The following is a description of Nimrud as recollected by Gavin Young from his book "IRAQ Land of Two Rivers."

Sculpture decorates the base of an archway in the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, Iraq 1974.

Nimrud, another of the four great cities of Assyria, is a short drive south of Mosul on the east bank of the Tigris. Xenophon, marching his Ten Thousand along the old bed of the river, did notice something here- a large deserted city, by then called Larisa, the wall of which was 'five-and-twenty feet thick, and one hundred high, the whole being two leagues round.. .' The Arabs called it Nimrud after Nimrod, the biblical mighty hunter, father of Ashur (Assur), the Assyrian hero whose name explains why Assyrians are called Assyrians. Ashurnasirpal moved to Nimrud from Assur, preferring its convenient defensive site near the junction of the Tigris and the Greater Zab. Two thousand and seven hundred years later, Sir Henry Layard uncovered the Assyrian royal palaces on the ancient royal road that runs between Kirkuk, Arbil and Mosul and is lumpy with the countless tells that still conceal a turbulent past.

Relief From the Throne of Shalmaneser III: Offering Bearers

Sir Max Mallowan, who excavated here after the Second World War, says of Nimrud in his book Mallowan's Memoirs (Collins, 1977): 'There is no more beautiful mound in all Assyria than Nimrud, a lonely spot still untouched by modern development.' It is impossible to disagree with that. Here Ashurnasirpal II and his son Shalmaneser III ruled and opened up the great empire, followed by the mighty Sargon II. Sennacherib moved to Nineveh, but his son, Esarhaddon, returned to Nimrud. Palace followed palace; Nimrud boasted temples, parks, botanical and zoological gardens. Huge guardian figures were revealed by Layard's workmen who were staggered and scared by what they found. One day, in 1846, Layard, on his way back from Mosul to the site of the excavations, was met by two horsemen who galloped up to him shouting, 'Hurry, hurry! They have found old Nimrud himself!' Layard found his laborers standing struck before a human head as tall as themselves. 'I shall not easily forget his enormous head appearing from the earth . . . like some giant arising from the lower regions,' Layard wrote. 'The head is five foot high, and must form part of a winged bull.'

Female mask in ivory from Nimrud, Assyrian, 8th Centry BC. (Click to Enlarge)

Mallowan wrote in this book Nimrud and its Remains, (2 vols, Collins, 1966): 'The history of Assyrian buildings is one of megalomaniac variety whereby every monarch had to be seen to be possessed of more power than his predecessor.' Mallowan came out year after year to Nimrud accompanied by his wife, Agatha Christie, who adored the spring digging among the flowers of the Assyrian plain and wrote about it in her book Come, Tell Me How You Live (Collins, 1975). Among many other things Mallowan discovered much perfect treasure in two deep wells. These included what he rightly describes as 'incomparable ivories'- two chryselephantine plaques showing a negro being mauled to death by a lioness in a papyrus thicket and among lotus flowers: a miracle of ivory carving. The colored flowers were inset with lapis lazuli and cornelian and the negro's curly hair was rendered in fine ivory spiles capped with gold. This was only one example from a hoard of great beauty. And what Mallowan found in his wells has now been added to by further finds by the experts of the Iraqi Directorate-General of Antiquities. Among other discoveries too numerous to detail here were royal filing cabinets, relating to taxation and customs duties. One tablet recorded the inspection of thirty-six thousand two hundred and forty-two bows which, Mallowan says, implies an army of at least twice. that: so Nimrud could have had a population of one hundred thousand.

Hand detail of an eagle-headed protective spirit dating from around 865-860 BC. One of a group of sculptures from the North West Palace in Nimrud, Iraq and now on display at the British Museum (London, England, UK ca. 1988-1997)

From the top of the ziggurrat the ribbon of the Tigris gleams through the trees; small butterflies flutter around you like confetti. Below, you walk past guardian monsters at the gate of Ashurnasirpal's palace and into an inner courtyard where the stone floor is buckled as if by a minor earthquake. Almost wherever you look you see cuneiform accounts of the royal campaigns - the walls and doors, even the floor of an ancient wash-room, flaunt these boastful graffiti. The muscled human figures, the lions and the horses, the fruit and trees in the stone reliefs are hypnotic in their carved perfection. When I walked round it, a British Assyrologist, Nicholas Postgate, who is long resident in Baghdad, showed me a bath-house with a bitumen floor and bathing slab. He pointed out the little house overlooking the 'dig' in which the Mallowans stayed. 'I don't suppose Agatha Christie climbed that ziggurrat much, do you?' he said, looking up at it. It is certainly a bit of a scramble to get to the top.

'When they dug here, the expedition lavatories were all built on the old wails facing outwards,' said Postgate, 'so one could sit in state in Nimrud's walls looking out at this fantastic landscape.'

When we inspected the King's Throne Room, several little owls sat motionless on old stones among the daisies, turning their heads 180°, inspecting us. Nimrud is not a place you can easily forget.

Bibliography:

• Young, Gavin. IRAQ Land of Two Rivers Collins St. James Place, London, 1980.