh was in fact the site of a lost wonder of the world — the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.