Kilicdaroglu speaks on Kurdish issue, Iraq, Syria, Egypt

time for CHANGE …item 1.. Déjà Vu in Gaza? — This calls to mind the words of Mark Twain: (Nov 28, 2012 / 14 Kislev 5773) …item 2.. Cobblers, Crisps and Crumbles (Nov 29th, 2012) …

Image by marsmet546

We do not have the option of passively standing by. Israel is in real danger and we need everyone on board. The verse (2-Kings 3:27) implies that if our enemies show great devotion and self-sacrifice for their cause, that obligates us to do the same.

For the purpose of education and activism, here are four key points to know:

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……..*****All images are copyrighted by their respective authors ……..

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…..item 1)…. Déjà Vu in Gaza? … www.aish.com/jw/mo … HOME ISRAEL MEDIA OBJECTIVITY

Déjà Vu in Gaza?

Four key take-aways from Operation Pillar of Defense.

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img code photo … Déjà Vu in Gaza?

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by Rabbi Shraga Simmons

Nov 28, 2012 / 14 Kislev 5773

www.aish.com/jw/mo/Deja-Vu-in-Gaza.html

It’s all so eerily familiar. A war that began a few weeks after Barack Obama’s presidential election. Gazans had been raining hundreds of Qassam rockets onto southern Israeli towns, along with long-range missiles supplied by the mad mullahs of Iran. With just 15 seconds to run into a shelter before impact, the rockets sowed panic in streets and schools. The danger reached ludicrous proportions and it was time to stop playing Islamic Roulette.

Four years ago, Israel launched “Operation Cast lead” to stop the rockets from Gaza. Now here we are again, this time with Operation Pillar of Defense (Amud Anan). Little has changed. On the heels of a U.S. presidential election, nearly 500 rockets have struck Israel from Gaza. One million Israelis are living in bomb shelters and Iranian-made Fajir missiles have put Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and 50 percent of Israel’s population within striking range.

Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system has successfully intercepted another 250 rockets. Yet the system is not fool-proof; dozens of Israelis have been injured and three civilians were killed when a Hamas rocket hit their home in the town of Kiryat Malachi.

Europeans fear their own capitals may one day be the target.

For now, people of good will are backing Israel’s right to self-defense. The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution in support of Israel, and the U.S. State Department – with a historically Arabist bent – was unequivocal: “The onus is on Hamas to stop its rocket attacks." Even traditionally hostile Europeans – perhaps fearing that their own capitals may one day be similarly targeted – are affirming “Israel’s right to live without fear of attack."

For its part, Israel has decimated over 100 rocket production and launching facilities in Gaza. As well, Israel eliminated arch-terrorist Ahmed Jabari, the commander-in-chief of Hamas terror activity who directed a decade of rockets, bombings, and the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit.

Where all this will end is a terrifying unknown. The Middle East is far more volatile than it was four years ago: Syria is immersed in a bloody civil war; Hizbollah positions have been strengthened in Lebanon; Egypt is now run by the Muslim Brotherhood; anti-government riots have erupted in Jordan; and Iran is four years closer to possessing an atomic bomb.

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—– What can we do?

… 1. Stay informed, and redouble efforts to assist Israel’s PR effort.

… 2. Strengthen our commitment to Jewish values.

… 3. Pray for the welfare of Israeli soldiers and all of Israel’s citizens.

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We do not have the option of passively standing by. Israel is in real danger and we need everyone on board. The verse (2-Kings 3:27) implies that if our enemies show great devotion and self-sacrifice for their cause, that obligates us to do the same.

For the purpose of education and activism, here are four key points to know:

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….. (1) CNN reporter shills as a mouthpiece for jihadist terror.

For media monitors, CNN has long been the gargoyle in an already-ugly media crowd. In a variety of ways – whether it’s CNN founder Ted Turner labeling Israeli defensive actions "terror"; or CNN’s Senior Editor of Mideast Affairs, Octavia Nasr, expressing her sadness over the passing of a Hezbollah terror leader; or Palestinian spokeswoman Diana Buttu asserting unchallenged on CNN that Qassam rockets (with their 7,000 metal ball bearings and 20 pounds of TNT) contain “no explosive warhead” – CNN too often seems on the cusp of pro-Palestinian activism.

This time around, CNN seems headed down the same path. A video report by Zain Verjee, the London-based anchor of CNN’s World Report, sounds like she’d be more comfortable on Hamas TV, as she discards all semblance of objectivity and assumes the role of disdainful challenger. Note specifically:

.. 0:57 – "How do these air strikes bring peace and quiet?"

.. 2:00 – "Fifteen children are wounded – these aren’t targeted operations!"

.. 3:46 – “Aren’t you making an already bad situation worse?”

The good news is that Israel has a superb spokesman in Mark Regev, a native of Australia who displays remarkable articulation and composure in the face of these CNN taunts. Keep your eye on CNN and in the meantime, click here to complain about Verjee’s horribly biased video report.

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….. (2) Beyond rockets and planes, this is a Social Media war.

The days are over when terrorists disseminate their hatred via a spooky video cassette sent to Al Jazeera. Today, you can simply "follow" Hamas missile squads on Twitter’s @alqassambrigade, or surf www.qassam.ps where you even have the option of selecting your favorite color scheme. More nefariously, Palestinian rocket-launching teams now use Google Earth to select their civilian targets.

Israel has traditionally been behind the curve when it comes to public diplomacy – the infamous "hasbara." In trying to influence world opinion, the government’s standard mode has been a cacophony of competing – and sometimes contradictory – messages from various spokespeople in the Government Press Office, IDF, Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry.

This time it’s different. Israel is prepared, quick, concise and – believe it or not – "media savvy." The Ministry of Public Diplomacy is coordinating an aggressive campaign under the banner, "Israel Under Fire."

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The IDF has issued a series of successful viral campaigns, such as a Facebook graphic which depicts the Statue of Liberty and other international landmarks being swamped by missiles. The message: “What would you do?”

After killing terror chieftain Jabari, the IDF immediately posted a YouTube video of the targeted strike. It has been viewed 4 million times, sending an important message to three different audiences:

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… A warning to militants in Gaza: "We can get you anywhere, anytime."

… An appeasing message to the Israeli public: "We will not remain helpless in the face of repeated rocket attacks."

… A reassurance to those concerned with collateral damage: "We can strike with utmost precision."

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This is a genuine Social Media War. On the heels of the Jabari strike, IDF tweeted a direct warning to his Hamas comrades; Hamas then tweeted back its own threat:

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img code photo … Tweet … IDF – 14 Nov 12 ….. Alqassam Brigades – 14 Nov 12

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Get involved. Follow the Israel Defense Forces at: Website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr. And most importantly: Share!

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….. (3) Bias in the New York Times – what else is new?

The New York Times has dark stains going all the way back to the Holocaust, when its gross under-reporting of events crippled efforts to generate public support for helping to save millions of Jews.

Now in Gaza, the Times is playing loose with the facts. A Times editorial insists that Hamas "has mostly adhered to an informal cease-fire with Israel after the war there in the winter of 2008-09." Would someone please explain how that jives with the fact that Hamas launched 650 rocket attacks in 2011 and nearly 1,000 this year alone?

Meanwhile, Times’ correspondents Fares Akram and Isabel Kershner profess to be doubtful of events, saying that the Israeli military operation is “in response to what Israel called repeated rocket attacks.” In the eyes of the Times, the launching of hundreds of rockets from Gaza is not a fact, but rather “what Israel called repeated rocket attacks.”

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The Times is also uncertain about the nature of Hamas, saying it is

“regarded by Israel as a terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction.”

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According to the Times, only Israel regards Hamas as a terrorist group. Why does the Times ignore that Hamas is also listed as a terrorist group by the European Union, United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, and United Kingdom?

As for the assertion that Hamas is “regarded by Israel as … sworn to Israel’s destruction,” is the Times somehow unaware of the Hamas Charter which cites the destruction of Israel as its primary objective? Does the Times not believe Hamas foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar when he declares: "Nobody among our sons and grandsons will accept Israel as a legal state… Israel is a foreign body. Not in this generation, not in the next generation, will we accept it here"?

So far, we’ve at least been spared the fairy tales from the rocket barrage of four years ago when the Times published the Hamas claim that "We did not intentionally target civilians. We were targeting military bases, but the primitive weapons make mistakes."

This calls to mind the words of Mark Twain: While there are laws to protect freedom of the press, there are unfortunately none to protect people from the press.

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….. (4) The Pallywood industry of false claims.

When it comes to civilians casualties, no one plays it like they do in Gaza. Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic notes how Hamas "prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis [Gaza], I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble – and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I’ve seen in my life. And it’s typical of Hamas."

Hamas has taken the initiative in promoting fake casualties. On Twitter, @AlqassamBrigade uploaded the photo of a "Palestinian child wounded in an Israeli air strike.” Astute media monitors noted that in truth, the photo is of a child injured last month in the Syrian civil war.

Meanwhile, AFP/Getty issued a photo of a Palestinian man picking up a doll lying on shattered glass. Was this scene genuine? It’s possible. But with such a rare confluence of elements – the man’s hand a split second from the pristine doll perfectly positioned in the rubble – logic rejects the likelihood that the photojournalist "just happened" to be down on the floor in perfect position at the precise moment. It’s simply too good to be true.

In a classic case of “fauxtography,” BBC and others posted footage of a "badly injured" man being carried away to safety by five other men. Thirty seconds later the man is shown – miraculously – walking around, healthy as a lark. (See the clips here, and watch till 2:42.)

In the meantime, Hamas has been desperately fabricating achievements: falsely claiming to have hit Israel’s parliament in Jerusalem, to have struck down an Israeli drone, and to have killed several soldiers in a jeep.

Click here to receive Aish.com’s free weekly email.

To be sure, as Hamas registers more losses in the military confrontation and thus becomes more desperate to win the media war, we can expect more attempts to orchestrate events. As Professor Richard Landes has predicted:

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Whether by Israeli accident or Hamas engineering, expect a spectacular civilian massacre in the coming days, followed by an orgy of Pallywood photography, amplified by a compliant Western media, and even greater fury in the streets of the Muslim and Western world. It’s in the Hamas playbook.

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Four years ago, the U.N. school in Jabalya, Gaza provided fodder for an alleged massacre (later disproven). This time, expect Hamas to hang on just long enough to score those coveted PR points. After all, events in Gaza appear to be happening all over again.

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…..item 2)…. ORTHODOX UNION … www.ou.org/life/food/recipes … Enhancing Jewish Life

Cobblers, Crisps and Crumbles

By Eileen Goltz | Nov 29th, 2012 |

www.ou.org/life/food/recipes/cobblers-crisps-crumbles-eil…

Please note: Eileen Goltz is a freelance kosher food writer. The Orthodox Union makes no endorsements or representations regarding kashrut certification of various products/vendors referred to in her articles, blog or web site.

There are lots of rivalries in the Torah. We have Moses/Pharaoh (“Let my people go”), Jacob/Esau (“Brother, can you spare a bowl of lentils?”) and especially at this time of year with Chanukah and that whole Macabees/Greeks brouhaha. But I say, nah–that’s child’s play compared to what goes on in my kitchen when the cobbler comes up against the crisp and then winner faces off against anything chocolate.

These fruit-based desserts are truly American in origin. Just to be clear, a cobbler is a deep-dish fruit dessert with a thick top crust (typically a biscuit dough).

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Crisps and crumbles are pretty much the same as a cobbler, only with a crumb topping. The combination for the topping is based on personal preference. You can mix and mingle shortening, flour, nuts, bread crumbs, cookie crumbs, graham cracker crumbs, or even crushed up breakfast cereal. And FYI–the crumble is just the English Isle’s version of a crisp.

As for which one of the following recipes is served after a plate full of latkes (potato pancakes), that’s up to you. Hopefully, you have just enough time to whip one up before they finish a no-holds-barred game of dreidel (spinning tops).

And if you need to substitute an apple for a pear for a peach, it’s all good.

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—– PICK-AND-MIX A CRISP (dairy or pareve)

Servings: 6 – 8

Ingredients:

… 5 cups apples, pears, peaches, or apricots, peeled and sliced; or frozen unsweetened peach slices (don’t drain the frozen fruit if using it)

… 2 to 4 tablespoons sugar

… 1/2 cup regular rolled oats

… 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

… 1/4 cup flour

… 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, ginger or cinnamon (your choice)

… 1/4 cup butter or margarine

… 1/4 cup chopped nuts or coconut or a mixture of both

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375. Place your fruit of choice in ungreased 2-quart square baking dish. Sprinkle the sugar over the top and mix to combine.

In a bowl combine the oats, brown sugar, flour and nutmeg, ginger, or cinnamon. Cut in butter or margarine until the mixture is combined and crumbly. Then add nuts and/or coconut and mix to combine.

Sprinkle the topping over the fruit. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until fruit is tender but not mushy and topping is golden brown and bubbly.

Options for Pick-and-Mix:

Make a double batch of the crunchy oatmeal topping mixture and store the extra in a freezer bag. Seal, label and freeze it for up to 1 month.

Blueberry Crisp: For filling, mix 1/4 cup sugar with 3 tablespoons flour. Toss with 5 cups fresh or frozen unsweetened blueberries.

Cherry Crisp: For filling, mix 1/2 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons flour with 5 cups fresh or frozen unsweetened pitted tart red cherries.

Rhubarb Crisp: For filling, mix 3/4 cup sugar with 3 tablespoons flour. Add 5 cups fresh or frozen unsweetened sliced rhubarb.

Modified and submitted by Rene Onella of San Francisco, CA. Original source unknown.

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—– BLUEBERRY CORNMEAL COBBLER (dairy or pareve)

Servings: 12

Directions:

… 4 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (don’t thaw if using frozen)

… 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

… 1 tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca

… 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel

… 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

… 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

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>> Topping:

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… 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened, divided

… 1 cup powdered sugar

… 1 egg

… 1 cup flour

… 1/2 cup cornmeal

… 2 teaspoons baking powder

… 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

… 1/2 teaspoon salt

… 3/4 cup buttermilk or non-dairy substitute

… 2 tablespoons maple syrup (use the real stuff)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375. Grease an 11 X7 baking dish and set it aside.

In a large bowl, combine the blueberries, sugar, tapioca, lemon peel, cinnamon and nutmeg. Let stand for 15 minutes. Pour into the prepared pan.

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup butter or margarine and powdered sugar. Add the egg and mix to combine.

Add the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and salt to the creamed mixture alternately with the buttermilk or non-dairy substitute, mixing just until combined. Spoon the batter over berry mixture. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

In a small saucepan, melt remaining butter or margarine over low heat. Remove from the heat; stir in the syrup. Brush over corn bread. Broil 4-6 inches from the heat for 1-2 minutes or until bubbly. Serve warm.

Modified from a recipe from Judy Watson of Tipton, IN; Taste of Home, 2012.

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—– PEAR AND CRANBERRY COBBLER (dairy or pareve)

Servings: 8 – 10

Ingredients:

>> Filling:

… 2 pounds firm Bartlett pears, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch wedges

… 1 2/3 cups fresh cranberries (6 ounces)

… 1 cup sugar

… 2 (1- by 3-inch) strips orange zest, finely chopped

… 1/4 cup red wine

… 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

… 2 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine, cut into bits

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>> Biscuit topping:

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… 1 1/2 cups flour

… 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

… rounded 1/4 teaspoon salt

… 1 cup heavy cream or non-dairy substitute, divided

… 1 teaspoon sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425. Grease a 9X13 baking dish and set it aside.

In a bowl combine the pears, cranberries, sugar, orange zest, red wine and allspice. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and dot the top with the butter or margarine. Cover dish tightly with foil and bake 20 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake until cranberries burst and pears are just tender, 15 to 20 minutes more.

While filling is cooking, make biscuits:

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl, then add 3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons cream or non-dairy substitute and stir just until a dough forms. Gather dough into a ball and transfer to a lightly floured surface (dough will feel dense and heavy).

Gently knead dough 6 times, then pat out into an 8-inch round (about 1/3-inch thick).

Cut out as many rounds as possible with lightly floured cutter, transferring to a sheet of wax paper. Gather scraps and pat out once more, then cut out more rounds. You will have about 16 rounds.

Carefully but quickly, top hot fruit with biscuits, arranging in 1 layer. Brush biscuits with remaining tablespoon cream or non-dairy substitute and sprinkle with sugar.

Continue to bake cobbler until biscuits are puffed and golden, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool 15 minutes before serving.

Epicurious, November 2011, from a recipe by Shelley Wiseman.

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—– SWEET POTATO COBBLER (dairy or pareve)

Ingredients:

>> Filling:

… 2 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes

… 1 quart water

… 3/4 cup corn syrup

… 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

… 1 teaspoon cinnamon

… 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

… 1/4 teaspoon salt

… 2 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine

… 1 teaspoon vanilla

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>> Biscuit dough:

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… 3 cups flour

… 4 teaspoons baking powder

… 3/4 teaspoon salt

… 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter or margarine, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

… 1 1/4 cups milk or non-dairy substitute

Directions:

Peel sweet potatoes, then halve lengthwise and slice crosswise 1/4-inch thick. Combine potatoes with remaining filling ingredients in a wide 4- to 5-quart pot and simmer, covered, until potatoes are almost tender, 6 to 8 minutes.

Transfer potatoes with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Boil remaining liquid, uncovered, until reduced to about 2 cups (it will become syrupy), 20 to 25 minutes.

Make dough and bake cobbler:

Preheat oven to 375.

In a bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter or margarine until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in milk or non-dairy substitute with a fork until a dough forms.

Gather dough into a ball, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead 7 or 8 times. Divide dough into 2 pieces, then form each into a disk.

Roll out 1 disk with a floured rolling pin into a 14-inch round (about 1/8 inch thick) and fit into bottom and about halfway up the sides of Dutch oven, pressing against the sides to help it adhere.

Roll out remaining dough into another 14-inch round, then trim to a 12-inch round with a paring knife, reserving trimmings.

Spoon half of sweet potatoes evenly into dough-lined Dutch oven, then top with 1 layer dough trimmings, cutting and fitting trimmings to almost cover potatoes. Add remaining potatoes and pour syrup over potatoes.

Cover potatoes with 12-inch dough round, pressing edges together to seal. Cut 3 steam vents in top with paring knife.

Bake cobbler until top is golden, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool to warm before serving, about 30 minutes (dough will absorb most of syrup).

Adapted from a Nathan Jean Whitaker Sanders recipe on epicurious.com.

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—– MANGO CRISP (dairy)

Servings: 8

Ingredients:

… 8 to 9 cups mangoes, sliced

… 1 teaspoon cinnamon

… 1 teaspoon nutmeg

… 1/3 cup butter

… 1 box pound cake mix

… 1/2 to 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

… whipped topping, whipped cream or ice cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.

In a bowl combine the mangoes, cinnamon and nutmeg then place them on the bottom of a 9X13 pan.

Place the cake mix in a bowl and cut in the butter until it’s crumbly. Add in the nuts and mix to combine. Sprinkle the topping over the fruit and then bake for 50 to 60 minutes.

Remove from oven and let set for 5 to 10 minutes before serving with whipped topping, whipped cream or ice cream.

My files, source unknown.

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—– RAISIN RHUBARB CRISP (dairy or pareve)

Servings: 8

Ingredients:

… 5 cups sliced fresh or frozen rhubarb

… 2 tablespoons flour

… 1/2 cup raisins

… 1/2 cup golden raisins

… 3/4 to 1 cup brown sugar

… 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

… 1/4 teaspoon salt

… 1/2 cup flour

… 1/3 cup quick-cooking oats

… 1/3 cup butter or margarine

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375.

Grease a 9X9 baking pan and set it aside. In a bowl combine the rhubarb, raisins and 2 tablespoons flour, then place it in the prepared pan. Without cleaning out the bowl, add the brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt; sprinkle it over the fruit.

In the same bowl combine the oats, 1/2 cup flour and butter. Cut in the butter or margarine until the mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle this mixture over the top of the crisp. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes until the top is golden brown and bubbly.

My files, source unknown.

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Eileen Goltz is a freelance kosher food writer who was born and raised in the Chicago area. She graduated from Indiana University and the Cordon Bleu Cooking School in Paris. She lectures on various food-related topics across the U.S. and Canada and writes weekly columns for the Chicago Jewish News, kosher.com and the OU Shabbat Shalom Website. She is the author of the Perfectly Pareve Cookbook (Feldheim) and is a contributing writer for the Chicken Soup for the Soul Book Group, Chicago Sun Times, Detroit Free Press and Woman’s World Magazine. You can visit Eileen’s blog by clicking: Cuisine by Eileen.

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Kilicdaroglu speaks on Kurdish issue, Iraq, Syria, Egypt

As Syria"s civil war rages on, Kilicdaroglu argued that Turkey should refrain from intervening in the conflict, but must support an international conference to resolve the crisis. "We should never take on the responsibility of intervening in the …
Read more on www.worldbulletin.net

In post-Morsi Egypt journalists toe the military line or self censor

Egypt"s De facto ruler El Sissi earned the adoration of millions of Egyptians when he ousted Morsi, positioning himself as the “guardian of the people"s will” and claiming he had “saved the country from a looming civil war.” He has since been compared …
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Kilicdaroglu speaks on Kurdish issue, Iraq, Syria, Egypt

Nineveh walls, near present day Mosul, Iraq

A nice prophecy bible verse images I found:

Nineveh walls, near present day Mosul, Iraq

Image by james_gordon_losangeles

Nineveh (Akkadian: Ninwe; Hebrew: Nīnewē; Latin: Nineve; Arabic: Naynuwa; Persian: Nainavā) was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq.

Nineveh

Etymology

The origin of the name Nineveh is obscure. Possibly it meant originally the seat of Ishtar, since Nina was one of the Babylonian names of that goddess. The ideogram means "house or place of fish; and was perhaps due to popular etymology (comp. Aramaic nuna, denoting ish).

Geography

Ancient Nineveh’s mound-ruins of Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus are located on a level part of the plain near the junction of the Tigris and the Khosr Rivers within a 7 km² (1732 acres) area circumscribed by a 12-kilometre (7.5 mi) brick rampart. This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins overlaid in parts by new suburbs of the city of Mosul.

Nineveh was an important junction for commercial routes crossing the Tigris. Occupying a central position on the great highway 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, and the capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire.

History

Nineveh was one of the oldest and greatest cities in antiquity. The area was settled as early as 6000 BC and, by 3000 BC, had become an important religious center for worship of the Assyrian 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 BC by the Akkadian king Manishtusu.

Texts from the Hellenistic period and later offered an eponymous Ninus as the founder of Nineveh, although there is no historical basis for this. The historic Nineveh is mentioned about 1800 BC as a centre of worship of Ishtar, whose cult was responsible for the city’s early importance. 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 nearly a century until the mid 14th century BC, when the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I reclaimed it in 1365 BC while overthrowing the Mitanni Empire.

There is no large body of evidence to show that Assyrian monarchs built at all extensively in Nineveh during the 2nd millennium BC; it appears to have been originally an Assyrian provincial town. Later monarchs whose inscriptions have appeared on the high city include Shalmaneser I and Tiglath-Pileser I, both of whom were active builders in Assur (Ashur); the former had founded Calah (Nimrud). Nineveh had to wait for the Neo Assyrian Empire, particularly from the time of Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 BC) onward, for a considerable architectural expansion. Thereafter successive monarchs such as Sargon II, Esarhaddon, Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal kept in repair and founded new palaces, temples to Sîn, Ashur, Nergal, Šamaš, Ishtar, and Nabiu of Borsippa.

The king hunting lion from the North Palace, Nineveh seen at the British Museum

It was Sennacherib who made Nineveh a truly magnificent city (c. 700 BC). He laid out new streets and squares and built within it the famous 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 comprised 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 door figures weighing up to 30,000 kilograms (30 t); they included many winged lions or bulls with a man’s head. These were transported 50 kilometres (31 mi) from quarries at Balatai and they had to be lifted up 20 metres (66 ft) once they arrived at the site, presumably by a ramp. There are also 3,000 metres (9,843 ft) of stone panels carved in bas-relief, that include pictorial records documenting every construction step including carving the statues and transporting them on a barge. One picture shows 44 men towing a colossal statue. The carving shows three men directing the operation while standing on the Colossus. Once the statues arrived at their destination the final carving was done. Most of the statues weigh between 9,000 and 27,000 kilograms (19,842 and 59,525 lb).

The stone carvings in the walls include many battle scenes, impalings and scenes showing Sennacherib’s men parading the spoils of war before him. He also bragged about his conquests: he wrote of Babylon Its inhabitants, young and old, I did not spare, and with their corpses I filled the streets of the city. He later wrote about a battle in Lachish. And Hezekiah of Judah who had not submitted to my yoke…him I shut up in Jeruselum his royal city like a caged bird. Earthworks I threw up against him, and anyone coming out of his city gate I made pay for his crime. His cities which I had plundered I had cut off from his land.

At this time the total area of Nineveh comprised about 7 square kilometres (1,730 acres), 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. 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.

Nineveh’s greatness was short-lived. In around 627 BC after the death of its last great king Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter civil wars, and Assyria was attacked by its former vassals, the Babylonians and Medes. From about 616 BC, in a coalition with the Scythians and Cimmerians, they besieged Nineveh, sacking the town in 612 BC, after which it was razed to the ground. 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. 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 them.

Following the defeat in 612 BC, the site remained largely unoccupied for centuries with only a scattering of Assyrians living amid the ruins until the Sassanian period, although Assyrians continue to live in the surrounding area to this day. The city is mentioned again in the Battle of Nineveh in 627 AD, which was fought between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanian Empire of Persia near the ancient city. From the Arab conquest 637 CE until modern time the city of Mosul on the opposite bank of the river Tigris became the successor of ancient Nineveh.

Biblical Nineveh

In the Bible, Nineveh is first mentioned in Genesis 10:11: Ashur left that land, and built Nineveh;. Some modern translations interpret Ashur in the Hebrew of this verse as the country Assyria rather than a person, thus making Nimrod the builder of Nineveh.

Though the Books of Kings and Books of Chronicles talk a great deal about the Assyrian empire, Nineveh itself is not again noticed till the days of Jonah, when it is described (Jonah 3:3ff; 4:11) as an exceedingly great city of three days journey in breadth. But it is also possible that it took three days to cover all its neighborhoods by walking, which would match the size of ancient Nineveh. The ruins of Kouyunjik, Nimrud, Karamles and Khorsabad form the four corners of an irregular quadrangle. The ruins of 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 book of Jonah depicts Nineveh as a wicked city worthy of destruction. God sent Jonah to preach, and the Ninevites fasted and repented. As a result, God spared the city; when Jonah protests against this, God states He is showing pity for the population who are ignorant of the difference between right and wrong ("who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand the animals in the city.

Nineveh was the flourishing capital of the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 19:36); and ostensibly was the home of King Sennacherib, King of Assyria, during the Biblical reign of King Hezekiah and the prophetic career of Isaiah. According to scripture, Nineveh was also the place where Sennacherib died at the hands of his two sons, who then fled to the land of `rrt Urartu. (Isa. 37:37-38). The book of the prophet Nahum is almost exclusively taken up with prophetic denunciations against this city. Its ruin and utter desolation are foretold (Nahum 1:14; 3:19, etc.). Its end was strange, sudden, tragic. (Nahum 2:6–11) According to the Bible, it was God’s doing, his judgment on Assyria’s pride (Jonah Nah). In fulfillment of prophecy, God made "an utter end of the place". It became a desolation. Zephaniah also (2:13–15) predicts its destruction along with the fall of the empire of which it was the capital. Nineveh is also the setting in the Book of Tobit.

Nineveh’s repentance and salvation from evil is noted in the Gospel of Matthew (12:41) and the Gospel of Luke (11:32). To this day, oriental churches of the Middle East commemorate the three days Jonah spent inside the fish during the Fast of Nineveh. The faithful fast by refraining from food and drinks. Churches encourage followers to refrain from meat, fish and dairy products.

Classical history

Before the great archaeological excavations in the 19th century, historical knowledge of the great Assyrian empire and of its magnificent capital was almost wholly a blank. Other cities that had perished, such as Palmyra, Persepolis, and Thebes, had left ruins to mark their sites and tell of their former greatness; but of this city, imperial Nineveh, not a single vestige seemed to remain, and the very place on which it had stood became only matter of conjecture.

In the days of the Greek historians Ctesias and Herodotus, 400 BC, Nineveh had become a thing of the past; and when Xenophon the historian passed the place in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand the very memory of its name had been lost. It was buried out of sight.

In his History of the World (written c. 1616) Sir Walter Raleigh erroneously asserted (attributing the information to Johannes Nauclerus c. 1425-1510), that Nineveh had originally had the name Campsor before Ninus supposedly rebuilt it. This was still regarded as correct information when news of Layard’s discoveries (see below) reached the west.

Archaeology

Excavation history

In 1842, French Consul General at Mosul, Paul-Émile Botta began to search the vast mounds that lay along the opposite bank of the river. The Arabs whom he employed in these excavations, to their great surprise, came upon the ruins of a building at the mound of Khorsabad, which, on further exploration, turned out to be the royal palace of Sargon II, which was largely explored for sculptures and other precious relics.

In 1847 the young British adventurer Sir Austen Henry Layard explored the ruins. In the Kuyunjik mound Layard rediscovered in 1849 the lost palace of Sennacherib with its 71 rooms and colossal bas-reliefs. He also unearthed the palace and famous library of Ashurbanipal with 22,000 cuneiform clay tablets. Most of Layard’s material was sent to the British Museum, but two large pieces were given to Lady Charlotte Guest and eventually found their way to the Metropolitan Museum. The study of the archaeology of Nineveh reveals the wealth and glory of ancient Assyria under kings such as Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) and Ashurbanipal (669–626 BC).

The work of exploration was carried on by George Smith, Hormuzd Rassam, 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.

The mound of Kouyunjik was excavated again by the archaeologists of the British Museum, led by Leonard William King, at the beginning of the twentieth 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 already taken part in King’s expeditions. Some works were carried out outside Kouyunjik, for instance on the mound of 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 Second World War, several excavations were carried out by Iraqi archaeologists. From 1951 to 1958 Mohammed Ali Mustafa worked the site. The work was continued from 1967 through 1971 by Tariq Madhloom. Some additional excavation occurred by Manhal Jabur in 1980, and Manhal Jabur in 1987. For the most part, these digs focused on Nebi Yunus.

Most recently, British archaeologist and Assyriologist Professor David Stronach of the University of California, Berkeley conducted a series of surveys and digs at the site from 1987–1990, 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.

Archaeological remains

Today, Nineveh’s location is marked by two large mounds, Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus Prophet Jonah, and the remains of the city walls (about 12 kilometres (7 mi) in circumference). The Neo-Assyrian levels of Kouyunjik have been extensively explored. The other mound, Nabī Yūnus, has not been as extensively explored because there is an Arab Muslim shrine dedicated to that prophet on the site.

Kuyunjik – The ruin mound 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 due to the turmoil in the area. 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.

Bull man excavated at Nebi Yunus by Iraqi archaeologists

Nebi Yunus – located about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) south of Kuyunjik, 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.

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 a’foresticking stone towers spaced about every 18 metres (59 ft). The stone wall and towers were topped by three-step merlons.

The city wall was fitted with fifteen monumental gateways. In addition to serving as checkpoints on entering and exiting the city, these structures were probably used as barracks and armories. With the inner and outer doors shut, the gateways were virtual fortresses. The bases of the walls of the vaulted passages and interior chambers of the gateway were lined with finely cut stone orthostats about 1 metre (3 ft) high. A stairway led from one of the interior chambers to the top of the mudbrick wall.

Five of the gateways have been explored to some extent by archaeologists:

Mashki Gate

Translated "Gate of the Watering Places", it was perhaps used to take livestock to water from the River Tigris which currently flows about 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) to the west. It has been reconstructed in fortified mudbrick to the height of the top of the vaulted passageway. The Assyrian original may have been plastered and ornamented.

Nergal Gate

Named for the god Nergal, it may have been used for some ceremonial purpose, as it is the only known gate flanked by stone sculptures of winged bull-men (lamassu). The reconstruction is conjectural, as the gate was excavated by Layard in the mid 19th century, and reconstructed in the mid 20th century.

Adad Gate

Named for the god Adad. A reconstruction was begun in the 1960s by Iraqis, but was not completed. The result is an uneasy mixture of concrete and eroding mudbrick, which nonetheless does give one some idea of the original structure. Fortunately, the excavator left some features unexcavated, allowing a view of the original Assyrian construction. The original brickwork of the outer vaulted passageway is well exposed, as is the entrance of the vaulted stairway to the upper levels. The actions of Nineveh’s last defenders can be seen in the hastily built mudbrick construction which narrows the passageway from 4 to 2 metres (13 to 7 ft).

Shamash Gate

Eastern city wall and Shamash Gate.

Named for the Sun god Shamash, it opens to the road to Arbil. 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 sticks 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 expedition of 1989–90. 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.

Threats to Nineveh

The site of Nineveh is exposed to decay of its reliefs by a lack of proper protective roofing, vandalism and looting holes dug into chamber floors. Future preservation is further compromised by the site’s proximity to constantly expanding suburbs.

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.

Nineveh walls, near present day Mosul, Iraq

Nineveh gate, near present day Mosul, Iraq

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Nineveh gate, near present day Mosul, Iraq

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Nineveh (Akkadian: Ninwe; Hebrew: Nīnewē; Latin: Nineve; Arabic: Naynuwa; Persian: Nainavā) was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq.

Nineveh

Etymology

The origin of the name Nineveh is obscure. Possibly it meant originally the seat of Ishtar, since Nina was one of the Babylonian names of that goddess. The ideogram means "house or place of fish; and was perhaps due to popular etymology (comp. Aramaic nuna, denoting ish).

Geography

Ancient Nineveh’s mound-ruins of Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus are located on a level part of the plain near the junction of the Tigris and the Khosr Rivers within a 7 km² (1732 acres) area circumscribed by a 12-kilometre (7.5 mi) brick rampart. This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins overlaid in parts by new suburbs of the city of Mosul.

Nineveh was an important junction for commercial routes crossing the Tigris. Occupying a central position on the great highway 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, and the capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire.

History

Nineveh was one of the oldest and greatest cities in antiquity. The area was settled as early as 6000 BC and, by 3000 BC, had become an important religious center for worship of the Assyrian 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 BC by the Akkadian king Manishtusu.

Texts from the Hellenistic period and later offered an eponymous Ninus as the founder of Nineveh, although there is no historical basis for this. The historic Nineveh is mentioned about 1800 BC as a centre of worship of Ishtar, whose cult was responsible for the city’s early importance. 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 nearly a century until the mid 14th century BC, when the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I reclaimed it in 1365 BC while overthrowing the Mitanni Empire.

There is no large body of evidence to show that Assyrian monarchs built at all extensively in Nineveh during the 2nd millennium BC; it appears to have been originally an Assyrian provincial town. Later monarchs whose inscriptions have appeared on the high city include Shalmaneser I and Tiglath-Pileser I, both of whom were active builders in Assur (Ashur); the former had founded Calah (Nimrud). Nineveh had to wait for the Neo Assyrian Empire, particularly from the time of Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 BC) onward, for a considerable architectural expansion. Thereafter successive monarchs such as Sargon II, Esarhaddon, Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal kept in repair and founded new palaces, temples to Sîn, Ashur, Nergal, Šamaš, Ishtar, and Nabiu of Borsippa.

The king hunting lion from the North Palace, Nineveh seen at the British Museum

It was Sennacherib who made Nineveh a truly magnificent city (c. 700 BC). He laid out new streets and squares and built within it the famous 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 comprised 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 door figures weighing up to 30,000 kilograms (30 t); they included many winged lions or bulls with a man’s head. These were transported 50 kilometres (31 mi) from quarries at Balatai and they had to be lifted up 20 metres (66 ft) once they arrived at the site, presumably by a ramp. There are also 3,000 metres (9,843 ft) of stone panels carved in bas-relief, that include pictorial records documenting every construction step including carving the statues and transporting them on a barge. One picture shows 44 men towing a colossal statue. The carving shows three men directing the operation while standing on the Colossus. Once the statues arrived at their destination the final carving was done. Most of the statues weigh between 9,000 and 27,000 kilograms (19,842 and 59,525 lb).

The stone carvings in the walls include many battle scenes, impalings and scenes showing Sennacherib’s men parading the spoils of war before him. He also bragged about his conquests: he wrote of Babylon Its inhabitants, young and old, I did not spare, and with their corpses I filled the streets of the city. He later wrote about a battle in Lachish. And Hezekiah of Judah who had not submitted to my yoke…him I shut up in Jeruselum his royal city like a caged bird. Earthworks I threw up against him, and anyone coming out of his city gate I made pay for his crime. His cities which I had plundered I had cut off from his land.

At this time the total area of Nineveh comprised about 7 square kilometres (1,730 acres), 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. 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.

Nineveh’s greatness was short-lived. In around 627 BC after the death of its last great king Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter civil wars, and Assyria was attacked by its former vassals, the Babylonians and Medes. From about 616 BC, in a coalition with the Scythians and Cimmerians, they besieged Nineveh, sacking the town in 612 BC, after which it was razed to the ground. 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. 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 them.

Following the defeat in 612 BC, the site remained largely unoccupied for centuries with only a scattering of Assyrians living amid the ruins until the Sassanian period, although Assyrians continue to live in the surrounding area to this day. The city is mentioned again in the Battle of Nineveh in 627 AD, which was fought between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanian Empire of Persia near the ancient city. From the Arab conquest 637 CE until modern time the city of Mosul on the opposite bank of the river Tigris became the successor of ancient Nineveh.

Biblical Nineveh

In the Bible, Nineveh is first mentioned in Genesis 10:11: Ashur left that land, and built Nineveh;. Some modern translations interpret Ashur in the Hebrew of this verse as the country Assyria rather than a person, thus making Nimrod the builder of Nineveh.

Though the Books of Kings and Books of Chronicles talk a great deal about the Assyrian empire, Nineveh itself is not again noticed till the days of Jonah, when it is described (Jonah 3:3ff; 4:11) as an exceedingly great city of three days journey in breadth. But it is also possible that it took three days to cover all its neighborhoods by walking, which would match the size of ancient Nineveh. The ruins of Kouyunjik, Nimrud, Karamles and Khorsabad form the four corners of an irregular quadrangle. The ruins of 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 book of Jonah depicts Nineveh as a wicked city worthy of destruction. God sent Jonah to preach, and the Ninevites fasted and repented. As a result, God spared the city; when Jonah protests against this, God states He is showing pity for the population who are ignorant of the difference between right and wrong ("who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand the animals in the city.

Nineveh was the flourishing capital of the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 19:36); and ostensibly was the home of King Sennacherib, King of Assyria, during the Biblical reign of King Hezekiah and the prophetic career of Isaiah. According to scripture, Nineveh was also the place where Sennacherib died at the hands of his two sons, who then fled to the land of `rrt Urartu. (Isa. 37:37-38). The book of the prophet Nahum is almost exclusively taken up with prophetic denunciations against this city. Its ruin and utter desolation are foretold (Nahum 1:14; 3:19, etc.). Its end was strange, sudden, tragic. (Nahum 2:6–11) According to the Bible, it was God’s doing, his judgment on Assyria’s pride (Jonah Nah). In fulfillment of prophecy, God made "an utter end of the place". It became a desolation. Zephaniah also (2:13–15) predicts its destruction along with the fall of the empire of which it was the capital. Nineveh is also the setting in the Book of Tobit.

Nineveh’s repentance and salvation from evil is noted in the Gospel of Matthew (12:41) and the Gospel of Luke (11:32). To this day, oriental churches of the Middle East commemorate the three days Jonah spent inside the fish during the Fast of Nineveh. The faithful fast by refraining from food and drinks. Churches encourage followers to refrain from meat, fish and dairy products.

Classical history

Before the great archaeological excavations in the 19th century, historical knowledge of the great Assyrian empire and of its magnificent capital was almost wholly a blank. Other cities that had perished, such as Palmyra, Persepolis, and Thebes, had left ruins to mark their sites and tell of their former greatness; but of this city, imperial Nineveh, not a single vestige seemed to remain, and the very place on which it had stood became only matter of conjecture.

In the days of the Greek historians Ctesias and Herodotus, 400 BC, Nineveh had become a thing of the past; and when Xenophon the historian passed the place in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand the very memory of its name had been lost. It was buried out of sight.

In his History of the World (written c. 1616) Sir Walter Raleigh erroneously asserted (attributing the information to Johannes Nauclerus c. 1425-1510), that Nineveh had originally had the name Campsor before Ninus supposedly rebuilt it. This was still regarded as correct information when news of Layard’s discoveries (see below) reached the west.

Archaeology

Excavation history

In 1842, French Consul General at Mosul, Paul-Émile Botta began to search the vast mounds that lay along the opposite bank of the river. The Arabs whom he employed in these excavations, to their great surprise, came upon the ruins of a building at the mound of Khorsabad, which, on further exploration, turned out to be the royal palace of Sargon II, which was largely explored for sculptures and other precious relics.

In 1847 the young British adventurer Sir Austen Henry Layard explored the ruins. In the Kuyunjik mound Layard rediscovered in 1849 the lost palace of Sennacherib with its 71 rooms and colossal bas-reliefs. He also unearthed the palace and famous library of Ashurbanipal with 22,000 cuneiform clay tablets. Most of Layard’s material was sent to the British Museum, but two large pieces were given to Lady Charlotte Guest and eventually found their way to the Metropolitan Museum. The study of the archaeology of Nineveh reveals the wealth and glory of ancient Assyria under kings such as Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) and Ashurbanipal (669–626 BC).

The work of exploration was carried on by George Smith, Hormuzd Rassam, 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.

The mound of Kouyunjik was excavated again by the archaeologists of the British Museum, led by Leonard William King, at the beginning of the twentieth 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 already taken part in King’s expeditions. Some works were carried out outside Kouyunjik, for instance on the mound of 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 Second World War, several excavations were carried out by Iraqi archaeologists. From 1951 to 1958 Mohammed Ali Mustafa worked the site. The work was continued from 1967 through 1971 by Tariq Madhloom. Some additional excavation occurred by Manhal Jabur in 1980, and Manhal Jabur in 1987. For the most part, these digs focused on Nebi Yunus.

Most recently, British archaeologist and Assyriologist Professor David Stronach of the University of California, Berkeley conducted a series of surveys and digs at the site from 1987–1990, 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.

Archaeological remains

Today, Nineveh’s location is marked by two large mounds, Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus Prophet Jonah, and the remains of the city walls (about 12 kilometres (7 mi) in circumference). The Neo-Assyrian levels of Kouyunjik have been extensively explored. The other mound, Nabī Yūnus, has not been as extensively explored because there is an Arab Muslim shrine dedicated to that prophet on the site.

Kuyunjik – The ruin mound 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 due to the turmoil in the area. 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.

Bull man excavated at Nebi Yunus by Iraqi archaeologists

Nebi Yunus – located about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) south of Kuyunjik, 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.

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 a’foresticking stone towers spaced about every 18 metres (59 ft). The stone wall and towers were topped by three-step merlons.

The city wall was fitted with fifteen monumental gateways. In addition to serving as checkpoints on entering and exiting the city, these structures were probably used as barracks and armories. With the inner and outer doors shut, the gateways were virtual fortresses. The bases of the walls of the vaulted passages and interior chambers of the gateway were lined with finely cut stone orthostats about 1 metre (3 ft) high. A stairway led from one of the interior chambers to the top of the mudbrick wall.

Five of the gateways have been explored to some extent by archaeologists:

Mashki Gate

Translated "Gate of the Watering Places", it was perhaps used to take livestock to water from the River Tigris which currently flows about 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) to the west. It has been reconstructed in fortified mudbrick to the height of the top of the vaulted passageway. The Assyrian original may have been plastered and ornamented.

Nergal Gate

Named for the god Nergal, it may have been used for some ceremonial purpose, as it is the only known gate flanked by stone sculptures of winged bull-men (lamassu). The reconstruction is conjectural, as the gate was excavated by Layard in the mid 19th century, and reconstructed in the mid 20th century.

Adad Gate

Named for the god Adad. A reconstruction was begun in the 1960s by Iraqis, but was not completed. The result is an uneasy mixture of concrete and eroding mudbrick, which nonetheless does give one some idea of the original structure. Fortunately, the excavator left some features unexcavated, allowing a view of the original Assyrian construction. The original brickwork of the outer vaulted passageway is well exposed, as is the entrance of the vaulted stairway to the upper levels. The actions of Nineveh’s last defenders can be seen in the hastily built mudbrick construction which narrows the passageway from 4 to 2 metres (13 to 7 ft).

Shamash Gate

Eastern city wall and Shamash Gate.

Named for the Sun god Shamash, it opens to the road to Arbil. 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 sticks 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 expedition of 1989–90. 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.

Threats to Nineveh

The site of Nineveh is exposed to decay of its reliefs by a lack of proper protective roofing, vandalism and looting holes dug into chamber floors. Future preservation is further compromised by the site’s proximity to constantly expanding suburbs.

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.

Nineveh gate, near present day Mosul, Iraq

Nineveh gate, near present day Mosul, Iraq

A cool prophecy bible verse images:

Nineveh gate, near present day Mosul, Iraq

Image by james_gordon_losangeles

Nineveh (Akkadian: Ninwe; Hebrew: Nīnewē; Latin: Nineve; Arabic: Naynuwa; Persian: Nainavā) was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq.

Nineveh

Etymology

The origin of the name Nineveh is obscure. Possibly it meant originally the seat of Ishtar, since Nina was one of the Babylonian names of that goddess. The ideogram means "house or place of fish; and was perhaps due to popular etymology (comp. Aramaic nuna, denoting ish).

Geography

Ancient Nineveh’s mound-ruins of Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus are located on a level part of the plain near the junction of the Tigris and the Khosr Rivers within a 7 km² (1732 acres) area circumscribed by a 12-kilometre (7.5 mi) brick rampart. This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins overlaid in parts by new suburbs of the city of Mosul.

Nineveh was an important junction for commercial routes crossing the Tigris. Occupying a central position on the great highway 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, and the capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire.

History

Nineveh was one of the oldest and greatest cities in antiquity. The area was settled as early as 6000 BC and, by 3000 BC, had become an important religious center for worship of the Assyrian 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 BC by the Akkadian king Manishtusu.

Texts from the Hellenistic period and later offered an eponymous Ninus as the founder of Nineveh, although there is no historical basis for this. The historic Nineveh is mentioned about 1800 BC as a centre of worship of Ishtar, whose cult was responsible for the city’s early importance. 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 nearly a century until the mid 14th century BC, when the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I reclaimed it in 1365 BC while overthrowing the Mitanni Empire.

There is no large body of evidence to show that Assyrian monarchs built at all extensively in Nineveh during the 2nd millennium BC; it appears to have been originally an Assyrian provincial town. Later monarchs whose inscriptions have appeared on the high city include Shalmaneser I and Tiglath-Pileser I, both of whom were active builders in Assur (Ashur); the former had founded Calah (Nimrud). Nineveh had to wait for the Neo Assyrian Empire, particularly from the time of Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 BC) onward, for a considerable architectural expansion. Thereafter successive monarchs such as Sargon II, Esarhaddon, Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal kept in repair and founded new palaces, temples to Sîn, Ashur, Nergal, Šamaš, Ishtar, and Nabiu of Borsippa.

The king hunting lion from the North Palace, Nineveh seen at the British Museum

It was Sennacherib who made Nineveh a truly magnificent city (c. 700 BC). He laid out new streets and squares and built within it the famous 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 comprised 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 door figures weighing up to 30,000 kilograms (30 t); they included many winged lions or bulls with a man’s head. These were transported 50 kilometres (31 mi) from quarries at Balatai and they had to be lifted up 20 metres (66 ft) once they arrived at the site, presumably by a ramp. There are also 3,000 metres (9,843 ft) of stone panels carved in bas-relief, that include pictorial records documenting every construction step including carving the statues and transporting them on a barge. One picture shows 44 men towing a colossal statue. The carving shows three men directing the operation while standing on the Colossus. Once the statues arrived at their destination the final carving was done. Most of the statues weigh between 9,000 and 27,000 kilograms (19,842 and 59,525 lb).

The stone carvings in the walls include many battle scenes, impalings and scenes showing Sennacherib’s men parading the spoils of war before him. He also bragged about his conquests: he wrote of Babylon Its inhabitants, young and old, I did not spare, and with their corpses I filled the streets of the city. He later wrote about a battle in Lachish. And Hezekiah of Judah who had not submitted to my yoke…him I shut up in Jeruselum his royal city like a caged bird. Earthworks I threw up against him, and anyone coming out of his city gate I made pay for his crime. His cities which I had plundered I had cut off from his land.

At this time the total area of Nineveh comprised about 7 square kilometres (1,730 acres), 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. 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.

Nineveh’s greatness was short-lived. In around 627 BC after the death of its last great king Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter civil wars, and Assyria was attacked by its former vassals, the Babylonians and Medes. From about 616 BC, in a coalition with the Scythians and Cimmerians, they besieged Nineveh, sacking the town in 612 BC, after which it was razed to the ground. 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. 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 them.

Following the defeat in 612 BC, the site remained largely unoccupied for centuries with only a scattering of Assyrians living amid the ruins until the Sassanian period, although Assyrians continue to live in the surrounding area to this day. The city is mentioned again in the Battle of Nineveh in 627 AD, which was fought between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanian Empire of Persia near the ancient city. From the Arab conquest 637 CE until modern time the city of Mosul on the opposite bank of the river Tigris became the successor of ancient Nineveh.

Biblical Nineveh

In the Bible, Nineveh is first mentioned in Genesis 10:11: Ashur left that land, and built Nineveh;. Some modern translations interpret Ashur in the Hebrew of this verse as the country Assyria rather than a person, thus making Nimrod the builder of Nineveh.

Though the Books of Kings and Books of Chronicles talk a great deal about the Assyrian empire, Nineveh itself is not again noticed till the days of Jonah, when it is described (Jonah 3:3ff; 4:11) as an exceedingly great city of three days journey in breadth. But it is also possible that it took three days to cover all its neighborhoods by walking, which would match the size of ancient Nineveh. The ruins of Kouyunjik, Nimrud, Karamles and Khorsabad form the four corners of an irregular quadrangle. The ruins of 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 book of Jonah depicts Nineveh as a wicked city worthy of destruction. God sent Jonah to preach, and the Ninevites fasted and repented. As a result, God spared the city; when Jonah protests against this, God states He is showing pity for the population who are ignorant of the difference between right and wrong ("who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand the animals in the city.

Nineveh was the flourishing capital of the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 19:36); and ostensibly was the home of King Sennacherib, King of Assyria, during the Biblical reign of King Hezekiah and the prophetic career of Isaiah. According to scripture, Nineveh was also the place where Sennacherib died at the hands of his two sons, who then fled to the land of `rrt Urartu. (Isa. 37:37-38). The book of the prophet Nahum is almost exclusively taken up with prophetic denunciations against this city. Its ruin and utter desolation are foretold (Nahum 1:14; 3:19, etc.). Its end was strange, sudden, tragic. (Nahum 2:6–11) According to the Bible, it was God’s doing, his judgment on Assyria’s pride (Jonah Nah). In fulfillment of prophecy, God made "an utter end of the place". It became a desolation. Zephaniah also (2:13–15) predicts its destruction along with the fall of the empire of which it was the capital. Nineveh is also the setting in the Book of Tobit.

Nineveh’s repentance and salvation from evil is noted in the Gospel of Matthew (12:41) and the Gospel of Luke (11:32). To this day, oriental churches of the Middle East commemorate the three days Jonah spent inside the fish during the Fast of Nineveh. The faithful fast by refraining from food and drinks. Churches encourage followers to refrain from meat, fish and dairy products.

Classical history

Before the great archaeological excavations in the 19th century, historical knowledge of the great Assyrian empire and of its magnificent capital was almost wholly a blank. Other cities that had perished, such as Palmyra, Persepolis, and Thebes, had left ruins to mark their sites and tell of their former greatness; but of this city, imperial Nineveh, not a single vestige seemed to remain, and the very place on which it had stood became only matter of conjecture.

In the days of the Greek historians Ctesias and Herodotus, 400 BC, Nineveh had become a thing of the past; and when Xenophon the historian passed the place in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand the very memory of its name had been lost. It was buried out of sight.

In his History of the World (written c. 1616) Sir Walter Raleigh erroneously asserted (attributing the information to Johannes Nauclerus c. 1425-1510), that Nineveh had originally had the name Campsor before Ninus supposedly rebuilt it. This was still regarded as correct information when news of Layard’s discoveries (see below) reached the west.

Archaeology

Excavation history

In 1842, French Consul General at Mosul, Paul-Émile Botta began to search the vast mounds that lay along the opposite bank of the river. The Arabs whom he employed in these excavations, to their great surprise, came upon the ruins of a building at the mound of Khorsabad, which, on further exploration, turned out to be the royal palace of Sargon II, which was largely explored for sculptures and other precious relics.

In 1847 the young British adventurer Sir Austen Henry Layard explored the ruins. In the Kuyunjik mound Layard rediscovered in 1849 the lost palace of Sennacherib with its 71 rooms and colossal bas-reliefs. He also unearthed the palace and famous library of Ashurbanipal with 22,000 cuneiform clay tablets. Most of Layard’s material was sent to the British Museum, but two large pieces were given to Lady Charlotte Guest and eventually found their way to the Metropolitan Museum. The study of the archaeology of Nineveh reveals the wealth and glory of ancient Assyria under kings such as Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) and Ashurbanipal (669–626 BC).

The work of exploration was carried on by George Smith, Hormuzd Rassam, 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.

The mound of Kouyunjik was excavated again by the archaeologists of the British Museum, led by Leonard William King, at the beginning of the twentieth 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 already taken part in King’s expeditions. Some works were carried out outside Kouyunjik, for instance on the mound of 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 Second World War, several excavations were carried out by Iraqi archaeologists. From 1951 to 1958 Mohammed Ali Mustafa worked the site. The work was continued from 1967 through 1971 by Tariq Madhloom. Some additional excavation occurred by Manhal Jabur in 1980, and Manhal Jabur in 1987. For the most part, these digs focused on Nebi Yunus.

Most recently, British archaeologist and Assyriologist Professor David Stronach of the University of California, Berkeley conducted a series of surveys and digs at the site from 1987–1990, 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.

Archaeological remains

Today, Nineveh’s location is marked by two large mounds, Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus Prophet Jonah, and the remains of the city walls (about 12 kilometres (7 mi) in circumference). The Neo-Assyrian levels of Kouyunjik have been extensively explored. The other mound, Nabī Yūnus, has not been as extensively explored because there is an Arab Muslim shrine dedicated to that prophet on the site.

Kuyunjik – The ruin mound 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 due to the turmoil in the area. 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.

Bull man excavated at Nebi Yunus by Iraqi archaeologists

Nebi Yunus – located about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) south of Kuyunjik, 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.

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 a’foresticking stone towers spaced about every 18 metres (59 ft). The stone wall and towers were topped by three-step merlons.

The city wall was fitted with fifteen monumental gateways. In addition to serving as checkpoints on entering and exiting the city, these structures were probably used as barracks and armories. With the inner and outer doors shut, the gateways were virtual fortresses. The bases of the walls of the vaulted passages and interior chambers of the gateway were lined with finely cut stone orthostats about 1 metre (3 ft) high. A stairway led from one of the interior chambers to the top of the mudbrick wall.

Five of the gateways have been explored to some extent by archaeologists:

Mashki Gate

Translated "Gate of the Watering Places", it was perhaps used to take livestock to water from the River Tigris which currently flows about 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) to the west. It has been reconstructed in fortified mudbrick to the height of the top of the vaulted passageway. The Assyrian original may have been plastered and ornamented.

Nergal Gate

Named for the god Nergal, it may have been used for some ceremonial purpose, as it is the only known gate flanked by stone sculptures of winged bull-men (lamassu). The reconstruction is conjectural, as the gate was excavated by Layard in the mid 19th century, and reconstructed in the mid 20th century.

Adad Gate

Named for the god Adad. A reconstruction was begun in the 1960s by Iraqis, but was not completed. The result is an uneasy mixture of concrete and eroding mudbrick, which nonetheless does give one some idea of the original structure. Fortunately, the excavator left some features unexcavated, allowing a view of the original Assyrian construction. The original brickwork of the outer vaulted passageway is well exposed, as is the entrance of the vaulted stairway to the upper levels. The actions of Nineveh’s last defenders can be seen in the hastily built mudbrick construction which narrows the passageway from 4 to 2 metres (13 to 7 ft).

Shamash Gate

Eastern city wall and Shamash Gate.

Named for the Sun god Shamash, it opens to the road to Arbil. 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 sticks 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 expedition of 1989–90. 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.

Threats to Nineveh

The site of Nineveh is exposed to decay of its reliefs by a lack of proper protective roofing, vandalism and looting holes dug into chamber floors. Future preservation is further compromised by the site’s proximity to constantly expanding suburbs.

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.

Nineveh gate, near present day Mosul, Iraq

Neighbors Iraq, Turkey pledge to stop tensions

Neighbors Iraq, Turkey pledge to conclude tensions

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