Nineveh Built as Assyrian Capital

Around 700 BCE, the Assyrian king Sennacherib made the ancient city of Nineveh, on the Tigris River opposite modern Mosul in northern Iraq, the capital of his empire. The date of 689 BCE given for this event marks one point in a longer building program, which began in the first years of the seventh century BCE and transformed the city into one of the largest and most lavish urban centers of the ancient world. Its palaces, walls, waterworks and later its libraries made Nineveh a lasting symbol of Assyrian power and learning.

Nineveh was already old when Sennacherib took the throne in 705 BCE. Settlement on the site went back thousands of years, and it had long been a religious center associated with the goddess Ishtar. Sennacherib's father, Sargon II, had built a new capital at Dur-Sharrukin, but after Sargon died in battle, Sennacherib abandoned it. He chose Nineveh instead, perhaps for its location, its history, or for political reasons that scholars still debate.

Sennacherib called his own residence the "Palace Without Rival." Its walls were lined with carved stone reliefs showing military campaigns, building projects and scenes of royal life. He also rebuilt the city's fortifications, with massive walls and monumental gates, and laid out new streets and squares. To supply water, he had canals and an aqueduct constructed to carry water from hills to the north, a notable engineering feat. Some of this system, including the aqueduct at Jerwan, survives. Assyrian texts also describe parks and orchards irrigated by this water, with exotic plants and trees brought from conquered lands.

The idea that Nineveh held the legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon has been proposed by the researcher Stephanie Dalley, who argues that ancient accounts were attached to the wrong city. Most historians remain cautious, since no Babylonian source clearly describes such gardens and Nineveh's own gardens are better documented, so the question is unresolved.

Sennacherib's grandson Ashurbanipal later assembled a great library at Nineveh, collecting tens of thousands of clay tablets and fragments covering omens, medicine, literature and royal records. Among them was the most complete ancient copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Nineveh fell in 612 BCE to a coalition of Babylonians and Medes, and the city was burned and abandoned. Ironically, the fires helped preserve many tablets by baking the clay. Excavated in the nineteenth century, the library's remains, now largely in the British Museum, remain a vital source for understanding Mesopotamian civilization.