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Courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago

Newspapers and periodicals, including the popular Illustrated London News, covered the arrival of Layard’s antiquities from Nimrud the late 1840s. Among these objects were relief carvings, such as the one depicting a siege by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 B.C.). Layard also shipped back a 7-foot-tall stone stela known as the Black Obelisk (shown in the newspaper). Each of the stela’s four sides is carved with five registers of scenes showing tribute being paid to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (858–824 B.C.).