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

Nineveh has been quite dramatically restored- a fact which will enrage those archaeological 'purists' who like old things to be left as they are, and which will delight others who feel, as the Iraqi authorities evidently feel, that the public wants to have the clearest possible idea of what ancient buildings or cities looked like in their heyday. The latter view is clearly the one most favored by most laymen. And, if developers and builders are to be held at bay, it is necessary that it should prevail. Few people would actively oppose developers seeking to build something modern on a mere boring mound of rubble, particularly if that mound of rubble- as in the case of Nineveh- is situated on the outskirts of the present city of Mosul, a most desirable site for development.

Of course, the world-wide fame of Nineveh's name will help to preserve it. It is extraordinarily large. It is hard to understand how Xenophon, who trudged by it in 401 BC on his way to the Black Sea with the Ten Thousand, almost failed to notice it. He does, however, mention 'a large deserted fortress' called Mespila. And adds:

In Xenophon's time nearly all the Assyrian cities- Nineveh, the administrative center; Nimrud, the military headquarters; Assur, the religious center and Khorsabad, though not Arbil- had lain in ruins for two hundred years. And Xenophon's time was about three hundred years after the Assyrian Empire had reached its pinnacle under the great King Sennacherib, who made his capital in Nineveh, a city beloved of the goddess Ishtar. The city was then already at least four thousand years old.

Print of an Assyrian Relief From Nineveh

Sennacherib, statesman and soldier, built bridges and the city wall, dug canals and planted gardens. Armies of workers- Chaldeans, Arameans, Armenians, Cilicians, Philistines and Tyrians- constructed his 'Palace without a Rival', which was lavishly and expensively adorned with massive sculptures, relief-carving and glazed brick paneling, winged bulls and lions of bronze. Its entrances were guarded by animals and genii, and stone slabs recorded in elaborate 'strip cartoons' of extreme aesthetic skill memorable events or simply scenes of day-to-day life at this 'center of the world'.

Military tableaux abound - Sennacherib, and indeed all Assyrian Kings, were inveterate warriors wielding vast armies organized into plundering war machines of a power and efficiency the like of which the world had never seen. The reliefs show sieges and assaults, Chaldean Kings being hunted in the reeds of the Marshes, soldiers picking their way through the Kurdish mountains, or crossing wooded plains. The horsemen and chariots of Nineveh became the scourge of the east, and the use of metal enabled the Assyrian Kings to build up heavily armored regiments of spearmen and shield-bearers which proved invincible.

Sir Henry Layard unearthed parts of libraries at Nineveh, thus revealing in great detail the life and times of Sennacherib, and Layard's assistant and successor, Hormuzd Rassam, discovered in 1853 the palace of Ashurbani-pal and other royal libraries. So much is now known of those days of glory and destruction- days when, as Seton Lloyd has said, Babylonia and Elam (south-west Persia) were full of smoking ruins, days in which 'the voice of men, the tread of cattle and the sound of happy music were no more heard'. Days, too in which conquered Kings were chained in kennels like dogs at the gates of the palaces of Nineveh, or casually bartered as slaves in the markets.

Not all the Assyrian reliefs deal with war, death and humiliation. The scenes of lion hunting are exquisitely made; so, for example, are scenes showing fishermen casting their lines while they sit astride coracles of inflated skins, and of Sennacherib organizing his nature reserve:

Sennacherib's deeds, thoughts and opinions were duly noted down for posterity. The high summer of the Assyrian Empire lasted about two hundred and thirty years, from 860 BC to 626 BC. Then, the amazing efficiency of the central administration and of the war machine- bled white by unending and costly campaigns- began to falter and die.

War with the Babylonians lasted from 626-6 15 BC and then the Medes invaded Assyria and captured Assur, massacring the population and plundering the city. Medes and Babylonians together attacked Nineveh in 6 12 BC and Sin-shar-ishkun, the Assyrian King, was killed. 'The great spoil of the city and temple they carried off and turned the city into a ruin-mound and heaps of debris.' So it is written in the Chronicles of the Chaldean Kings. And King Nabopolassar of Babylon cried in triumph:

An illustration of a scene from Jonah Chapter 4 in the Bible, in which Jonah sits under the shelter of a vine provided by God, and waits to see what will happen to the city of Nineveh.

So the foreboding of the prophet Jonah, the son of Amittai, from the eighth century BC, were brought to pass. 'Go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.. .'- that was God's message at the time. And by 'great city', Jonah makes clear, he meant a place populated by 'six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left'.

Jonah's shrine- Nebi Yunus- is a mere stone's throw from the built-up wails and gates of Nineveh, perched on a small hill. The mosque- one of Jonah's many tombs- stands on the site of a Christian church. A whale's tooth, appropriate to Jonah's well-known adventure at sea, is said to be preserved there. Tavernier describes it so:

It is still necessary to shed your shoes at Nebi Yunus.

Bibliography:

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