The Ancients - Nineveh

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Nineveh was one of the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia. Situated on the eastern bank of the River Tigris, it rivalled cities like Babylon and Persepolis as the capital of the great Assyrian Empire and the seat of power for towering figures like Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal. But what were its origins, how did it become such a great city and how did it fall? In today’s episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. Paul Collins to tell the story of Nineveh’s history from start to end. Beginning with its Stone Age origins, they discuss its conquest by the Akkadians, its golden age as Mesopotamia’s foremost city, and its obliteration at the hands of the Medes and Babylonians. This episode was produced by Joseph Knight and edited by Aidan Lonergan Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code ANCIENTS - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's one of those great ancient cities of Mesopotamia that at its height rivaled the likes of Babylon and Persepolis. It was the capital of the Assyrian Empire when it was at its height. It's mentioned in the Bible and was situated on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, right next to the modern city of Mosul in Iraq.

I am, of course, talking about Nineveh. A great wealth of archaeology has survived from Nineveh, which has allowed archaeologists and assyriologists to learn lots about the city and its ancient history. Today, we're going to be exploring Nineveh's story from start to end, from its Neolithic Stone Age origins, to the Akkadians and rulers like Sargon of Akkad, to the Golden Age of Nineveh when it became the seat of power for famous Assyrian rulers such as Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal. And, of course, we'll also be covering the great monuments that dominated Nineveh at its height. Think, for example, the Great Library. Our guest today is Dr Paul Collins, Keeper of

Middle East at the British Museum. I've known Paul for a few years now, and in the past he's been our guest for episodes on both the Sumerians and on Uruk and the First Cities, so it was great getting back on the show to talk all the things Nineveh. I really do hope you enjoy, and here's Paul. Paul, it is a pleasure to have you back on the podcast today. Thank you very much. Delighted to be here. And to talk all about what was at one stage one of, if not the biggest city, at least in the Middle East some 3,000 years ago. Yes, I mean, you could probably argue at a certain point in time,

it may have been the largest city on the planet. Wow. This was one of the crown jewels of the Assyrian Empire. And set the scene, whereabouts are we talking in the world with Nineveh? So we're talking about northern Iraq, and the capital city of the Assyrian Empire was located on the opposite side of the River Tigris from the modern city of Mosul. Although today, the modern city of Mosul is spread across the river, and so the suburbs occupy some of the ruins of ancient Nineveh. And should we be imagining with Nineveh right next to the river? Is this very much a fertile flood plain with mountains in the distance? Is that the sort of land we should

be envisaging almost 2,500 years ago? Northern Iraq is a very fertile region. It's a great breadbasket in many ways of ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. And on the river Tigris in northern Iraq, you've got a landscape of rolling farmland leading up to the foothills of quite magnificent mountains, which you can see in the distance from the site. Talk to me, because when we've done Babylon in the past, we've already lauded the importance of the Euphrates River as being at the heart of this city and civilization. When it comes

to the Tigris River and Nineveh, was that just as important? Was that key to life in this ancient Assyrian centre? So the river was absolutely a vital trade route, moving up and down the banks of the river, but also to some extent on the river itself. Unlike the Euphrates, which is a much slower river, it was less navigable, but nonetheless vital in terms of connection. So that's why Nineveh is where it is. When we're talking about source material for Nineveh, this is a big question in itself because I know there are so many incredible artefacts that have been uncovered from this site. But Paul, give us an indication, an idea of what this great wealth of source material we have for Nineveh.

Well, the extraordinary thing about Nineveh is that we know from excavations that it's a really ancient site. So we can trace its history from pretty much its beginnings, as far as we can tell, which is around 6,500 BC, somewhere in that region. And then, of course, the area of Nineveh continues to be inhabited right the way through to now. Mosul is effectively the successor of the ancient city of Nineveh. What types of source material do we have surviving from the site? So the earliest evidence from those early beginnings where farmers came together around this fertile plain, we're looking at ceramics, pieces of broken pottery made by local inhabitants. But of course, as we move through time, we discover architecture on a monumental scale, moving from palaces and temples and everything within those buildings.

And of course, once the city becomes the centre of power for Assyria, this kingdom that emerges in northern Iraq, then Nineveh is crucial through extraordinary objects that decorated these royal buildings. And do we also, alongside these physical objects like art and architecture, do you also have a lot of inscriptions and literary material talking about Nineveh, too. Because Nineveh is within Mesopotamia, of course, where writing began, we have lots of written documents. Certainly from as early as the third millennium BC, 2500 BC, we start to get inscriptions by kings and also documents written in the local script,

the cuneiform script of Mesopotamia, recording the Assyrian language, evidence of daily life. So we begin to reconstruct a really full picture of life and kingship in this northern city. And do we also get outside sources talking about Nineveh too, because I've got in my notes the Bible. There are echoes, of course, of the great achievements of the Assyrians, their conquest of the Middle East, and Nineveh as the great royal centre., echoes of that continued long after the Assyrian Empire had fallen. And that includes, of course, accounts from surrounding regions, the Hebrew Bible recording some of the historical events that involved people of the Levant with the Assyrians. And then further on in time, folktales continue to be

circulated through the region around some of the great Assyrian kings, and Nineveh lies at the heart of that. It's quite extraordinary that we have that archaeology going right back to the beginning, some 6,500 years ago, or maybe even further back. Paul, talk us through that. What do we know about the origins of Nineveh? Well, as far as we can tell, the settlement begins in the 7th millennium BC, but the excavations of that period are very, very limited at this particular site. So we're to some extent reliant on evidence from the surrounding region where more excavation has taken place. We begin to reconstruct something of what was happening there at the time. It seems that we've got a small community of mud brick houses where farmers and herders lived, and they would move out

seasonally with their flocks and with their herds across this very fertile region. And one of the key developments really of this time was the development of very, very fine painted pottery known to specialists as Halaf ware. And Nineveh is very much within the area where Halaf pottery was produced. And a site very close to Nineveh called Arpachia has produced some of the finest examples of this painted halaf pottery. It is so finely made that you find it difficult to find even some modern ceramics that are quite as thin-walled and as beautifully painted. And it survives as a result very well in the archaeological record. So we have good evidence for connections from Nineveh across the region, from eastern Turkey all the way across to Iran through

this halaf ceramic. So Nineveh's always been this trading centre. We should imagine, because last time we chatted we chatted all about Uruk and those other cities, so we should be imagining in roughly 6000 BC, people from Nineveh trading, having connections with those cities like Uruk, and maybe even as far as places like Jericho, further west, southwest. Well, certainly a little later in time, we have good evidence for that. When we get into the fourth millennium BC, so 3500 BC, then there is good evidence of connections between Nineveh and southern Mesopotamia, where they're developing new technologies like the beginnings of writing and using different forms of administrative tools like cylinder seals. You start to see that

appearing in the archaeological record at Nineveh. So absolutely, there were very close connections in that period between north and south. Well, let's move therefore to the 4th millennium BC. I mean, Paul, by this time with these extended connections, trading connections of Nineveh, how important do we think this city has already become? It seems reasonably clear that it's one of the few places in the world which has grown extensively. clear that it's one of the few places in the world which has grown extensively. Probably around 4000 BC, we start to see really significant changes in the urban landscape. And so places like Tel Brak in Syria, Nineveh in northern Iraq in modern terms, and then of course the big cities of the alluvial plain of southern Mesopotamia, like Uruk and Ur,

are all expanding in this period. And probably Nineveh is about 40 hectares, so maybe a population between 5,000 and 10,000 people. Not huge in modern terms, but nonetheless, this is really the first time in the history of the world that people have come together in such large numbers together. And so Nineveh is very much part of that story. With that huge emphasis on trade and connections, can we imagine, Nineveh, can we almost say the word city-state at this time? Difficult to know as city-state. I think we can talk probably about a city, the idea of monumental architecture, large numbers of people coming together. And it's clearly dominating an important trade connection because it controls a crossing of

the River Tigris at this point. So trade is fundamental and linking southern Mesopotamia up the River Tigris and then across through Syria towards the Mediterranean or into Turkey. So who are these people who come next who seem to very much alter or impact the whole story of Nineveh, the Akkadians? How do they fit into Nineveh's story? So southern Mesopotamia, the alluvial plains of southern Iraq are unified politically by military force by the kingdom of Agade or Akkad. And the rulers of this kingdom from southern Mesopotamia speak a Semitic language, which we call Akkadian or Akkadian. And they construct an empire by aggressive means across much of Mesopotamia. It's unclear whether Nineveh falls under their regime, but it's quite possible that there were diplomatic connections between the empire of Agadei and Nineveh, even if at times they were incorporated directly. Very close relationship.

And we see that, I think, in one of the most magnificent objects to have survived from antiquity, which is a cast head of a ruler. This is an almost life-size bronze image of a king. All that survives is his head. It was probably originally part of a standing or seated figure. And it's created with enormous skill. I mean, a great technological achievement for the age since it's a cast object. The face is bearded, wears an elaborate headdress, which is only worn by kings at that date. But the modelling of the face is exquisite, hugely naturalistic, but not a portrait, I think, of a living individual, but a portrait of kingship, a powerful individual. And what's significant about this object which was found at Nineveh

is that it has been brutally attacked. The ears have been cut off, the eyes gouged out, the nose hit with a hammer and blunted. And the whole idea, because these images were believed to have an essence, a life of their own, so this represented the kings of Agade, they were blinding it, reducing his smell, and cutting off his hearing. And so, this almost certainly occurred at the end of the Agade Empire, around 2150 BC, when the empire fell. And whether it was the people of Nineveh or whether this was a product of booty from some other site and ended up in the city, we don't know. But they took their revenge on these rulers who had controlled the region by brute force.

That object, isn't it usually associated with Sargon, Sargon of Akkad, the name that is most familiar for people when someone mentions the Akkadians. But it sounds like what you were saying there, we can't be sure that that object does represent that figure as you mentioned, only just a figure of kingship for the Akkadians. Yes, I don't think it is a portrait of an actual king. The style of it is so refined, so beautifully modelled that it fits actually more closely with the artistic production under Sagan's successors, Manishtushu and Naram-si. And later tradition tells us that Manishtushu had built a temple to the goddess Ishtar in Nineveh. So it may well be that this was a statue set up by Manushtushu in the city itself and then succumbed to violence at the end of the empire. You mentioned that temple set up in

Akkadian Nineveh, especially pre-Assyrian Nineveh. So the end of the Akkadian Empire, just so we can get our thoughts in order and know exactly when we're talking about, when was the Akkadian Empire, when we're talking about? Between roughly 2340 BC down to around 2150 BC, so a couple of hundred years. So what do we know about Nineveh after the fall of the Akkadians and before we get to its emergence as this very important Assyrian centre? A huge amount. There's an enormous story to tell between the end of the empire of Agadei and then the emergence of the great Neo-Assyrian empire at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. And in that gap, we have a huge amount of information about Assyria, largely from the city of Asher itself,

further south along the River Tigris from Nineveh, which becomes the centre for the Assyrian kingdom, where again, the focus is very much on trade and connections. And it's very likely that Nineveh is involved in this extensive trade network. What we can see is a difference between Asher, where it's really the merchants that are dominating the city, whereas at Nineveh, we have good indications that there is a sequence of kings. They speak the Hurrian language, not related to the Akkadian language or to Sumerian. But they are ruling from Nineveh and controlling that region of North Mesopotamia. So the origins of the great empire that will follow have its roots deep in the 2nd millennium BC. And when we say the word Assyrians and this whole civilization of the Assyrians, no such

thing as a silly question. Who exactly are we talking about with the Assyrians? Are we mainly focusing on this area of the world known as Assyria and the people who dwelled there? Or is it a larger term? Let's say about the 2nd millennium BC at this time. 2nd millennium BC, you've got the town of Asher on the River Tigris, let's say to the south of Nineveh, and that's the home of the Assyrians. And through their trading networks, the Assyrians reach out across the Middle East, establishing trading colonies in Turkey and other places. Nineveh is in close connection with Asher. They're located in the same region, but you've got a very different political setup and organization. And then

around about 1800 BC, a king belonging to a tribal group known as the Amorites, takes control over Asher. And this is a man who in the Assyrian language is called Shamshiadad. In the Amorite language, his own language, he is Samsiadu. And Samsiadu creates a mini-empire controlling North Mesopotamia, he moves out from the city of Asher and conquers surrounding regions. And late in his reign, he conquers Nineveh. And there's an inscription from Nineveh which records him refurbishing, rebuilding a gateway into the temple of Ishtar. And so, Ishtar is this recurring name from the earliest period that is our link with the past, the goddess of Nineveh, absolutely crucial in the story of Nineveh. Indeed, one of the names for Ishtar, this great goddess of Mesopotamia, incorporates the word nin. Sumerian for lady,

but there are other goddesses which are perhaps manifestations or different versions of Ishtar. Ninlil, Inanna. And so the very name of Nineveh may incorporate, still to this day, the name of this great goddess, Nin. So Nineveh has been brought into the Assyrian fold at this time. Do we now start to see, at least from the archaeological work that has been done, do we see a growth in architecture? Do we see more growth in the city? What do we know about this very new Assyrian Nineveh? So we all wish to know more, of course, and that will only be revealed through excavation. One of the problems of a city like Nineveh is that because it was occupied for so many millennia,

there are layers of history which archaeologists have to work through in order to get back to those earlier periods. So only small parts of the city have been explored in the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. And we begin to see Nineveh coming into its own a lot more, both in terms of archaeology, but also in terms of inscriptions later in the 2nd millennium BC, when we see the city of Asher, turn from being a trading centre into the centre of a kingdom. And so from around 1400 BC, Assyrian kings are no longer just interested in trade, they're interested in conquest. And around 1360 BC, a king called Asher Ubalit, king called Asher Ubalit, Asher Ubalit I, who is really the first king of Assyria in the real sense of a military leader who dominates the surrounding region, he moves out of Asher and conquers Nineveh. And from that point on, Nineveh is very much part of the kingdom of Assyria. And that's really the birth

of Assyria as a powerful, important state. And I'm guessing that means all of this change must have therefore happened with Nineveh and people being called up to the army and all this kind of new administration coming in. But of course, at the end of the second millennium BC, we get the so-called Bronze Age collapse near this time as well. Before that happens, whenever that may well happen, and I know it's over a large period of years, but do we know if Nineveh at this time also has connections with big powers further west, such as the Hittites, or maybe even southwest with New Kingdom Egypt? Do we have any idea of those wider connections at that time? Yes, very much so. So the kingdom of Assyria, Assyria and of course Nineveh, now is an important

royal centre, is pushing out against surrounding regions. In the later 2nd millennium BC, of course, kingship was about controlling extensive territory. The reason for being a king was to extend your kingdom. And so, the Assyrians wanted to join what's been described as the club of brothers. So, all the kings of the region who corresponded with each other, the Hittites, the Mitannians of North Syria, the Babylonians of southern Iraq, and Assyria, now coming onto the scene as a powerful king in their own right, wrote a letter to the Egyptian court, which was sort of the leading hub for this club of brothers, probably to Amenhotep III or Akhenaten, Amenhotep IV. It's unclear from the letters exactly which king it is, wanting to join

this club of brothers. And we have the first letter from Ashur-Ubalit trying to join this club. And it's a rather small letter, rather pleading, offering a gift to the king in terms of a chariot and some lapis lazuli as a greeting gift. And then a few years later, we don't know exactly how much time has passed between the first letter, a second letter is written, and now Ashur-Ubalit is calling himself king of the universe, the great king of Assyria. He's really come into his own because what he has done, and his successors will follow him, his own because what he has done, and his successors will follow him, is push back against Matanian and Hittite authority and come to dominate North Mesopotamia. And it is through that act that we see the establishment of a powerful state, which will then form the basis

for the great empire that will follow in the first millennium BC. And by this is popularly known as the Neo-Assyrian Empire, if I'm correct? So we have the Middle Assyrian Kingdom, and then that turns into the great empire, the Neo-Assyrian Empire. I must also ask, before we really focus on Neo-Assyrian Nineveh when it's really at its zenith, when you mentioned how Nineveh's now been very much brought into the Assyrian fold and these kings, I know that in other civilizations you sometimes see how the king has their centre based at the capital. That's the administrative centre of the whole empire. But you sometimes see one of the princes, if not the prince lined up to be the successor, going out to another part

of the empire and almost ruling that part in preparation to becoming king following the death of their father or whoever. Do you have any idea whether perhaps in this pre-neo-Assyrian empire that the successor of that Assyrian king may have gone to somewhere like Nineveh and ruled over Nineveh in preparation for when their father or whoever passed away, and then they would rule from Ashur. That's certainly a model that you will see in the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the first millennium. Absolutely standard that the crown prince will be delegated authority for certain areas. The evidence for that in the late second millennium, in the middle Assyrian period, is not so clear.

Indeed, the kingdom is relatively contained, so you probably don't need to divide it up quite as you would the much more extensive later empire. But we do know that there were royal palaces at all these centres. So it wasn't just Asher as the great religious original capital where the king resided. And indeed, by around 1200 BC, it's very clear that Nineveh was an important strategic centre with perhaps several royal palaces already there. We only have inscriptions to tell us about this. Unfortunately, the sites have not been excavated, but those inscriptions talk about buildings decorated with glazed bricks showing campaigns by the Assyrian king and also monumental sculptures sculptures in stone guarding entrances to the palace. So they all represent the precursors of what would become the great symbols of Assyria in the first millennium BC,

the great decorated royal palaces. Let's move on to the next part of the story then. So already by the beginning of the first millennium BC, Nineveh is an important place. But what's the story behind it rising to become the most important place in the Assyrian Empire, the capital? So it is always an important city, strategically but also religious, because there resides Ishtar of Nineveh, one of the great goddesses of the Assyrian kingdom. And She acts very much like the mother of the ruling king. In the king's inscriptions, he refers to Ishtar of Nineveh almost like she is his mother. She sits him on her lap sort of thing and cares for him. She has a partner in caring for the king in Ishtar of Arbala, Arbala being the modern city of Erbil.

Of Gilgamelug, isn't it? Yes, Alexander the Great. Absolutely, yes. So that was what has been described as the Assyrian triangle, Asher, Nineveh, Erbil, Arbala. That's the heartland of Assyria, and Ishtar is occupying those strategic points. So it's always important. But nonetheless, the kings of the early 1st millennium BC focus their royal centres at other sites. So initially, there's the establishment of a city which we know today as Nimrud, which the Assyrians called Kalhu. And so in the 9th century BC, that becomes the royal centre. That's where the king resides. He has a palace at Nineveh, but Nimrud is at the heart of the empire. The empire grows, and a new royal centre is built at the end of the 8th century, around 710 BC, by a king called Sargon II

at a site we know today as Corsebat. He named it after himself, Dur-Sharoki, the fortress of Sargon. And it's with Sargon's death in 705 BC, he dies in battle and his body is never recovered. And this is a terrible event, very inauspicious. And so his capital of Khosabad is left, and his son and successor, Sennacherib, moves the royal center to this ancient and venerable city of Nineveh. ancient and venerable city of Nineveh. And it is under Sennacherib from 704 BC that we see Nineveh transformed into this greatest city in the Middle East, if not wider. Paul, I'm quite shocked. Do you think that is the context as to why Sennacherib does decide to move the capital? Is it because his predecessor, his father, dies in battle and his body is not recovered. You move the court. This was a one-period site at Khorsabad created by Sargon,

and Sargon dies in this terrible way. You want to avoid any bad luck or the will of the gods, so it's very likely that Nineveh is chosen precisely because of that. And do we know much about Sennacherib himself at this time? I mean, how old is he when he arrives at the throne and he decides to relocate the court and move the capital to Nineveh? We rarely know anything about the ages of these heirs to the throne, But he rules when he becomes king for several decades. So one can imagine he's a reasonably young man when he claims the throne. And because he rules for so long, that allows so much monumental architecture for him to oversee, to order the building of when he's at Nineveh. And this is a vast list of structures of architecture that he orders the construction of, doesn't he?

So Nineveh is transformed. So you've got that old settlement mound, the Koyunjik mound, and what Sennacherib does, he creates a massive wall that encompasses not just Koyunjik, but the neighbouring village that we know today as Nebiyunas. So, it's another settlement mound a little further down the river and surrounds those two areas with a wall which is about 12 kilometres long. Wow, 12 kilometres? Seven and a half miles. And it's a double wall with a moat. So, this is an enormous undertaking. So, that surrounds, as it were, downtown Nineveh, where ordinary people lived or the mansions of the elite were located. And on the great citadel mounds themselves, on the old settlement mounds, Koyunjik and Nebiyunas,

Sennacherib orders the construction of some of the greatest buildings to have survived from ancient Assyria. On Kuyunjik, he builds what is known today as the Southwest Palace from its location on the mound. He called it Palace Without Arrival, and it consisted of a massive mud brick building with rooms surrounding a series of great open courtyards. And each of the rooms in that palace was lined with great slabs of carved gypsum and limestone, which narrated his achievements in battle and in building. And miles and miles, kilometres and kilometres of these reliefs were uncovered in the 19th century. And perhaps two-thirds of the palace was revealed at that point. And so excavations continue today to reveal new areas of the palace where new reliefs are found. And do these reliefs also show mythological scenes, or is it just scenes from Sennacherib's life, his buildings, his military achievements?

So what's interesting is that these reliefs combine myth and history. So some of the accounts of his campaigns show traditional battles. The army advances against a city, the city is besieged and captured, and then individuals, families, and men from the city are deported to other areas of the empire to be set to work. But those parallel in the way in which they're described visually, as well as in Sennacherib's inscriptions, they parallel very closely stories of myth. He is intending to make history something that's eternal by turning them effectively into mythology. Do we know what the Assyrians believed was the origins of the capital of Nineveh, or if they kind of created a mythical origin story for this settlement. So the Assyrians, of course, share so much the culture, the traditions, the legacy of Mesopotamia. And there's a lot of cultural

traditions and links with Babylonia to the south. And of course, within the Babylonian world, there is tradition of the world being created at the beginning of time by the gods. And the city of Babylon itself is established in one of the most famous myths known as Enuma Elish, the creation epic. And the god Marduk has Babylon built by people as his cult centre. And that's at the beginning of time. So, you're creating a city from which then people will learn to navigate and rule and manage the world around them through the will of the gods. And the Assyrians sharing that great creation myth simply transposed it into the god Asher, who then became the creator of the universe. And so when we see Sennacherib in his reliefs building Nineveh, as some of the reliefs show, what he is

doing is paralleling that with the creation at the very beginning of time by the god Asher when the universe was established. So the king, although not a god himself, is actually paralleling what the gods achieved way back in time. When Sennacherib is doing all of this, making all of this art and architecture, and as you mentioned, transforming Nineveh, do you see therefore time and time again a Babylonian inspiration, a Babylonian influence over all of this. So the Babylonian tradition is very strong, deeply rooted, of course, in millennia of scholarship and thinking. And Assyria shared that. But you have very much an Assyrian take on that.

So the great monuments at Nineveh are absolutely unique to the Assyrian world, and it's their attempt to relay this relationship with the gods in a very distinctive Assyrian way. Well, let's move away from the palace. You mentioned that extraordinary, roughly 12 kilometre long wall circuit, which embraces these two settlements, as you hinted at. Do we know much about the wall circuit itself itself the materials that it's made out of alongside the moat because obviously recently i did an episode with lloyd welland jones on the walls of babylon and part of that we of course talk about the ishtar gate and the beautiful colored gateways do we have any idea whether the walls of nineveh at that time were similarly elaborate and extraordinary in their

visual appeal. It's quite likely they were in a different way than you would find at Babylon because what you have at Nineveh is access to stone. So there were quarries on either side of the Tigris. So although most of the large buildings like the Southwest Palace were made of mud brick. It was cheap and easy to build effectively with large numbers of people. You could, of course, line them with slabs of stone, and the walls equally were built from stone blocks. So this was an enormous undertaking, bringing the stone across the river on rafts or, of course, transporting it on rollers up from quarries on the Nineveh side of the river to construct these massive defences. There were 15 great gateways through this wall. Each was given a distinctive name. They were either named after

one of the gods or the location that the gate led towards beyond Nineveh. One of the greatest gates was the so-called Nergal Gate, which was guarded by enormous 40-ton sculptures of so-called Lamassu. And these are some of the most famous Assyrian monuments. These are human-headed winged bulls, and pairs of them flanked important gateways. Of course, this great one into the city itself through the walls. But then once you got up onto the Koyunjik mound, the southwest palace had Lamassu guarding the gateways into the royal palace. That's the iconic mythical beast we associate with the Assyrians today, isn't it? Because I was going to ask you that next. That mythical creature is what I immediately think of alongside those wool reliefs

when someone mentions the Assyrians in Nineveh. I think they become the icon of Assyria from their discovery or rediscovery in the 19th century. from their discovery or rediscovery in the 19th century. Of course, many were transported to museums in Europe and to America. So when everyone visits museums, whether it's in America or Europe, or of course in Iraq itself, if one goes to the Iraq Museum, then you see the most spectacular objects are these enormous monumental gateway guardians. I'd like to ask about a couple of other structures constructed by Sennacherib at that time before we move on to Ashurbanipal and then the end of Nineveh. I'd like to talk first of all about gardens. The Assyrians, they really were big onto creating these elaborate gardens in antiquity. Absolutely. Sennacherib is perhaps the greatest builder of new landscapes.

And it was about reshaping the world of Assyria. And crucial to this was water. And of course, you have major rivers. You have the Tigris and you have the tributaries to the Tigris, vast amounts of water flowing in off those neighbouring mountains. But you need to divert that to extend the farmland and create landscape gardens. And so, Sennacherib undertook a massive program of canal building. And enormous canals were constructed over many, many kilometers, which diverted water sources down towards Nineveh and the surrounding land. And he talks with great pride in his inscriptions

as much about building the royal palace, about reshaping the landscape around Nineveh, with certainly gardens, with plantations, but also very much about opening up new farmland and giving those parcels of land to the people of Nineveh and to the surrounding villages, so that it became a really densely populated world of farmers and agriculturalists. And only the king had the power and authority to change the actual physical landscape around the city, again, like the gods. It's that thing you see time and time again, especially antiquity, whether it's Rome or the Assyrians, to show that person's power over nature. You're reshaping the natural world in front of people who think that the natural world

is incredibly important and was maybe, in some some cultures a place where the gods loomed. Yes, it was a really fundamental aspect of kingship. And what Sennacherib and his successors did, and the predecessors before him, were to recreate landscapes that they had conquered. So of course, the Assyrian Empire expanded from northern Iraq to encompass the mountains of Iran, all the way across to the Mediterranean Sea and the mountains of Lebanon. And that landscape was of particular interest to the Assyrian kings, and they brought back the plants, the flora, the fauna, indeed, back to Nineveh and recreated that in their gardens. So they could walk in the mountains of Lebanon outside the walls of Nineveh. Well, let's move on to the next chapter

in Nineveh's story. Sennacherib, he's now gone. He's worthy of a podcast episode in his own right, both Sennacherib and the figure we're going to be talking about now, Ashurbanipal. So kind of a two-parted question here, Paul. First off, who was Ashurbanipal? And secondly, how does he transform Nineveh even further? Ashurbanipal is the grandson of Sennacherib. So there's a king in between. So when Sennacherib is assassinated in 681 BC, he is succeeded by a son called Esarhaddon, who has to fight for the throne with his brothers, or at least that's the story he's left us with. And Esarhaddon is a great conquering king. He is the king that conquers

Egypt and extends the borders of Assyria even further. But his building works focused on Nimrud, this earlier centre. So Nineveh is left at the sidelines to a large extent under Esarhaddon. But when he dies in 669 BC, he's succeeded by his son Ashurbanipal. Ashurbanipal resides in the southwest palace, his grandfather's palace, which he continues to decorate. Some of the walls, some of the greatest Assyrian reliefs date to the time of Ashurbanipal and come out of the southwest palace. But his conquests, which include again returning to Egypt to reaffirm Assyrian authority in that region, and also he campaigned south into Babylonia and against the so-called Elamites of southwest Iran. Those conquests, achieved by around 650 BC, means that he wants to celebrate on a grand scale. It seems that at that point, he refurbishes or builds afresh a new royal center, a new royal building, Ankoyunjik, just beyond the southwest palace known as the North

Palace. And this is a palace which doesn't really fit the model of earlier palaces. It has a slightly unusual layout and filled with corridors and courtyards, and again, only partially excavated. But there in the North Palace, Ashurbanipal celebrates his great triumphs over Egypt and Babylonia and Elam in the great reception rooms of the building. And in all the corridors that link those reception rooms, the walls are lined with reliefs showing him hunting lions. So battles in the main rooms, hunting lions and other animals in the corridors that link them. Very much symbols of kingship, isn't it, at the same time? But does he also have this intellectual background or this very much wanting the promotion of intellectual studies too,

not just in what he shows in his wall release, but also in his constructions. Very much so. He is a king who seems to be trained, perhaps, to be a priest, but certainly he's trained to read and write from an early age. And it's something that he wants to really emphasise as an aspect of kingship. And this is because, certainly in the time of his grandfather, the god Nabu, the god of writing and knowledge and intellect, was elevated among the gods as an important aspect of religion. And Ashurbanipal takes this and runs with it. And so in his reliefs, rather than being shown, as was tradition, of a king with a dagger in his belt, he shows instead the dagger is replaced with the stylus of a scribe. The writing implement of a scribe is in his belt. And in his inscriptions, he tells us

how he was extremely knowledgeable about written texts, that he could read texts from, he quotes, before the flood. So really ancient inscriptions he claims to be able to read. He could read Sumerian, the Babylonian dialects. He was a brilliant scholar in his own words. We have, however, some surviving tablets written by Ashurbanipal himself. It's quite clear he's overstating his abilities. So reading and writing, he could. But when you're king of the world, as he claimed to be, then you can also claim to be, of course, the great intellect. And that was because he was reliant on the god Nabu and his scholars to tell him what the gods desired for the future. This was a way in which you determined decisions within

the Assyrian state. You asked the gods, and the gods wrote a message to you in the landscape around you, in the stars, but also in the internal organs of animals like sheep and goats. So sheep were sacrificed, opened up, and scholars would read the messages in the liver or the intestines or the other organs of the animals and convey this information to Ashurbanipal. So this was a way in which you made your decisions. And of course, you would ask different scholars the same question just to test whether the gods had the same answer. And gathering together this knowledge was absolutely fundamental for kingship. And so he went out and ordered the retrieval of the scholarly texts from all over Mesopotamia, from Babylonia, this deep center of learning and knowledge, and bring them back to Nineveh,

where in the royal chancery, they were copied out in neat cuneiform and entered into a library. And so this great library of Ashurbanipal, which almost certainly consists of several libraries, some from the time of his grandfather, Sennacherib, who was probably doing much the same thing, was an attempt to bring together this knowledge of the universe as a source of power and control. After this time when Nineveh has been in the spotlight with these massive figures like Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal, what ultimately happens to this great city? The capital of Assyria comes to a violent end, as so often happens with empires. They reach an end, empires, they reach an end. And by the end of the 7th century BC, Assyria is under attack from various sides. The empire has obviously extended its reach too far, and people start

to rebel. And so from around 625 BC, the Babylonians in southern Iraq come together as a unified force and begin to attack Assyria. So they had many grievances against this dominant power and allied together. A king called Nabopolassar is established on the Babylonian throne and leads his forces against the Assyrians. Now, the Assyrians, of course, are a major power and it's not an easy task, but Nabopolassar makes headway up the Euphrates and eventually the heartland of Assyria is under threat. But it seems that a turning point is made when Nabopolassar allies with the Medes of Iran, another powerful tribal group in the highlands of Iran, led by a man known by classical sources as Syaxares. And so, Nabopolassar and Syaxares join forces and in 612 BC attack Nineveh. They've already reduced Asher and Nimrud to smoking ruins,

but now the great capital itself surrounded by these walls is the prime target. And of course, 12 kilometers of walls actually makes it a problem to defend. And so the gateways at Nineveh are very rapidly narrowed. And we can see from the archaeological evidence, quick building works to try and reduce the size of these massive portals into the city. It works to some extent because it takes the invading forces three months to break and breach the walls. But that eventually happens, and the Babylonians and Medes storm through Nineveh, attack Koyunjik, which sits behind its own defensive walls. But again, they are breached, and Nineveh falls, and the last Assyrian king flees west. Nineveh itself is ransacked and looted. But before it's set alight, the Babylonians and the Medes

move through the palace buildings. And it's somebody's job, so it's probably an intellectual on the Babylonian side, walks through the palace and identifies images of the king, identifies images of the king, Sennacherib, Ashurbanipal, in the wall reliefs, and they are defaced, not vandalized, deliberately, carefully removed. And that removes, of course, the power of the Assyrian king. So whereas the Assyrian armies have been defeated, you need to remove the image of the king. Otherwise, in some sense, they continue to exist. So the king is executed in terms of the imagery as much as would have died in real life. So very careful, calculated obliteration of Assyria. Is there any revival at all of Nineveh in antiquity, or is that very much the end of

the story of this great city? As a great walled city, as a great capital, it's the end. But Nineveh itself continues to be inhabited. And so it continues to flourish in a small way, a village, small town, through successive generations. So, following the conquests of the Babylonian kings, and then Alexander the Great, the Persians, the Seleucids, and then the Parthians, Nineveh continues to exist. And by the time you get into the early centuries, AD, the third century of the Common Era, Nineveh has become a centre of Christianity. And indeed, the old settlement mound of Nebunis, the neighbour of Koyunjik,

becomes the focus for Christianity in the region. And then, of course, in the 7th century, the Arabs, united by Islam, move in and the Islamic conquests of the region. And a mosque is built opposite Nebunis on the other side of the river, and that becomes the heart of the modern city of Mosul. And gradually, of course, Arabic becomes the language of the Middle East as the conquests continue. But the Christian communities at places like Nebunis and other sites within ancient Assyria, continue to speak the Aramaic language, the language of the Assyrians, right down to the present day. And it's that ancient heritage that the modern Assyrians continue. Paul, fantastic always to have you on

the show. Last but certainly not least, you have written recently a book that is coming out in the near future. And this is all about the Assyrians, including the great centre of Nineveh. Yes, coming out in a few months time. It's simply called The Assyrians. And it's an attempt to chart that history from the 7th millennia BC through to the now. Well, Paul, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast. Great pleasure as always. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Paul Collins talking all the things Nineveh. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. It's always a joy when we cover those cities of ancient Mesopotamia, not just Babylon, not just Persepolis, but also places like Nineveh too,

and no doubt we'll be doing more of those great cities of the ancient Middle East in the near future. Last thing from me, wherever you're listening to The Ancients, whether that be on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or elsewhere, make sure that you are subscribed, that you click the follow button so you don't miss out when we release new episodes twice every week. But that's enough from me, and I will see you in the next episode.