Nineveh
This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2021) |
ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ | |
Location | Mosul, Nineveh Governorate, Iraq |
---|---|
Region | Mesopotamia |
Coordinates | 36°21′34″N 43°09′10″E / 36.35944°N 43.15278°E |
Type | Settlement |
Area | 7.5 km2 (2.9 sq mi) |
History | |
Abandoned | 612 BC |
Events | Battle of Nineveh (612 BC) |
Nineveh (
It was the largest city in the world for approximately fifty years
Its ruins lie across the river from the historical city center of Mosul. The two main tells, or mound-ruins, within the walls are Tell Kuyunjiq and Tell Nabī Yūnus, site of a shrine to Jonah. According to the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, Jonah was a prophet who preached to Nineveh.[3][4][5] Large numbers of Assyrian sculptures and other artifacts have been excavated from the ruins of Nineveh, and are now located in museums around the world.
Name
The English placename Nineveh comes from the
.The original meaning of the name is unclear but may have referred to a patron goddess. The city was said to be devoted to "the goddess Inanna of Nineveh" and Nina was one of the Sumerian and Assyrian names for that goddess.[7] The Assyrian cuneiform for Ninâ (𒀏) is a fish within a house (cf. Aramaic nuna, "fish"). This may have simply intended "Place of Fish" or may have indicated a goddess associated with fish or the Tigris, possibly originally of Hurrian origin.[7] The word נון/נונא in Old Babylonian refers to the Anthiinae genus of fish,[8] further indicating the possibility of an association between the name Nineveh and fish. Jonah in the Quran is named as “Dhu'n-Nun” meaning “the owner of the fish” which “Nun” means “fish”.
Nabī Yūnus is the Arabic for "Prophet Jonah". Kuyunjiq was, according to Layard, a Turkish name (Layard used the form "kouyunjik", diminutive of "koyun", "sheep" in Turkish), and it was known as Armousheeah by the Arabs,[9] and is thought to have some connection with the Qara Qoyunlu dynasty.[10] These toponyms refer to the areas to the North and South of the Khosr stream, respectively: Kuyunjiq is the name for the whole northern sector enclosed by the city walls and is dominated by the large (35 ha) mound of Tell Kuyunjiq, while Nabī (or more commonly Nebi) Yunus is the southern sector around of the mosque of Prophet Yunus/Jonah, which is located on Tell Nebi Yunus.
Geography
The remains of ancient Nineveh, the areas of Kuyunjiq and Nabī Yūnus with their mounds, are located on a level part of the plain at the junction of the Tigris and the Khosr Rivers within an area of 750 hectares (1,900 acres)[11] circumscribed by a 12-kilometre (7.5 mi) fortification wall. This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins overlaid by c. one third by the Nebi Yunus suburbs of the city of eastern Mosul.[12]
The site of ancient Nineveh is bisected by the Khosr river. North of the Khosr, the site is called Kuyunjiq, including the acropolis of Tell Kuyunjiq; the illegal village of Rahmaniye lay in eastern Kuyunjiq. South of the Khosr, the urbanized area is called Nebi Yunus (also Ghazliya, Jezayr, Jammasa), including Tell Nebi Yunus where the mosque of the Prophet Jonah and a palace of Esarhaddon/Ashurbanipal below it are located. South of the street Al-'Asady (made by Daesh destroying swaths of the city walls) the area is called Jounub Ninawah or Shara Pepsi.
Nineveh was an important junction for commercial routes crossing the Tigris on the great roadway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, thus uniting the East and the West, it received wealth from many sources, so that it became one of the greatest of all the region's ancient cities,[13] and the last capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
History
Early history
Nineveh was one of the oldest and greatest cities in antiquity. Texts from the
Neolithic
Caves in the Zagros Mountains adjacent to the north side of the Nineveh Plains were used as
Chalcolithic
In 5000 BC, Nineveh transitioned from a Halaf village to an Ubaid village. During the Late Chalcolithic period Nineveh was part one of the few Ubaid villages in Upper Mesopotamia which became a proto-city Ugarit, Brak, Hamoukar, Arbela, Alep, and regionally at Susa, Eridu, Nippur. During the period between 4500 and 4000 BC it grew to 40ha.
The greater Nineveh area is notable in the diffusion of metal technology across the near east as the first location outside of Anatolia to smelt copper. Tell Arpachiyah has the oldest copper smelting remains, and Tepe Gawa has the oldest metal work. The copper came from the mines at Ergani.
Early Bronze Age
Nineveh became a trade colony of Uruk during the Uruk Expansion because of its location as the highest navigable point on the Tigris. It was contemporary and had a similar function to Habuba Kabira on the Euphrates. By 3000 BC, the Kish civilization had expanded into Nineveh. At this time, the main temple of Nineveh becomes known as Ishtar temple, re-dedicated to the Semite goddess Ishtar, in the form of Ishtar of Nineveh. Ishtar of Nineveh was conflated with Šauška from the Hurro-Urartian pantheon. This temple was called 'House of Exorcists' (Cuneiform: 𒂷𒈦𒈦 GA2.MAŠ.MAŠ; Sumerian: e2 mašmaš).[16][17] The context of the etymology surrounding the name is the Exorcist called a Mashmash in Sumerian, was a freelance magician who operated independent of the official priesthood, and was in part a medical professional via the act of expelling demons.
Ninevite 5 period
The regional influence of Nineveh became particularly pronounced during the archaeological period known as Ninevite 5, or Ninevite V (2900–2600 BC). This period is defined primarily by the characteristic pottery that is found widely throughout Upper Mesopotamia.[18] Also, for the Upper Mesopotamian region, the Early Jezirah chronology has been developed by archaeologists. According to this regional chronology, 'Ninevite 5' is equivalent to the Early Jezirah I–II period.[19]
Ninevite 5 was preceded by the Late
-
Painted jar – Ninevite 5
-
Painted bowl – Uruk-Nineveh 5 transition
-
Jemdet Nasr ware
-
Proto-Elamite ware 3100 BC
-
Pottery jar, Tepeyatagi, Khudat district, Kura-Araxtes culture
Akkadian period
At this time, Nineveh was still an autonomous city-state. It was incorporated into the Akkadian Empire. The early city (and subsequent buildings) was 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 rebuilt in 2260 BC by the Akkadian king Manishtushu.
Ur III period
In the final phase of the Early Bronze, Mesopotamia was dominated by the Ur III empire.
Middle Bronze
After the fall of Ur in 2000 BC, with the transition into the Middle Bronze, Nineveh was absorbed into the rising power of Assyria.
Old Assyrian period
The historic Nineveh is mentioned in the
Late Bronze
Mitanni period
The goddess's statue was sent to Pharaoh Amenhotep III of Egypt in the 14th century BC, by orders of the king of Mitanni. The Assyrian city of Nineveh became one of Mitanni's vassals for half a century until the early 14th century BC.
Middle Assyrian period
The Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I reclaimed it in 1365 BC while overthrowing the Mitanni Empire and creating the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC).[20]
There is a large body of evidence to show that Assyrian monarchs built extensively in Nineveh during the late 3rd and 2nd millenniums BC; it appears to have been originally an "Assyrian provincial town". Later monarchs whose inscriptions have appeared on the high city include the Middle Assyrian Empire kings Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 BC) and Tiglath-Pileser I (1114–1076 BC), both of whom were active builders in Assur (Ashur).
Iron Age
Neo-Assyrians
During the
, Berlin)Sennacherib's development of Nineveh
It was Sennacherib who made Nineveh a truly influential city (c. 700 BC), as he laid out new streets and squares and built within it the South West Palace, or "palace without a rival", the plan of which has been mostly recovered and has overall dimensions of about 503 by 242 metres (1,650 ft × 794 ft). It had at least 80 rooms, many of which were lined with sculpture. A large number of cuneiform tablets were found in the palace. The solid foundation was made out of limestone blocks and mud bricks; it was 22 metres (72 ft) tall. In total, the foundation is made of roughly 2,680,000 cubic metres (3,505,308 cu yd) of brick (approximately 160 million bricks). The walls on top, made out of mud brick, were an additional 20 metres (66 ft) tall.
Some of the principal doorways were flanked by colossal stone
The stone carvings in the walls include many battle scenes, impalings and scenes showing Sennacherib's men parading the spoils of war before him. The inscriptions boasted of his conquests: he wrote of
At this time, Nineveh comprised about 7 square kilometres (1,730 acres) of land, and fifteen great gates penetrated its walls. An elaborate system of eighteen canals brought water from the hills to Nineveh, and several sections of a magnificently constructed aqueduct erected by Sennacherib were discovered at Jerwan, about 65 kilometres (40 mi) distant.[25] 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.
Some scholars such as
After Ashurbanipal
The greatness of Nineveh was short-lived. In around 627 BC, after the death of its last great king Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Assyrian Empire began to unravel through a series of bitter civil wars between rival claimants for the throne, and in 616 BC Assyria was attacked by its own former vassals, the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians. In about 616 BC Kalhu was sacked, the allied forces eventually reached Nineveh, besieging and sacking the city in 612 BC, following bitter house-to-house fighting, after which it was razed. Most of the people in the city who could not escape to the last Assyrian strongholds in the north and west were either massacred or deported out of the city and into the countryside where they founded new settlements. Many unburied skeletons were found by the archaeologists at the site. The Assyrian Empire then came to an end by 605 BC, the Medes and Babylonians dividing its colonies between themselves.
It is not clear whether Nineveh came under the rule of the Medes or the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 612. The Babylonian Chronicle Concerning the Fall of Nineveh records that Nineveh was "turned into mounds and heaps", but this is literary hyperbole. The complete destruction of Nineveh has traditionally been seen as confirmed by the Hebrew Book of Ezekiel and the Greek Retreat of the Ten Thousand of Xenophon (d. 354 BC).[28] There are no later cuneiform tablets in Akkadian from Nineveh. Although devastated in 612, the city was not completely abandoned.[28] Yet, to the Greek historians Ctesias and Herodotus (c. 400 BC), Nineveh was a thing of the past; and when Xenophon passed the place in the 4th century BC he described it as abandoned.[29]
Later history
The earliest piece of written evidence for the persistence of Nineveh as a settlement is possibly the Cyrus Cylinder of 539/538 BC, but the reading of this is disputed. If correctly read as Nineveh, it indicates that Cyrus the Great restored the temple of Ishtar at Nineveh and probably encouraged resettlement. A number of cuneiform Elamite tablets have been found at Nineveh. They probably date from the time of the revival of Elam in the century following the collapse of Assyria. The Hebrew Book of Jonah, which Stephanie Dalley asserts was written in the 4th century BC, is an account of the city's repentance and God's mercy which prevented destruction.[28]
Archaeologically, there is evidence of repairs at the temple of Nabu after 612 and for the continued use of Sennacherib's palace. There is evidence of syncretic
The city was actively resettled under the Seleucid Empire.[30] There is evidence of more changes in Sennacherib's palace under the Parthian Empire. The Parthians also established a municipal mint at Nineveh coining in bronze.[28] According to Tacitus, in AD 50 Meherdates, a claimant to the Parthian throne with Roman support, took Nineveh.[31]
By
In 627, the city was the site of the
Biblical Nineveh
In the
Nineveh was the flourishing capital of the Assyrian Empire[41] and was the home of King Sennacherib, King of Assyria, during the Biblical reign of King Hezekiah (יְחִזְקִיָּהוּ) and the lifetime of Judean prophet Isaiah (ישעיה). As recorded in Hebrew scripture, Nineveh was also the place where Sennacherib died at the hands of his two sons, who then fled to the vassal land of `rrt (Urartu).[42] The book of the prophet Nahum is almost exclusively taken up with prophetic denunciations against Nineveh. Its ruin and utter desolation are foretold.[43][44] Its end was strange, sudden, and tragic.[45] According to the Bible, it was God's doing, his judgment on Assyria's pride.[46] In fulfillment of prophecy, God made "an utter end of the place". It became a "desolation". The prophet Zephaniah also[47] predicts its destruction along with the fall of the empire of which it was the capital. Nineveh is also the setting of the Book of Tobit.
The Book of Jonah, set in the days of the Assyrian Empire, describes it[48][49] as an "exceedingly great city of three days' journey in breadth", whose population at that time is given as "more than 120,000". Genesis 10:11–12 lists four cities "Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen", ambiguously stating that either Resen or Calah is "the great city".[50] The ruins of Kuyunjiq, Nimrud, Karamlesh and Khorsabad form the four corners of an irregular quadrilateral. The ruins of the "great city" Nineveh, with the whole area included within the parallelogram they form by lines drawn from the one to the other, are generally regarded as consisting of these four sites. The description of Nineveh in Jonah likely was a reference to greater Nineveh, including the surrounding cities of Rehoboth, Calah and Resen[51] The Book of Jonah depicts Nineveh as a wicked city worthy of destruction. God sent Jonah to preach to the Ninevites of their coming destruction, and they fasted and repented because of this. As a result, God spared the city; when Jonah protests against this, God states he is showing mercy for the population who are ignorant of the difference between right and wrong ("who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand"[52]) and mercy for the beasts in the city.
Nineveh's repentance and salvation from evil can be found in the Hebrew
Archaeology
The location of Nineveh was known, to some, continuously through the Middle Ages. Benjamin of Tudela visited it in 1170; Petachiah of Regensburg soon after.[56]
Carsten Niebuhr recorded its location during the 1761–1767 Danish expedition. Niebuhr wrote afterwards that "I did not learn that I was at so remarkable a spot, till near the river. Then they showed me a village on a great hill, which they call Nunia, and a mosque, in which the prophet Jonah was buried. Another hill in this district is called Kalla Nunia, or the Castle of Nineveh. On that lies a village Koindsjug."[57]
Excavation history
In 1842, the French Consul General at Mosul,
In 1847 the young British diplomat
The work of exploration was carried on by Hormuzd Rassam (an Assyrian), George Smith and others, and a vast treasury of specimens of Assyria was incrementally 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.[64][65]
The mound of Kuyunjiq was excavated again by the archaeologists of the British Museum, led by Leonard William King, at the beginning of the 20th century. Their 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 taken part in King's expeditions.[66][67][68][69] Some works were carried out outside Kuyunjiq, for instance on the mound of Tell Nebi Yunus, which was the ancient arsenal of Nineveh, or along the outside walls. Here, near the northwestern 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, beside a prism of Esarhaddon which was almost perfect.
After the
The British archaeologist and Assyriologist Professor David Stronach of the University of California, Berkeley conducted a series of surveys and digs at the site from 1987 to 1990, focusing his attentions on the several gates and the existent mudbrick walls, as well as the system that supplied water to the city in times of siege. The excavation reports are in progress.[75]
Most recently, an Iraqi–Italian Archaeological Expedition by the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, led by Nicolò Marchetti, began (with four campaigns having taken place thus far between 2019 and 2022) a project aiming at the excavation, conservation and public presentation of the lower town of Nineveh. Work was carried out in eighteen excavation areas, from the Adad Gate – now completely repaired (after removing hundreds of tons of debris from ISIL's 2016 destructions), explored and protected with a new roof – deep into the Nebi Yunus town. In a few areas a thick later stratigraphy was encountered, but the late 7th century BC stratum was reached everywhere (actually in two areas in the pre-Sennacherib lower town the excavations already exposed older strata, up to the 11th century BC until now, aiming in the future at exploring the first settlement therein). The site is greatly endangered with dumping of debris, illegal settlements and quarrying as the main threats.[citation needed]
Archaeological remains
Today, Nineveh's location is marked by two large mounds, Tell Kuyunjiq and Tell Nabī Yūnus "Prophet Jonah", and the remains of the city walls (about 12 kilometres (7 mi) in circumference). The Neo-Assyrian levels of Kuyunjiq have been extensively explored. The other mound, Nabī Yūnus, has not been as extensively explored because there was an Arab Muslim shrine dedicated to that prophet on the site. On July 24, 2014, the Islamic State destroyed the shrine as part of a campaign to destroy religious sanctuaries it deemed "un-Islamic",[76] but also to loot that site through tunneling.
The ruin mound of Kuyunjiq rises about 20 metres (66 ft) above the surrounding plain of the ancient city. It is quite broad, measuring about 800 by 500 metres (2,625 ft × 1,640 ft). 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 BC. Today, there is little evidence of these old excavations other than weathered pits and earth piles. In 1990, the only Assyrian remains visible were those of the entry court and the first few chambers of the Palace of Sennacherib. Since that time, the palace chambers have received significant damage by looters. 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.
Tell Nebi Yunus is located about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) south of Kuyunjiq and is the secondary ruin mound at Nineveh. On the basis of texts of Sennacherib, the site has traditionally been identified as the "armory" of Nineveh, and a gate and pavements excavated by Iraqis in 1954 have been considered to be part of the "armory" complex. Excavations in 1990 revealed a monumental entryway consisting of a number of large inscribed orthostats and "bull-man" sculptures, some apparently unfinished.
Following the liberation of Mosul, the tunnels under Tell Nebi Yunus were explored in 2018, in which a 3000-year-old palace was discovered, including a pair of reliefs, each showing a row of women, along with reliefs of lamassu.[77]
City wall and gates
The ruins of Nineveh are surrounded by the remains of a massive stone and mudbrick wall dating from about 700 BC. About 12 km in length, the wall system consisted of an ashlar stone retaining wall about 6 metres (20 ft) high surmounted by a mudbrick wall about 10 metres (33 ft) high and 15 metres (49 ft) thick. The stone retaining wall had projecting stone towers spaced about every 18 metres (59 ft). The stone wall and towers were topped by three-step merlons.
Five of the gateways have been explored to some extent by archaeologists:
- Mashki Gate (ماشکی دروازه): Translated "Gate of the Water Carriers" (Mashki from Persian root word Mashk, meaning waterskin), also Masqi Gate (Arabic: بوابة مسقي),
- Nergal Gate: Named for the god ISIL forces and the gate was utterly destroyed.[81]
- Adad Gate: Named for the god It has been restored by the Iraqi-Italian expedition.
- Shamash Gate: Named for the sun god Shamash, it opens to the road to Erbil. 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 metres (66 ft) from the line of main wall for a width of about 70 metres (230 ft). 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 University of California, Berkeley expedition of 1989–1990 and again in 2022 by the Iraqi-Italian Expedition. 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 metres (7 ft) as at the Adad Gate. Human remains from the final battle of Nineveh were found in the passageway.[83] Located in the eastern wall, it is the southernmost and largest of all the remaining gates of ancient Nineveh.[79]
- Besides the possible Sin Gate at the north-west end of the site, a new gate has been discovered in 2021 to the north of the Shamash Gate and south of the Khosr river (in the area labeled as N by the Iraqi-Italian expedition).
Threats to the site
By 2003, the site of Nineveh was exposed to decay of its
The ailing
In an October 2010 report titled Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, Global Heritage Fund named Nineveh one of 12 sites most "on the verge" of irreparable destruction and loss, citing insufficient management, development pressures and looting as primary causes.[86]
By far, the greatest threat to Nineveh has been purposeful human actions by
Rogation of the Ninevites (Nineveh's Wish)
Assyrians of the Ancient Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Assyrian Church of the East and Saint Thomas Christians of the Syro-Malabar Church observe a fast called Ba'uta d-Ninwe (ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ) which means Nineveh's Prayer. Copts and Ethiopian Orthodox also maintain this fast.[90]
In popular culture
English Romantic poet Edwin Atherstone wrote an epic titled The Fall of Nineveh.[91] The work tells of an uprising against king Sardanapalus by all the nations that were dominated by the Assyrian Empire. He is a great criminal who had one hundred prisoners of war executed. After a long struggle, the town is conquered by Median and Babylonian troops, led by prince Arbaces and priest Belesis. The king then sets his own palace on fire and dies inside together with all his concubines.
Atherstone's friend, artist John Martin, created a painting of the same name inspired by the poem. English poet John Masefield's well-known, fanciful 1903 poem Cargoes mentions Nineveh in its first line. Nineveh is also mentioned in Rudyard Kipling's 1897 poem Recessional[92] and Arthur O'Shaughnessy's 1873 poem Ode.
The 1962 Italian
In Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, Jonah, much like his biblical counterpart, must travel to Nineveh due to God’s demands.
In the 1973 film The Exorcist, Father Lankester Merrin was on an archeological dig near Nineveh before returning to the United States and leading the exorcism of Regan MacNeil.
In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Ollanius Persson was supposedly born in Nineveh in 15,000 BCE, making him the oldest of the Perpetuals.
See also
- Cities of the ancient Near East
- Destruction of cultural heritage by the Islamic State
- Historical urban community sizes
- Isaac of Nineveh
- List of megalithic sites
- Nanshe
- Short chronology timeline
- Tel Keppe
Notes
- ^ Thomas A. Carlson et al., "Nineveh — ܢܝܢܘܐ " in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified June 30, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/144.
- ^ Rosenberg, Matt T. "Largest Cities Through History". geography.about.com. Archived from the original on 18 August 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
- ISBN 0-674-59846-6
- ISBN 978-0-567-44289-5. Retrieved 2023-02-10.
- ISBN 978-1-58558-365-2. Retrieved 2023-02-10.
Despite the modern scholarly consensus that the book is fictional
- ^ a b Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. "Ninevite, n. and adj." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013.
- ^ a b c d e "Nineveh". Encyclopaedia Judaica. Gale Group. 2008.
- ^ Jastrow, Marcus (1996). A Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature. New York: The Judaica Press, Inc. p. 888.
- ^ Layard, 1849, p.xxi, "...called Kuyunjiq by the Turks, and Armousheeah by the Arabs"
- ^ "Koyundjik", E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, p. 1083.
- ISBN 9780191588457.
- ^ Geoffrey Turner, "Tell Nebi Yūnus: The ekal māšarti of Nineveh," Iraq, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 68–85, 1970
- ^ "Proud Nineveh" is an emblem of earthly pride in the Old Testament prophecies: "And He will stretch out His hand against the north And destroy Assyria, And He will make Nineveh a desolation, Parched like the wilderness." (Zephaniah 2:13).
- ^ M. E. L. Mallowan, "The Bronze Head of the Akkadian Period from Nineveh", Iraq Vol. 3, No. 1 (1936), 104–110.
- ^ Kuyunjiq / Tell Nebi Yunis (ancient: Nineveh) Archived 2020-11-05 at the Wayback Machine colostate.edu
- S2CID 163889444.
- ^ Gurney, O.R. (1936). "Keilschrifttexte nach Kopien von T. G. Pinches. Aus dem Nachlass veröffentlicht und bearbeitet". Rchiv Fiir Orientforschung. 11: 358–359.
- ^ ISBN 0631235833p. 427
- ^ Polish-Syrian Expedition to Tell Arbid 2015
- ^ Genesis 10:11 attributes the founding of Nineveh to an Asshur: "Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh".
- ^ a b Ashrafian, H. (2011). "An extinct Mesopotamian lion subspecies". Veterinary Heritage. 34 (2): 47–49.
- ^ "The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World" edited by Chris Scarre 1999 (Thames and Hudson)
- ISBN 9780714121413
- ^ Time Life Lost Civilizations series: Mesopotamia: The Mighty Kings. (1995)
- ^ Thorkild Jacobsen and Seton Lloyd, Sennacherib's Aqueduct at Jerwan, Oriental Institute Publication 24, University of Chicago Press, 1935
- ISBN 978-0-19-966226-5.
- ^ "Wall panel; relief British Museum". The British Museum.
- ^ a b c d e Stephanie Dalley (1993), "Nineveh after 612 BC", Altorientalische Forschungen 20(1): 134–147.
- Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part One, pp. 233–241.
- ^ a b c Peter Webb, "Nineveh and Mosul", in O. Nicholason (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2018), vol. 2, p. 1078.
- ^ J. E. Reade (1998), "Greco-Parthian Nineveh", Iraq 60: 65–83.
- ^ "العبادي يطلق على عمليات تحرير نينوى تسمية "قادمون يا نينوى" أمن" (in Arabic). Al Sumaria. 17 October 2016. Archived from the original on 19 October 2016.
- ^ Winter, Charlie (20 October 2016). "How ISIS Is Spinning the Mosul Battle". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 20 October 2016.
- ^ Shuckford, Samuel; James Talboys Wheeler (1858), The sacred and profane history of the world connected, vol. 1, pp. 106–107
- ^ "Jubilees 9". www.pseudepigrapha.com. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
- ^ VanderKam, "Jubilees, Book of", in L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Oxford University Press (2000), Vol. I, p. 435.
- ^ Greek Septuagint.
- ^ Geneva Bible.
- ^ 1611 King James Bible.
- ^ Genesis 10:11
- ^ 2 Kings 19:36
- ^ Isaiah 37:37–38
- ^ Nahum 1:14
- ^ Nahum 3:19
- ^ Nahum 2:6–11
- ^ Isaiah 10:5–19
- ^ Zephaniah 2:13–15
- ^ Jonah 3:3
- ^ Jonah 4:11
- ^ Genesis 10:11–12
- OCLC 33344874.
- ^ "Jonah 4 / Hebrew - English Bible / Mechon-Mamre". www.mechon-mamre.org.
- ^ Matthew 12:41; Luke 11:32
- ^ Surah 37:139–148.
- ^ "Three Day Fast of Nineveh". Syrian Orthodox Church. Archived from the original on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 1 February 2012.
- ^ Liverani 2016, p. 23. "Toward 1170 the rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, who was traveling throughout the Near East passing from one Hebrew community to another, having arrived at Mosul (which he called 'Assur the Great') had a clear idea (thanks to information given to him by his local colleagues) that across the Tigris was the famous Ninevah, in ruins but covered with villages and farms ... Ten years later another rabbi, Petachia of Ratisbon [i.e. Regensburg], also arriving at Mosul (which he called the 'New Ninevah') and crossing the river, visited 'Old Ninevah', which he described as desolate and 'overthrown like Sodom' with the land black like pitch, without a blade of grass. ... Myths apart, the localization of Ninevah remained a matter of common knowledge and beyond argument; various western travelers (such as Jean Baptiste Tavernier in 1644, and then Bourguignon d'Anville in 1779) confirmed it, and some soundings followed."
- ^ Pusey, Edward Bouverie (1888), The Minor Prophets, with a Commentary, Explanatory and Practical, and Introductions to the Several Books, Volume II, p.123
- ^ A. H. Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, John Murray, 1849
- ^ A. H. Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, John Murray, 1853
- ^ A. H. Layard, The Monuments of Nineveh; From Drawings Made on the Spot, John Murray, 1849
- ^ A. H. Layard, A second series of the monuments of Nineveh, John Murray, 1853
- ^ Liverani 2016, pp. 32–33.
- ISBN 0-300-06459-4
- ^ George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries: An Account of Explorations and Discoveries on the Site of Nineveh, During 1873 and 1874, S. Low-Marston-Searle and Rivington, 1876
- ^ Hormuzd Rassam and Robert William Rogers, Asshur and the Land of Nimrod, Curts & Jennings, 1897
- ^ R. Campbell Thompson and R. W. Hutchinson, "The excavations on the temple of Nabu at Nineveh", Archaeologia, vol. 79, pp. 103–148, 1929
- ^ R. Campbell Thompson and R. W. Hutchinson, "The site of the palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nineveh excavated in 1929–30", Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, vol. 18, pp. 79–112, 1931
- ^ R. Campbell Thompson and R. W. Hamilton, "The British Museum excavations on the temple of Ishtar at Nineveh 1930–31", Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, vol. 19, pp. 55–116, 1932
- ^ R. Campbell Thompson and M. E. L. Mallowan, "The British Museum excavations at Nineveh 1931–32", Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, vol. 20, pp. 71–186, 1933
- ^ Mohammed Ali Mustafa, Sumer, vol. 10, pp. 110–111, 1954
- ^ Mohammed Ali Mustafa, Sumer, vol. 11, pp. 4, 1955
- ^ Tariq Madhloom, "Excavations at Nineveh: A preliminary report", Sumer, vol. 23, pp. 76–79, 1967
- ^ Tariq Madhloom, "Excavations at Nineveh: The 1967–68 Campaign", Sumer, vol 24, pp. 45–51, 1968
- ^ Tariq Madhloom, "Excavations at Nineveh: The 1968–69 Campaign", Sumer, vol. 25, pp. 43–49, 1969
- ^ "Shelby White – Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications – Nineveh Publication Grant". Archived from the original on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 2011-05-16.
- ^ "Officials: ISIS blows up Jonah's tomb in Iraq". CNN. 2014-07-24. Retrieved 2014-07-24.
- ^ "Explore the IS Tunnels". BBC News. 22 November 2018.
- ^ a b c Romey, Kristin (19 April 2016), "Exclusive Photos Show Destruction of Nineveh Gates by ISIS", National Geographic, The National Geographical Society, archived from the original on April 19, 2016
- ^ a b "Gates of Nineveh". Madain Project. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
- ^ Hadani Ditmars (25 October 2022). "Archaeologists restoring monument damaged by Islamic State discover ancient stone carvings unseen for millennia". The Art Newspaper.
- ^ "ISIS 'bulldozed' ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, Iraq says". Rappler. March 5, 2015. Archived from the original on July 24, 2020. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
- ^ "Iraqi Digital Investigation Team Confirms ISIS Destruction of Gate in Nineveh". Bellingcat. August 29, 2016. Retrieved August 30, 2016.
- ^ Diana Pickworth, Excavations at Nineveh: The Halzi Gate, Iraq, vol. 67, no. 1, Nineveh. Papers of the 49th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part Two, pp. 295–316, 2005
- ^ "Cultural Assessment of Iraq: The State of Sites and Museums in Northern Iraq – Nineveh". National Geographic News. May 2003. Archived from the original on February 15, 2004.
- ^ Borger, Julian (2 March 2016). "Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1m people". The Guardian. guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
- ^ "Globalheritagefund.org". Archived from the original on August 20, 2012.
- ^ "Iraq: Isis militants pledge to destroy remaining archaeological". The Independent. February 27, 2015. Archived from the original on 2022-06-21.
- ^ "ISIL video shows destruction of 7th century artifacts". america.aljazeera.com.
- ^ Milligan, Mark (3 November 2022). "Archaeologists uncover 2,700-year-old intricate rock carvings in ancient Nineveh". Heritage Daily. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
- ^ Warda, W, Christians of Iraq: Ba-oota d' Ninevayee or the Fast of the Ninevites, re-accessed 11 September 2016
- ^ Herbert F. Tucker, Epic. Britain's Heroic Muse 1790–1910, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008, p. 256-261.
- ^ "Recessional by Rudyard Kipling". 14 December 2022.
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897). "Nineveh". Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.
- Russell, John Malcolm (1992), Sennacherib's "Palace without Rival" at Nineveh, University Of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-73175-8
- Barnett, Richard David (1976), Sculptures from the north palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668-627 B.C.), British Museum Publications Ltd, ISBN 0-7141-1046-9
- Campbell Thompson, R.; Hutchinson, R. W. (1929), "A century of exploration at Nineveh", The Geographical Journal, 74 (4), Luzac: 406, JSTOR 1784268
- Bezold, Carl, Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum
- Volume I, 1889
- Volume II, Printed by order of the Trustees, 1891
- Volume III, 1893
- Volume IV, 1896
- Volume V, Printed by order of the Trustees, 1899
- Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum, British Museum
- King, W. L. (1914), Supplement I
- Lambert, W. G. (1968), Supplement II
- Lambert, W. G. (1992), Supplement III, Trustees of the British Museum, ISBN 0-7141-1131-7
- ISBN 978-1-61451-602-6
- Scott, M. Louise; MacGinnis, John (1990), Notes on Nineveh, Iraq, vol. 52, pp. 63–73
- Trümpler, C., ed. (2001), Agatha Christie and Archaeology, The British Museum Press, ISBN 978-0714111483- Nineveh 5, Vessel Pottery 2900 BC
- Leick, Gwendolyn (2010), The A to Z of Mesopotamia, Scarecrow Press - Early worship of Ishtar, Early / Prehistoric Nineveh
- Durant, Will (1954), Our oriental heritage, Simon & Schuster – Early / Prehistoric Nineveh
- Wilkinson, Eleanor Barbanes, and Stephen Lumsden, "Pottery from the University of California, Berkeley Excavations in the Area of the Maški Gate (MG22), Nineveh, 1989-1990", Archaeopress, 2022 ISBN 9781803272153
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 Archived 2015-09-26 at the Wayback Machine at the British Museum's website. Includes photographs of items from their collection.
- University of California Digital Nineveh Archives A teaching and research tool presenting a comprehensive picture of Nineveh within the history of archaeology in the Near East, including a searchable data repository for meaningful analysis of currently unlinked sets of data from different areas of the site and different episodes in the 160-year history of excavations
- CyArk Digital Nineveh Archives, publicly accessible, free depository of the data from the previously linked UC Berkeley Nineveh Archives project, fully linked and georeferenced in a UC Berkeley/CyArkresearch partnership to develop the archive for open web use. Includes creative commons-licensed media items.
- Photos of Nineveh, 1989–1990
- ABC 3 Archived 2016-11-10 at the Wayback Machine: Babylonian Chronicle Concerning the Fall of Nineveh
- Layard's Nineveh and its Remains- full text