Nineveh

by Joshua J. Mark published on 06 March 2011

Nineveh (modern-day Mosul, Iraq) was one of the oldest and greatest cities in antiquity. The area was settled as early as 6000 BCE and, by 3000, had become an important religious center for worship of the goddess Ishtar. The early city (and subsequent buildings) were constructed on a fault line and, consequently, suffered damage from a number of earthquakes. One such event destroyed the first temple of Ishtar which was then rebuilt in 2260 BCE by the Akkadian king Manishtusu. The Amorites occupied the site and one of their kings, Shamshi-Addu I, added to the temple and left behind inscriptions recording his other construction projects. King Shalmaneser I (1273-1244) built a palace and temple there and is thought to be responsible also for the first walls surrounding the settlement.

The city grew dramatically in size, grandeur and fame, however, under the reign of King Sennacherib (704 - 681) who made Nineveh capital of his Assyrian Empire. Sennacherib was the son of King Sargon II who was killed in battle (a death considered shameful because it was believed that such a death was a punishment from the gods for one's sins) and the new ruler wished to distance himself as much as possible from his father. Sennacherib abandoned the old capital of Dur-Sharruken and moved it to Nineveh early in his reign. He built great walls around the city with fifteen gates, created public parks and gardens, aqueducts, irrigation ditches, canals, and greatly expanded upon and improved the structures of the city. His palace had eighty rooms and he proclaimed it "the palace without rival."

After Sennacherib, his son Esarhaddon (reigned 681-669 BCE) took the throne and continued his father's building projects. When Esarhaddon died on campaign in Egypt his mother Zakutu ruled briefly as queen until she legitimized the succession of his son Ashurbanipal as the new king. Under Ashurbanipal's reign (668-627 BCE) a new palace was constructed as well as Ashurbanipal's famous library ( which held over 22,000 inscribed clay tablets, the `books' of the day) and other improvements and renovations were made to the city.

Military incursions by the Elamites, Babylonian, Medes and Scythians began in earnest in 625 BCE and the already weakened Neo-Assyrian Empire could not hold off a full-scale invasion for very long. In 612 BCE the city of Nineveh was sacked and burned by the allied forces of the Medes and Babylonians who then divided the region between them. The area was sparsely populated thereafter and, slowly, the ancient ruins became buried in earth.

In 627 CE the area was the site of the Battle of Nineveh, the decisive Byzantine victory in the Byzantine-Sassanid War (602-628). This engagement brought the region under Byzantine control until the Muslim conquest of 637 CE. While other great cities of ancient Mesopotamia were recognizable from their ruins, of Nineveh there was not a trace. The city was best known through the Christian era (and still is) by the central role it plays in the Hebrew composition known in the Bible as The Book of Jonah. The Book of Jonah was written between 500-400 BCE depicting events from hundreds of years earlier in the reign of the Hebrew King Jeroboam II (786-746 BCE). While, in The Book of Jonah, the city is spared the wrath of God, other references to Nineveh in the Bible (The Books of Nahum and Zephania, among them) predict the destruction of the city by God's will (though it is possible that these works were written after the city had already fallen). The Book of Tobit takes place in Nineveh and the Gospels of Matthew (12:41) and Luke (11:32) both make mention of the city.

The ruins lay buried until they were uncovered and excavated by Austin Henry Layard in 1846 and 1847. Further work by Campbell Thompson and George Smith, among others up to the present day, has revealed the magnificent scope of this once great city. The site is known today by the two mounds which cover it: the Kuyunjik and the Nebi Yunus. The Kuyunjik mound has been excavated and all major finds come from this area. The Nebi Yunus mound (whose name means `Prophet Jonas') remains untouched owing to an Islamic shrine to the prophet and a cemetery built there. In the 1990's the site was vandalized and a number of well preserved panels broken and stolen (which later appeared for sale on the antiquities market). Today Nineveh is in danger of encroaching urban sprawl from the suburbs of Mosul and has been damaged by acts of vandalism. In 2010, Global Heritage Fund listed the ruins among its Top Twelve endangered sites for these reasons among others. Once, however, the city was among the greatest of Mesopotamia, home to the goddess Ishtar, and there is no doubt that Sennacherib, and the kings who built before and after him, believed that the glory of Nineveh would last forever.

Written by Joshua J. Mark, published on 06 March 2011 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms.