DUR-SHARRUKIN (KHORSABAD)

Sargon II (721—705 BC) founded his capital at a previously uninhabited location on the Khosr River, a tributary of the Tigris, 24km to the north of Nineveh. He named his new city Dur-Shar-rukin, the “Fortress of Sargon,” but today it is generally called Khorsabad, after the modern village nearby. Like Akhenaten’s Amarna, this town was used only in the lifetime of its builder. After Sargon was killed in battle, his successors preferred Nineveh. Without royal patronage, Dur-Sharrukin did not survive.

The site has been well explored, from the early efforts of Botta and Place to the expedition of the University of Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, and the city plan is clear and instructive (Figure 10.5). Other finds have not fared well: much of the sculpture was sadly lost in 1855 when brigands in the lower Tigris region attacked and capsized boats transporting some 300 cases of finds to Basra and Europe.

The city occupied a square-shaped area of nearly 300ha. Its sturdy walls, 20m thick, were of mud brick on a stone foundation, and studded with towers. Seven gates, placed asymmetrically, gave access to the city. As at Kalhu and Nineveh, two sectors were set off from the town proper, protected by a separate set of walls, the Citadel, with the royal palace, in the north-west, and the Imperial Arsenal in the south.

The palace of Sargon II dominates the citadel (Figure 10.6). It sits elevated on a brick platform that rises to the height of the city walls, above the ground level of the rest of the citadel. Like the Northwest Palace at Kalhu, this palace was laid out with a public and a private section. The public rooms were grouped around an outer and an inner court. The Throne Room lay off the inner court, with access given by three doorways. Colossal lamassu guarded the entrance. The interior was decorated with relief sculpture behind the throne and wall paintings elsewhere; painting was a cheaper alternative to sculptured slabs. Behind the Throne Room a smaller court served as the focus of the private quarters of the ruler. Throughout the palace stairs gave access to the flat roof, held up by long beams of such wood as cedar, cypress, juniper, and maple.

Buildings on the citadel seem to have been placed together in haphazard fashion. The axis of the palace is not perpendicular to the city walls. This asymmetrical layout is seen also in the overall palace enclosure and the walls of the citadel. The Nabu Temple, composed of two courts and enclosed sanctuaries aligned on a separate brick terrace, connected to the palace platform by

(Khorsabad)

Figure 10.6 Citadel plan, Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad)

A bridge, is oriented on its own diagonal, and wedged into the southern part of the citadel. For a complex laid out in a single period this lack of concern for harmony in the placing of buildings is curious and distinctive.

Few architectural remains have been found in the interior of the city. The excavation team spent little effort here, to be sure, but it may well be that the city, in its short life, never attracted much of a population.