Sennacherib (704-681) and Nineveh

Nineveh: The site and urban planning

After Sargon II’s death in battle, Sennacherib immediately moved the royal seat of the empire to Nineveh, which had always been one of the important urban centers of the heartland of Assyria since the middle Assyrian period, and substantially settled at least from 3rd millenium onwards. Ancient Ninu(w)a, located near modern Mosul on the East bank of Tigris, and close to the confluence of Tigris and Khosr rivers, therefore an important river crossing, and major port of trade; distinguished by the two major mounds of Kojunjik and Nebi Yunus as the two high mounds of the city. Sennacherib initiated a massive building project at Nineveh, creating the largest city at the time. The city was especially famous for its temple to Ištar, known as Ištar of Nineveh, for whom temples were built in other places as well. In the 13th c. BC. Shalmaneser I (1273-1244 BC) claims to have built substantially at Nineveh, perhaps including a royal palace.A new city wall with as many as 18 gates. Today the site is under the threat of modern urbanization, and encroachments of the Mosul neighborhoods from all sides.

It was not the simple the construction of the city, but a whole landscape was transformed: Sennacherib diverted the course of the river Tebiltu (modern Khosr) to run well outside the new vast city, and brought water for his new city building an aqueduct from a good source at Jerwan. He also is credited from the inscriptions that he found a new source of building stone, NA4dŠE.TIR, in Mt. Nipur, which is modern Judi Mountain in the North, possibly some sort of grainy fossiliferrous sedimentary limestone for the bull colossi. In this sense, Nineveh is really the culmination of the developed Assyrian idea of a massive urban center, enclosing a fomidable 750 ha of urban land in comparison to Khorsabad which was 320 ha; with a city wall as wide as 25 m. and with a 12 km circumference, supplied with water with a sophisticated network of canals.

The citadel was located at the mound of Small Sheep, to the NorthWest edge of the city between the Quay gate and the Maški gates of the city wall. Sennacherib built his famous “Palace without rival” as he called it, and SouthWest palace as the archaeologists calls it; to the Southern edge of the citadel. Later Assurbanipal would build his palace to the North of the citadel. The treasure hunting oriented excavations at the Southwest palace started in 1847 by Austin Henry Layard, and uncovered substantial parts of the palace; and several short campaigns by Hormuzd Rassam who worked at Assurbanipal’s palace and others followed his work until the beginning of 20th c. Most recently David Stronach and John Russell carried archaelogical research at the city between 1987-90. Still the palace is known in architectural terms very poorly and ina fragmentary way even though this was one of the most prolific sites for wall reliefs.

Sennacherib’s inscriptions reveal considerable amounts of open spaces within the walls of this huge city, devoted to plazas, gardens, fields and even a zoological park, and probably military camp grounds. Two disctictively separte residentila areas were identified. Near the Maski gate to the West of the city 2 major streets were uncovered, axially coordinating with the gate. In this area an artisanal quarter is identified, with rather flimsy buildings and poor construction. In a separate area in the vicinity of the Maški gate, more prosperous residences were found with a series of large well constructed houses.

Part of the walls of the city were restored by the Iraqis and they look absolutely spectacular with their elaborate crennalations. The wall was 25 m thick and composed of two layers-skins: the short outer wall, 12 m in height, was built of finely dressed stone masonry, while the inner wall which rose some 25 m, twice as much but in mudbrick.

The immense palace of Sennacherib occupied the SW part of the Kuyuncuk mound, and less than half of it probably excavated, mostly by Austin Henry Layard from 1847 to 1851. It was excavated by the tunneling method, to achieve as many orthostats as possible with least amount of digging.

Ištar temple

Before we talk about the palace and its relief program, let’s briefly look at other buildings found on the citadel. The earliest building we know here was an Ištar temple located at the center of the mound, dating to the 3rd millennium, which was built several times especially in the Old Assyrian- Middle Assyrian and finally in the Neo-Assyrian periods, a long lasting cult.

Nabu temple

A temple to Nabu was also built in the middle of the citadel but its architecture is poorly preserved. A central courtyard is identified encircled with very thick walls, or rather a solid mudbrick platform. This temple was built even before Sennacherib.

Nineveh: The Southwest Palace:

Sennacherib built a palace that he called “Palace without rival,” with many new fascinating features that he boasts in his annals. Among these many new features of Sennacherib’s palace, one fascinating fact both depicted in palace reliefs and mentioned in the texts is the bronze lions, each cast in a striding but at the same time weight bearing pose were used as column bases.

The plan is provided for us by Layard; and it has been proposed by John M. Russell who actually worked at the palace 10 years ago very shortly argues that what Layad has excavated was less than half of the building, also based on how Sennacherib describes the building complex in his inscriptions. What Layard excavated according to Russell is the Southwest end of the palace, excluding the Forecourt, or the babanu. Russell restores a hypothetical forecourt, and yet another large court based on Sargon’s palace scheme to the E/NE of the excavated area. There was another building partiallly excavated to the Northeast of the Palace, referred to as “Sennacherib’s Eastern building” often referred as bit nakkapti. Russell’s own excavations at this area proved that these buildings was part of the Palace complex, as indicated by an inscription on bull colossi; and so Russell argued that this must have marked the NorthEastern limit of the palace complex, and as a later addition by Sennacherib ca 683 BC. This building included a major gateway paved with three large, wheel-rutted stone threshold slabs, orthostats carved with apotropaic figures similar to the SW palace examples. Dated inscriptions from the palace actually tell the piecemeal process of the construction and enlargement of the palace, as various complexes were added to it. The earliest inscriptions give dimensions of 60x34 “gar”s/cubits, while the last ones give the completed complex as 914x440 “gar”s/cubits (cubit ca 55 cms). The siting of the palace was limited by the Ishtar temple complex and its ziqqurrat.

The palace was composed of a throne-room court H to the Northeast, which was not excavated or washed away; a throne-room suite Rooms I-IV, quite colossal in its scale, and an inner court VI surrounded by even more reception suites, elaborately decoatyed with relief orthostats; and a second inner court XIX, which the excavators argue is a new feature introduced to Palace design; an even more grandiose set of thronerooms open to this court, with a set of resifdential quarters behind it.

This is the palace from where the largest number of reliefs come from. Layard excavated some 3 km of relief from this palace. But the palace ws burnt violently and thoroughly at the end of the Assyrian empire when Medes and Babylonian sacked the city, so alot of the reliefs were damaged beyond recognition.

The colossal bull figures were also present at all critical doorways throughout the palace, as well as some giant human figures holding a small dimunitive lion.

In the excavated area, Probably the main throneroom suite was rooms 1-5, to the East, a courtyard with a series of reception halls; and another court of a little bit larger scale to its South, an unusal complex of rooms with yet another and even more monumental set of thronerooms. Most peculiarly, some of the rooms to the very south open towards the southwest terrace, which suggests that there was an open terrace area overlooking the plains, both to the south of these thronerooms and to the South West. To the Western-Northwestern side of the excavated area, there was a group of small, domestic undecorated group of rooms, which must have disappointed Layard so that he didn’t even bother to draw their plan; but to the very West, beyond those rooms were a reception suite that an inscription carved on a pair of colossi identified the suite as the residence of Sennacherib’s favorite queen.

One of the innovative features of the palace is that while in the previous palaces, the narrative wall relief programs were only reserved for the reception halls and the rooms that company them; the range of the decorated spaces were much extended in Sennacherib’s palace. Another change is that in comparison to Sargon’s palace, Sennacherib’s palace was largely devoid of display inscriptions, which were confined to bull colossi. The palace was completely burnt at the fall of Nineveh ca 612 BC, so that much o the reliefs were badly cracked or scarred by heat; vast majority are still in situ.

Among the relief programs I would like to introduce you briefly one major theme, that of Court VI, the quarrying and transport of the bull colossi program.

The format of these reliefs were quite different from the earlier relief programs. First of all the standard incription that had cut through the slabs and divided the scenes are no longer there, the entire relief slab was opened to a full scale composition, depicting the historical events in wholistic landscapes.

The walls of the inner court VI were lined with reliefs depicting the narrative of the quarrying and transport of the human headed bull colossi, which in itself forms an interesting topic for us, because such a narrative scene is very rare among the military campaign and royal hunt scenes. It is also important for ancient quarrying and transport techniques.

In his inscriptions Sennacherib mentions a quarry called Balatai where most of the limestone for his palace was quarried. This site was located by archaeologists some 20 km n Of Nineveh in the vicinity of Old Mosul. The technique of removing such a giant block was also similar in Hittites of Anatolia and Egyptions, as depicted here. The stonemasons would open a trench enveloping the massive stone on all four sides. The block is detached with iron wedges after all four sides are carved out.

The event itself is also significant. What is celebrated and immemoralized in the walls of the palace is the constuction of the parts of that palace itself; an activity, a festival.

Nineveh: Assurbanipal’s North Palace.

I don’t plan to say anything much on Assurbanipal’s North palace at Nineveh which is very poorly known architecturally. Assurbanipal restored apparently Sennacherib’s palace, but also built a bir reduti commonly known as the crown prince palace, which is the North Palace at Nineveh, on the Northern part of the citadel of the Small Sheep citadel, to the North of the Nabu temple complex. Very little is recovered from this palace architecturally, especially by Hormuzd Rassam and W. Loftus in mid-19th c. (central part). Peculiar is the fact that human heade bull colossi were not used in the known parts including the throneroom façade. The double column that marked certain passageways became a widespread pattern in the palace perhaps a reflection of the bit hilani idea.

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