BERLIN—Sixty years after they were reduced to 25,000 fragments during a World War II bombing raid, and seven years since work began on restoring them, 30 ancient Syrian sculptures are close to being reconstructed.

The basalt statues, dating back to nearly 1,000 B.C., are from the historic Tell Halaf site in Syria, which was discovered in 1899 by a German diplomat who brought back some of his excavated finds to Berlin and placed them on display in a museum he opened there. Fire and wire damage resulting from the British raid reduced the sculptures to fragments that ended up owned by a West German foundation but housed in an East German museum. German reunification in 1990 brought renewed attention to the fragments, but it wasn’t until 2002 that the lengthy and painstaking reconstruction project began. It’s expected to be completed in October, to be followed by a 2010 exhibition at Berlin’s Museum of the Ancient Near East, where the sculptures will reside.

Read more at the Art Newspaper.