A SMALL case containing a single object of baked clay now greets visitors to Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum.

The small terracotta figure is almost 3,000 years old. It is a protective spirit that had been buried beneath the foundations of a palace in Nimrud, placed there to protect a king and the people of Assyria.

Sadly, This week positioned close to the Ashmolean’s main information desk, it is sadly serving an altogether different purpose. The little piece is there to remind everyone of what has been lost in the Middle East, where Islamic State militants have destroyed one of the world’s finest archaeological treasures.

Dr Paul Collins, Jaleh Hearn curator for ancient near east at the Ashmolean, had long feared the worst following reports and video footage in February and March showing the destruction of sculptures and artefacts, with bulldozers and sledgehammers smashing 3,000-year-old reliefs.

But now even more shocking images have been posted online showing the ancient city of Nimrud being reduced to dust, with a massive explosion marking the end of the city which has stood since the 13th century BC.

“This time the entire site has been destroyed,” said Dr Collins. "We had thought that the bulldozers would have left some remains.

The attack has caused global outrage. But the destruction of Nimrud, which lies 20 miles south east of Mosul, the Islamists’ stronghold, is being felt with particularly acute pain in Oxford, which has close links to the city.

A wall in the Ashmolean’s Near East Gallery is dedicated to a display of carved marble reliefs dating from the period of the Assyrian empire (900BC to 600BC) from the ruined palaces of Nimrud and Nineveh. The reliefs commemorate the achievements of their rulers and their impact on neighbouring peoples and provinces.

Treasures from Nimrud include elaborately-carved ivories taken by the Assyrians from kingdoms to the west, either as tribute or spoils of war. In north Mesopotamia, the kingdom of Assyria developed as a powerful state. Between 900BC and 620BC it established itself as the world’s first extensive empire, unifying a region reaching from the Persian Gulf to Egypt. Nimrud was the empire’s first great capital city.

Treasures were brought to Oxford from Iraq following excavations undertaken in the 19th century and the middle of the 20th century.

The Ashmolean has the second-largest collection of Nimrud objects in the UK, with roughly 330 artefacts that include . Among the collection are three relief panels from the Northwest Palace, excavated by the British explorer Austen Layard between 1845 and 1851.

Although an immensely ancient town dating back to 5500BC, Nimrud was developed into an imperial centre by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (883BC to 859 BC) with a series of richly-decorated palaces and temples.

Sir Henry’s excavation uncovered stone reliefs and winged bulls and lions. The work was supported by the British government and many of his finds, including examples of the carved stone panels and sculpted gate colossi, were transported to Britain.

“While examples of relief slabs were also sent to museums and institutions around the world, many were left where they were found and reburied,” said Dr Collins.

The Ashmolean was to received a significant quantity of artefacts from excavations by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq in the 1950s. Objects, including statues, figurines, jewellery, ceramic vessels and ivory writing boards, were gifted to the museum as a result of financial donations to the archaeological dig.

Sir Max Mallowan, the husband of the crime writer Agatha Christie, was a key figure in these later excavations. The pair, who married in 1930, set up home in Oxfordshire in 1934 at Winterbrook House, just outside Wallingford.

Sir Max later became a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford in 1962 and was knighted in 1968. The pair are buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church, Cholsey.

Dr Collins said: “Large parts of Ashurnasirpal’s palace were investigated by Iraqi archaeologists during the 1970s and 1980s and their work included the re-installation and repair of fallen stone reliefs, many with trances of the original paint that covered them. The winged bull statues that guard the entrances to the most important rooms and courtyard were also re-erected. The restoration projects also revealed several tombs of Assyrian queens that lay below the floors in one area of the palace.

“The reconstruction of the palace also allowed visitors, including regular parties of schoolchildren, to experience the buildings’ scale and beauty, as well as bringing scholars closer to understanding its role in the lives of the ancient Assyrians.

“There was only a slim chance that these impressive archaeological remains would be overlooked by IS since an attack on them would guarantee world attention.

“These acts are not only an attack on the people of Iraq but also the roots of our modern urbanised world. We still have the sense that at least part of the jigsaw survives here, but the far larger part has now gone.”

Within days of Islamic State releasing a video showing the destruction of architectural treasures at Nimrud, journalists from the New York Times to Al Jazeera were contacting Dr Collins as a leading authority on what was being lost.

When he delivered a lecture on April 2 earlier on What the World is Losing in Iraq, Dr Collins was still clinging to the hope that something would be left for the people of Iraq. Now those hopes have been shattered.

“When I gave the talk we had no real information about the level of destruction. Now we know it has been completely destroyed.”

The new video, set to a backdrop of music, shows jihadists pledging to remove “all signs of idolatry” before placing barrels apparently filled with explosives and blowing up three separate areas of the site.

A deep crater in the ground is now all that appears to remain of the once proud city following the explosions, with the destruction of this priceless legacy complete and little remaining beyond the exhibits in museums from Baghdad to the Ashmolean.