Nineveh

One of the most important cities of ancient Assyria and Mesopotamia, situated on the left bank of the Tigris River in the outskirts of the modern city of Mosul, Iraq. Most of ancient Nineveh (or Ninua) lies beneath two sprawling debris mounds—Tell Kuyunjik and Tell Nebi-Yunus. The site of Nineveh was first inhabited as early as the seventh millennium B. C. Sometime later in prehistoric times, a temple of the goddess Ishtar (later associated with Inanna) was erected there, a building that was subsequently rebuilt several times.

Nineveh’s short but glorious heyday began when the Sargonid king Sennacherib (reigned ca. 704-681 b. c.) abandoned the capital of Dur-Sharukkin and made Nineveh his capital. Around Nineveh he erected a mighty double wall some 7.4 miles (12km) long and nearly 50 feet (15m) high, with fifteen large gates. Sennacherib also installed a series of canals and aqueducts to supply the city with

A reconstruction of the Palace Without Rival and other buildings at Nineveh before that city’s destruction in the 7th century b. c. © Bettmann/Corbis

Water and built a magnificent royal residence, the so-called Palace Without Rival. His successors, Esarhaddon and Ashurban-ipal, also built palaces there, and Ashurba-nipal created his famous library/archive of some twenty-four thousand clay tablets. The city also contained botanical gardens and a zoo. Nineveh was destroyed in 612 B. C. after a three-month-long siege conducted by the Medes and the Babylonians. A vivid account of the city’s fall was penned by the Hebrew prophet Nahum in his narrative in the old Testament.

Numerous archaeologists and other modern scholars have excavated at Nineveh. The first to explore its vast ruins were the noted early Assyriologists Paul Emile Botta; Austen Henry Layard, who found Sennacherib’s palace and Ashurbanipal’s library; William K. Loftus; and Hormuzd Rassam. Later a French team worked at the site, and then came an expedition in the early 1900s sponsored by the British Museum, a dig directed by L. W. King. Since World War II, various Iraqi teams have also excavated at Nineveh. For Nahum’s account of Nineveh’s destruction, see Bible.

See Also: Assyrian Empire; Botta, Paul Emile; Layard, Austen Henry; libraries; Nahum; palaces; Palace Without Rival