Aššur, Kalhu, Dur-Sharrukin and Nineveh, the end of the Assyrian capitals?

9 March 2015

Through a short news bulletin issued by the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, we learnt that ISIS had attacked, using a bulldozer, the site at Nimrud, the ancient city of Kalhu, situated on the east bank of the Tigris River, south of Mosul.[1]

Under the name of Kalah, the city is mentioned after Nineveh and Aššur in the Bible (Genesis 10.11), where it is characterised as a great city. In fact, the city extended over some 360 hectares, including an acropolis of some 20 hectares. It was one of four successive capitals of the Assyrian empire. Inhabited since the middle of the second millennium BCE, the city gained its importance when Ashurnazirpal II (883–859) chose it as the place to build his capital. He had nine temples and a sumptuous palace built to the north-west of the acropolis. At the time of the inauguration of his new capital, Ashurnazirpal II invited 69,574 guests to a sumptuous feast, 16,000 of whom were inhabitants of the city. An inscription carved on a stele describes in detail the menu served at the banquet that lasted for about ten days, for which all the resources were drawn on. The palace was excavated in the middle of the nineteenth century by the Englishman Austen Henry Layard, who believed he was uncovering ancient Nineveh. A number of reliefs and sculptures were transported to the British Museum in London, as well as to some other important museums in the West. The Metropolitan Museum of New York has proposed the creation of a digital reconstruction of the palace. The excavations were resumed a century later by Max Mallowan, and subsequently by the Iraqis in the 1980s. Lying beneath the palace of Ashurnazirpal II, the Iraqis discovered some royal tombs filled with gold jewellery, which is today held at the Bagdad Museum.

In 717 bce, King Sargon II (721–705) decided to build a new capital on virgin ground: Dur-Sharrukin (‘Sargon’s Citadel’, whose modern name is Khorsabad). Beginning in 1843, this capital was excavated by the French diplomat Paul-Emile Botta, and subsequently by Victor Place. Several human-headed winged bulls and bas-reliefs were transported to Paris and represent the initial pieces in the collection of the Assyrian Museum in the Louvre, which was inaugurated in 1847. The inscriptions discovered in the palace, like the king’s correspondence, provide a detailed account of the massive works carried out for the construction of Dur-Sharrukin. Sargon’s palace, two additional palaces, his brother’s residence, and ministries and temples were built on the Acropolis. The city, protected by a surrounding wall, was inaugurated in 706 BCE, shortly before the death of the king.

In all likelihood, Sennacherib saw at Dur-Sharrukin an ill portent, and therefore decided to transfer the capital to Nineveh (704–681), where he built his famous ‘Palace Without Rival’. The city, whose guardian winged bulls on the Nergal gate were destroyed with pneumatic drills, retained its status of capital until the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BCE.

However, the earliest capital of the Assyrian State was Aššur, the domicile of the god Aššur. A city-state at the beginning of the second millennium BCE, Aššur was inhabited by merchants made wealthy by long-distance commerce with Central Anatolia. Aššur became the capital of Assyria under Ashur-uballit I (1365–1330). Even when it lost its status as capital, Aššur remained the religious conurbation of Assyria, and its buildings were tirelessly restored by the Assyrian kings. Built on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Tigris River, the city was excavated by the German architect W. Andrae at the beginning of the twentieth century. At the end of the 1970s, the Iraqis restored the city’s defensive walls, the ziggurat and the temple of the god Aššur. Some excavations for the purpose of salvage were carried out by the Iraqis and the Germans working in collaboration in the years 2000 and 2001, as the site was under threat by a damming project. In June of 2003, Aššur was classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and added to the list of endangered World Heritage. Up until recent times, the site had been relatively sheltered from ransacking and pillage.

These four ancient Assyrian capitals are located, along with many other archaeological sites, between Mosul and Tikrit, and therefore stand in the terrain held by ISIS. What will be left of these magnificent ancient capitals after being attacked by the jihadist organisation? The destruction of Kalhu is even more dramatic, given that it was the best preserved of the Assyrian capitals. Inside the palace, beautiful bas-reliefs adorned all of its halls, and the guardian winged bulls at the entrances, carved from gypsum, were for the most part fairly intact. Part of the palace of Ashurnazirpal II had been covered with a roof (appearing in white in the aerial photograph) to protect the bas-reliefs from the elements. After ISIS’ attacks, what is left of these great stone panels that depict the king partaking in ceremonial rituals, winged figures, genies (apkallu), trees of life, the king’s military campaigns and the vanquished bearing tributes, and the famous human-headed guardian winged bulls and lions that stand in pairs at the main entrances of the palace?

[1] The site of Hatra, of the Parthian era, classed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, has likewise suffered damage.