Nineveh

36°21′34″N 43°09′10″E / 36.35944°N 43.15278°E / 36.35944; 43.15278

Nineveh (Akkadian: Ninua; Syriac: ܢܝܢܘܐ, Ninua) was an important city in ancient Assyria. This "exceeding great city", as it is called in the Book of Jonah, lay on the eastern bank of the Tigris in modern-day Mosul, Iraq.

Geography

Ancient Nineveh's mound-ruins (36°22'N 43°09'E), Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus are located on a level part of the plain near the junction of the Tigris River and the Khosr River within an 1800-acre (730 ha) area circumscribed by a seven and one-half mile (12 km) brick-rampart. This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins overlaid in parts by the city of Mosul. Situated at the confluence of the Tigris and Khosr, Nineveh was an important junction for commercial routes crossing the Tigris. Occupying a central position on the great highway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, thus uniting the East and the West, wealth flowed into it from many sources, so that it became one of the greatest of all the region's ancient cities.^{[citation needed]}

History

Texts from the Hellenistic period and later accepted Ninus as the eponymous founder of Nineveh. Nineveh is mentioned about 1800 BC as a worship place of Ištar, who was responsible for the city's early importance. The goddess´ cult statue was sent to Pharaoh Amenhotep III of Egypt in the 14th century BC, by orders of the king of Mitanni. The city of Nineveh was one of Mitanni's vassals until the mid 14th century BC, when the Assyrian kings of Assur seized it. There is no large body of evidence to show that Assyrian monarchs built at all extensively in Nineveh during the 2nd millennium BC. Later monarchs whose inscriptions have appeared on the Acropolis include Shalmaneser I and Tiglath-Pileser I, both of whom were active builders in Assur; the former had founded Calah (Nimrud). Nineveh had to wait for the neo-Assyrian kings, particularly from the time of Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883-859 BC) onward, for a considerable architectural expansion. Thereafter successive monarchs kept in repair and founded new palaces, temples to Sîn, Nergal, Šamaš, Ištar, and Nabiu of Borsippa.

File:Ninevhhpalacehuntingrelief.jpg

Refined low-relief section of a bull-hunt frieze from Nineveh, alabaster, ca 695 BC (Pergamon Museum), Berlin

It was Sennacherib who made Nineveh a truly magnificent city (c. 700 BC). He laid out fresh streets and squares and built within it the famous "palace without a rival", the plan of which has been mostly recovered and has overall dimensions of about 210 by 200 m (630 by 600 ft). It comprised at least 80 rooms, of which many were lined with sculpture. A large number of tablets were found in the palace. Some of the principal doorways were flanked by human-headed bulls. At this time the total area of Nineveh comprised about 1,800 acres (7 km²), and 15 great gates penetrated its walls. An elaborate system of 18 canals brought water from the hills to Nineveh, and several sections of a magnificently constructed aqueduct erected by the same monarch were discovered at Jerwan, about 40 km (25 miles) distant. The enclosed area had more than 100,000 inhabitants (maybe closer to 150,000), about twice as many as Babylon at the time, placing it among the largest settlements worldwide.^[1]

Nineveh's greatness was short-lived. About 633 BC the Assyrian empire began to show signs of weakness, and Nineveh was attacked by the Medes, who about 625 BC, joined by the Babylonians and Susianians, again attacked it. Nineveh fell in 612 BC, and was razed to the ground. The people in the city who could not escape to the last Assyrian strongholds in the west, were either massacred or deported. Many unburied skeletons were found by the archaeologists at the site. The Assyrian empire then came to an end, the Medes and Babylonians dividing its provinces between them.

Following the defeat in 612 BC, Nineveh faded in importance. The site remained unoccupied for centuries until the Sassanian period. The city is mentioned again in the Battle of Nineveh in 627 AD, which was fought between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanian Empire of Persia near the ancient city. From the Arab conquest 637 AD until modern time the city of Mosul on the opposite bank of the river Tigris became the successor of ancient Nineveh.

Nineveh in classical history

Before the excavations in the 1800s, historical knowledge of the great Assyrian empire and of its magnificent capital was almost wholly a blank. Vague memories had indeed survived of its power and greatness, but very little was definitely known about it. Other cities which had perished, such as Palmyra, Persepolis, and Thebes, had left ruins to mark their sites and tell of their former greatness; but of this city, imperial Nineveh, not a single vestige seemed to remain, and the very place on which it had stood was only matter of conjecture.

In the days of the Greek historian Herodotus, 400 BC, it had become a thing of the past; and when Xenophon the historian passed the place in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand the very memory of its name had been lost. It was buried out of sight.

Archaeology

Today, Nineveh's location is marked by two large mounds, Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus "Prophet Jonah", and the remains of the city walls (about 12 km/7.5 mi in circumference). The Neo-Assyrian levels of Kouyunjik have been extensively explored. The other mound, Nabī Yūnus, has not been extensively explored because there is a Muslim shrine dedicated to that prophet on the site. However, Iraqi excavations on Nabī Yūnus in 1990 exposed a number of large Neo-Assyrian sculptures that appeared to be the entrance to a palace.

In the 19th century, the French consul at Mosul began to search the vast mounds that lay along the opposite bank of the river. The Arabs whom he employed in these excavations, to their great surprise, came upon the ruins of a building at the mound of Khorsabad, which, on further exploration, turned out to be the royal palace of Sargon II, which were largely explored for sculptures and other precious relics.

In 1847 the young British adventurer Sir Austen Henry Layard explored the ruins. In the Kuyunjik mound Layard rediscovered in 1849 the lost palace of Sennacherib across the Tigris River from modern Mosul in northern Iraq, with its 71 rooms and colossal bas-reliefs. He also unearthed the palace and famous library of Ashurbanipal with 22,000 inscribed clay tablets. The study of the archaeology of Nineveh reveals the wealth and glory of ancient Assyria under kings such as Esarhaddon (681-669 B.C.) and Ashurbanipal (669-626 B.C.).

The work of exploration would be carried on by George Smith, Hormuzd Rassam, and others, and a vast treasury of specimens of Assyria was exhumed for European museums. Palace after palace was discovered, with their decorations and their sculptured slabs, revealing the life and manners of this ancient people, their arts of war and peace, the forms of their religion, the style of their architecture, and the magnificence of their monarchs.

The mound of Kuyunjik would be excavated again by the archaeologists of the British Museum, lead by Leonard William King, at the beginning of the twentieth century. The efforts concentrated on the site of the Temple of Nabu, the God of writing, where another cuneiform library was supposed to exist. However, no such library was ever found: most likely, it had been destroyed by the activities of later residents.

The excavations started again in 1927, under the direction of Campbell Thompson, who had already taken part in King's expeditions. These excavations, however, were rather unfortunate. Some works were carried out outside Kouyunjik, for instance on the mound of Nebi Yunus, which was the ancient arsenal of Nineveh, or along the outside walls. Here, near the North-Western corner of the walls, beyond the pavement of a later building, the archaeologists found almost 300 fragments of prisms recording the royal annals of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, besides a prisms of Esarhaddon which was almost perfect.

Nineveh was revisited by British archaeologist and Assyriologist Professor David Stronach of the University of California, Berkeley. (1981 to present). He conducted a series of surveys and digs at the site from 1987-1990, focusing his attentions to the several gates and the existent mud brick walls, as well as the system that supplied water to the city in times of siege. After the Second World War, several excavations had been carried out by Iraqi archaeologists.

City wall & gates

The ruins of Nineveh are surrounded by the remains of a massive stone and mudbrick wall dating from about 700 B.C.E. About 12 km. in length, the wall system consisted of an ashlar stone retaining wall about 6 m. high surmounted by a mudbrick wall about 10 m. high and 15 m. thick. The stone retaining wall had projecting stone towers spaced about every 18 m. The stone wall and towers were topped by 3-step merlons.

The city wall was fitted with fifteen monumental gateways. In addition to serving as check points on entering and exiting the city, these structures were probably used as barracks and armories. With the inner and outer doors closed, the gateways were virtual fortresses. The bases of the walls of the vaulted passages and interior chambers of the gateway were lined with finely cut stone orthostats about 1 m. high. A stairway led from one of the interior chambers to the top of the mudbrick wall.

Five of the gateways have been explored to some extent by archaeologists:

Mashki Gate - Translated "Gate of the Watering Places", it was perhaps used to take livestock to water from the River Tigris which currently flows about 1.5 km. to the west. It has been reconstructed in fortified mudbrick to the height of the top of the vaulted passageway and seems accurate as far as it goes. The Assyrian original may have been plastered and ornamented.

Nergal Gate - Named for the god Nergal, it may have been used for some ceremonial purpose, as it is the only known gate flanked by stone sculptures of winged bull-men (lamassu). The reconstruction is conjectural, as the gate was excavated by Layard in the mid 19th century, and reconstructed in the mid 20th century.

Adad Gate - Named for the god Adad. A reconstruction was begun in the 1960s by Iraqis, but was not completed. The result is an uneasy mixture of concrete and eroding mudbrick, which nontheless does give one some idea of the original structure. Fortunately, the excavator left some features unexcavated, allowing a view of the original Assyrian construction. The original brickwork of the outer vaulted passageway is well exposed, as is the entrance of the vaulted stairway to the upper levels. The actions of Nineveh's last defenders can be seen in the hastily built mudbrick construction which narrows the passageway from 4 m. to 2 m.

Shamash Gate - Named for the Sun god Shamash, it opens to the road to Arbil. It was excavated by Layard in the 19th century. The stone retaining wall and part of the mudbrick structure were reconstructed in the 1960s. The mudbrick reconstruction has deteriorated significantly. The stone wall projects outward about 20 m. from the line of main wall for a length of about 70 m. It is the only gate with such a significant projection. The mound of its remains towers above the surrounding terrain. Its size and design suggest it was the most important gate in Neo-Assyrian times.

Halzi Gate - Near the south end of the eastern city wall. Exploratory excavations were undertaken here by the U.C. expedition of 1989-90. There is an outward projection of the city wall, though not as pronounced as at the Shamash Gate. The entry passage had been narrowed with mudbrick to about 2 m. as at the Adad Gate. Human remains from the final battle of Nineveh were found in the passageway.

Kuyunjik

The ruin mound of Kuyunjik rises about 20 m above the surrounding plain of the ancient city. It is quite large, measuring about 800 m x 500 m. Its upper layers have been extensively excavated and several Neo-Assyrian palaces and temples have been found there. A deep sounding by Max Mallowan revealed evidence of habitation as early as the 6th millennium B.C.E.

Today, there is little evidence of these old excavatons other than weathered pits and earth piles. In 1990, the only Assyrian remains visible were those of the entry court and first few chambers of the Palace of Sennacherib. Since that time, the palace chambers have received significant damage by looters due to the turmoil in the area. Portions of relief sculptures that were in the palace chambers in 1990 were seen on the antiquities market by 1996. Photographs of the chambers made in 2003 show that many of the fine relief sculptures there have been reduced to piles of rubble. (see link to Joanne Farchakh-Bajjaly photos)

A small area of undisturbed post-Assyrian remains was identified in 1990 near the southwest corner of Kuyunjik.

Biblical Nineveh

In the Bible, Nineveh is first mentioned in Genesis 10:11: "Ashur left that land, and built Nineveh."

Though the Books of Kings and Books of Chronicles talk a great deal about the Assyrian empire, Nineveh itself is not again noticed till the days of Jonah, when it is described (Jonah 3:3ff; 4:11) as an "exceeding great city of three days' journey", i.e., probably in circuit. This would give a circumference of about 100 km (60 miles). At the four corners of an irregular quadrangle are the ruins of Kouyunjik, Nimrud, Karamles and Khorsabad. These four great masses of ruins, with the whole area included within the parallelogram they form by lines drawn from the one to the other, are generally regarded as composing the whole ruins of Nineveh.

Nineveh was the flourishing capital of the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 19:36; Isa. 37:37). The book of the prophet Nahum is almost exclusively taken up with prophetic denunciations against this city. Its ruin and utter desolation are foretold (Nahum 1:14; 3:19, etc.). Its end was strange, sudden, tragic. (Nahum 2:6–11) According to the Bible, it was God's doing, his judgement on Assyria's pride (Jonah Nah). In fulfilment of prophecy, God made "an utter end of the place". It became a "desolation". Zephaniah also (2:13–15) predicts its destruction along with the fall of the empire of which it was the capital.

Nineveh's exemplary pride and fall are recalled in the Gospel of Matthew (12:41) and the Gospel of Luke (11:32).

Rogation of the Ninevites (Nineveh's Wish)

Assyrians of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East practice a fast called Ba'uta d-Ninwe or Bo'utho d-Ninwe (ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ) which means Nineveh's Wish. Copts and Ethiopian Orthodox also maintain this fast. See article about the Roagation of the Ninevites

Modern Nineveh

On 15 October 2005, the province of Nineveh (Ninawa) cast the deciding votes in the referendum for Iraq's Constitution. One of three mostly Sunni Arab provinces whose veto could defeat the constitution, Nineveh was closely watched through the extended electoral count.

Home to a majority Sunni Arab population and ethnically diverse minority which includes Kurds (Yezidi and Sunni) and Assyrian Christians, as well as the oil processing center Mosul (which is often considered to be modern Niniveh city, and is called so by Aramaic-speakers), Nineveh promises to play a large role in Iraqi politics into the future.

References

^ see also Historical urban community sizes.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

Joanne Farchakh-Bajjaly photos of Nineveh taken in May 2003 showing damage from looters.
John Malcolm Russell, "Stolen stones: the modern sack of Nineveh" in Archaeology; looting of sculptures in the 1990s.
Nineveh page at the British Museum's website. Includes photographs of items from their collection.
ABC 3: Babylonian Chronicle Concerning the Fall of Nineveh
Layard's Ninevah and its Remains- full text
A history

[1] see also Historical urban community sizes.

[1]