Nineveh - The city and its palaces

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Nineveh
The city and its palaces

The technical achievements of Nineveh

 It was Sennacherib who moved to the capital of Assyria, Nineveh, replacing the ephemeral city that his father, Sargon, had built in Khorsabad. He built a wall with 15 gates, which symbolically Portegies winged bulls with human heads, beneficial geniuses responsible for terrorizing the enemy. These walls were from the west during the Tigris, and this was reinforced by other walls and a moat. Delineating an area of more than 5 miles long, traversed by a watercourse puqueño. As this was not enough to irrigate the surrounding countryside, Sennacherib came up to capture the spring water from the hill of Bavi, 50 miles, required Herculean task to build, on a cliff nearly 300 feet, a pipeline of five stone arches, 22 meters wide and 9 tall. The king in his palace represent agricultural work that made possible this work.

  This palace, not yet fully explored, is exceptional in some respects. So to know the context in which they unfolded the life of the Assyrian monarchs is preferable to consider first the diffi cult in Kalkhu (modern Nimrud) by Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC), and by Layard explored and later by Sir Max Mallowan, accompanied by his wife, Agatha Christie.

The Grand Palace

 From the ninth century BC, the Assyrian kings at Nimrud were the symbol of imperialist policies, building a palace there and adding a huge arsenal capable of equipping a hundred thousand men. The city still unexplored, such as Nineveh, was dominated by the citadel built on the banks of the Tigris, where stood the palace of Ashurnasirpal. Beside it was a temple with a tiered tower. The plan of the palace shows the organization to respond esctricta an Assyrian palatial abode. In their inscriptions, the Assyrian kings mentioned two distinct sections, each with its courtyard: the babanu, subject to minor visitors and administrative services, located near the entrance, and the home or "house", called bitanu. In the palace of Ashurnasirpal, the babanu housed the treasury, a senior official residence and the chancery, where they were placed in administrative documents brick shelves. At the end of the courtyard of babanu, two monumental gates, guarded by winged bulls, gave access to the throne room, the center of the building. Covered the walls of this long room greenish yellow plaster bas-reliefs depicting the exploits of King VENATORIA and war. Undoubtedly were intended to impress the visitor with intractable enfrenttarlo Assyrian power.
 The royal throne at the back of the room, attached to a relief showing the king in adoration before the symbolic tree of the god Ashur, the great god of the Assyrians. The royal apartments, perpendicular to the throne room, overlooking a courtyard. They included two long parallel rooms, decorated with bas-reliefs depicting a royal banquet, and small private rooms. From the courtyard one could reach the common areas, where they were discovered magnificent ivory, royal furniture ornament of the time. "They were imported from the countries of the Levant, where elephants still had, or were the work of the Syro-Phoenician artists deported? The subjects show a clear Egyptian influence. Find birth, on a flower, small Horus, protected not by the two sisters Isis and Nephthys, but great geniuses. The dead man who looked at the sun through the window of his pyramid has become a goddess of love, stationed as a courtesan behind the lattice. This friendly, typical of the eighth century BC, and also present in the image of a smiling young man whose face has been compared to that of the Mona Lisa, has also left traces in the palace of Samaria, destroyed by Sargon, in his palace Khorsabad. Note that in this palace, a huge building that occupies 10 hectares, the conqueror did nothing but copy, expanding, the structure of the palace of Nimrud, including in her temples and grouping a series of vaulted chapels for a long time were believed to the ladies of the inheritance.