Nineveh has come to be something of a legend of the Near East; a symbol of the ancient civilization of Assyria and the marauding tribes of Mesopotamia. Located in northern Iraq near the modern city of Mosul, Nineveh was positioned on the eastern bank of the Tigris, right in the centre of the Assyrian Empire. Its history is blurred, but the first mention of the city came in around 1800 BC, when it was singled out as a centre of worship of the god Ishtar. However it was never a large city, and it would be a millennium before it was made into the beautiful and glorious place history insists it was. The Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib was reported to have built roads, squares and houses – and built the magnificent ‘palace without a rival’ which comprised over 80 rooms, many of which have since been found to have contained highly ornate cuneiform tablets.
However the city was living on borrowed time, and, following a first attack from the successful Medes in 625, a combination of Medes, Babylonians and Susianians sacked and razed Nineveh in 612, reducing it to rubble and massacring its inhabitants. From then on Nineveh was reduced to a mere myth; a fragment of its former glory living only in tales from Greek antiquarians such as Herodotus and Xenophon. It also garners attention in the Old Testament, where it is described as an ‘exceeding great city.’ The city would, however, be revisited as a site of geographical importance another thousand years later in 637 AD, when the Arab conquest built a new city next door; Mosul.
The city was buried beneath the desert until the 19th century, when French, British and Arab archaeologists discovered the ruins of the palace of Sargon II at the Khorsabad mound. An 1847 dig by the British explorer Sir Austen Henry Layard then uncovered Sennacherib’s palace, with its beautiful rooms and reliefs. Subsequent searches would unearth more artefacts, as well as the city’s many gates and walls. One of the most famous gates, Mashki, has been reconstructed and is something of a popular tourist destination. Thus Nineveh has risen from its bloodied ashes to become one of the showcase examples of the Assyrian people.