Layla Salih

Layla Salih (born 1975) is an Iraqi archaeologist. As head of the Nineveh Antiquities section in the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, she has been responsible for the monitoring, rescue, and documentation of Ancient Near Eastern art and architecture following its destruction by ISIS. She is known for her discovery of one of Esarhaddon's palaces in Nineveh.

Early life Layla Salih was born in Mosul in 1975 in the family of an ex-soldier. She was the fourth of seven sons and six daughters.

She obtained her undergraduate degree in archaeology from the University of Baghdad. During the Iraq War, she completed a master's degree in archaeology.

Salih's oldest brother, Nadhim, was killed during the First Battle of al-Faw in 1986. She lost a brother to an al-Qaeda bomb in 2007. In 2011, her sister Khawlah, who was working for the Iraqi government, was shot by militants. When the militant group ISIS occupied Mosul, Salih and her family first evacuated to Kirkuk. She lived in Baghdad for a period, before moving to Erbil. There she joined the office of the provincial governor of Nineveh. Two Assyrian lamassu and a winged lion, each nearly 2 metres tall, which had been the centrepieces of the museum, were destroyed. Ninety-four precious objects of Assyrian history as well as Hellenic works were plundered or wrecked. Salih and others begged ISIS to destroy the tombs and to leave the buildings intact, but the militants did not spare either the tombs or the buildings.

Nimrud ISIS was driven out of Nineveh province in November 2016. Salih and a colleague, Faisal Jaber, investigated and reported on the destruction of Christian sites in the province. Next, Salih was tasked with examining the scale of the damage wrought on the monuments in Nimrud. At the time, she was the only antiquities official able to survey the scene, as nearly 50 other Iraqi archaeologists remained trapped in ISIS-controlled Mosul. Salih estimated that about 60 percent of the site was irredeemable, but she also felt that because a lot of the wreckage remained on location, much could be restored. In contrast to previously known reliefs in which figures were depicted in profile, these were in frontal pose. Salih also discovered two alabaster lamassu.

Salih reported that more than a hundred items of pottery, which were likely taken from the Nabi Yunus tunnels by ISIS, were recovered from a house in Mosul.

Selected publications