Present day Mosul was previously the Assyrian capital city Nineveh, one that many remember due to its high cultural impact, beautiful architecture, emperors and rulers of this area, and had previously been the largest city in the world. According to religious tales, Nineveh was the city in which the Prophet Jonah had preached and is known for having been swallowed by a whale where he stayed in the belly for three days and three nights before being spit out. Nineveh's location is marked by excavations of five gates, parts of walls on four sides, and two large mounds: the hill of Kuyunjik-the oldest part of the city dating back to the fourth millennium B.C., and hill of Nabi Yunus, the southern mound. On Nabi Yunus there was a shrine dedicated to the prophet Jonah, which was revered by both Muslims and Christians, as it was believed to hold Jonah's tomb as well as the tooth and remains of the whale. [1]
In 1852, the governor of Mosul carried out his own excavations on Nebi Yunus and uncovered a winged bull-man, a statue of Gilgamesh, a statue of a lion, and a lengthy inscription of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (705-681 BC)... The inscribed slab was the first discovery that began to reveal the history of Nebi Yunus. In the inscription, dated to 690-689 BC, Sennacherib described how a facility called the Rear Palace (ekal kutalli) inside Nineveh was now too small for its purposes and was torn down. “As an addition, I took much fallow land from the meadow (and) I added (it) to it. I abandoned the site of the former palace and filled in a terrace in the fallow land that I had taken from the meadow. I raised its superstructure 200 courses of brick high, measured by my large brick mold.” [1] A new palace called an ekal masharti was built on top of the artificial hill, and Sennacherib’s inscription went on to describe in detail the construction of the palace. Its roof beams were made from cedars of Lebanon, its doors of copper, cypress and white cedar, and giant bulls made of limestone and pendu-stone guarded the doorways. Below the mound there was a large area for training chariot horses. Much of the cavernous interior was used for storing plunder and tribute from foreign lands, including Media, Elam and Babylon. [2] The palace was renovated and expanded by Esarhaddon (681-669 BC), and renovated again by Ashurbanipal (669-627). It was destroyed during the Sack of Nineveh in 612 BC, and extensive excavation has always been impossible, due to the fact that sometime in the early Christian period a church was built on top.
Unfortunately, this site was destroyed in July of 2014 by bombs planted around the tomb and then searched for treasures in order to be sold on the black market for funding of ISIS. Extremists have destroyed not only this site but many more that carried over many centuries of history because they believe in an extreme interpretation that shrines, mosques, religious writings and all religious structure is forbidden.
Sources Cited:
[2] Lines 55-90 ofSennacherib #34 in A. Kirk Grayson and Jamie Novotny, The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704-681 BC), Part 1 (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 219-226.
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