Nimrud (Arabic: النمرود‎) is the later Arab name for an ancient Assyrian city located 20 miles south of the city of Mosul, and three miles south of the village of Selamiyah (Arabic: السلامية‎), in northern Mesopotamia. The city is located in a strategic position six miles north of the point that the river Tigris meets its tributary the Great Zab. Archeologists believe that the city was given the name Nimrud in modern times after the Biblical Nimrod, a legendary hunting hero. The city was identified as the Biblical city of Calah (Kalhu, Kalakh; in Hebrew כלח and in Greek χαλαχ), first referred to alongside Nimrod in Genesis 10, by Henry Rawlinson in 1850 on the basis of a possible interpretation of the city's cuneiform proper name as "Levekh". The city covered an area of 360 hectares (890 acres). The ruins of the city were found within one kilometer of the modern-day Assyrian village of Noomanea in Nineveh Province, Iraq. This is some 30 kilometres (19 mi) southeast of Mosul. Archaeological excavations at the site began in 1845, and were conducted at intervals between then and 1879, and then from 1949 onwards. Many important pieces were discovered, with most being moved to museums in Iraq and abroad. In 2013 the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council established the "Nimrud Project" in order to identify and record the history of the world's collection of artefacts from Nimrud, distributed amongst at least 76 museums worldwide (including 36 in the United States and 13 in the United Kingdom) The Assyrian king Shalmaneser I (1274 BC–1245 BC) built Kalhu (Calah/Nimrud) during the Middle Assyrian Empire. However, the ancient city of Assur remained the capital of Assyria, as it had been since c. 3500 BC. A number of historians, such as Julian Jaynes, believe that the Biblical figure Nimrod (of whom the far later Arab name for the city was derived) was inspired by the deeds of the real king of Assyria Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1207 BC), the son of Shalmaneser I, and a powerful conqueror. Others believe the name derived from the Assyrian god Ninurta, who had a major cultic centre at Kalhu/Nimrud. The city gained fame when king Ashurnasirpal II of the Neo Assyrian Empire (883 BC–859 BC) made it his capital at the expense of Assur. He built a large palace and temples in the city that had fallen into a degree of disrepair during the Dark Ages of the mid 11th to mid 10th centuries BC. A grand opening ceremony with festivities and an opulent banquet in 879 BC is described in an inscribed stele discovered during archeological excavations. The city of king Ashurnasirpal II housed perhaps as many as 100,000 inhabitants[citation needed], and contained botanic gardens and a zoo. His son, Shalmaneser III (858–824 BC), built the monument known as the Great Ziggurat, and an associated temple. Kalhu remained the capital of the Assyrian Empire during the reigns of Shamshi-Adad V (822–811 BC), Adad-nirari III (810–782 BC), Queen Semiramis (810–806 BC), Adad-nirari III (806–782 BC), Shalmaneser IV (782–773 BC), Ashur-dan III (772–755 BC), Ashur-nirari V (754–746 BC), Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC) and Shalmaneser V (726–723 BC). Tiglath-Pileser III in particular, conducted major building works in the city, as well as introducing Eastern Aramaic as the lingua franca of the empire. However in 706 BC Sargon II (722–705 BC) moved the capital of the empire to Dur Sharrukin, and after his death, Sennacherib (705–681 BC) moved it to Nineveh. It remained a major city and a royal residence until the city was largely destroyed during the fall of the Assyrian Empire at the hands of an alliance of former subject peoples, including the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians (between 616 BC and 605 BC). The Nineveh Province in which the ruins of Nimrud lie, is still the major center of Iraq's indigenous Assyrian population (now exclusively Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christians) to this day. King Ashurnasirpal II, who reigned from 883 to 859 BC, built a new capital at Nimrud. Thousands of men worked to build a 5-mile (8.0 km) long wall surrounding the city and a grand palace. There were many inscriptions carved into limestone including one that said: "The palace of cedar, cypress, juniper, boxwood, mulberry, pistachio wood, and tamarisk, for my royal dwelling and for my lordly pleasure for all time, I founded therein. Beasts of the mountains and of the seas, of white limestone and alabaster I fashioned and set them up on its gates." The inscriptions also described plunder stored at the palace: "Silver, gold, lead, copper and iron, the spoil of my hand from the lands which I had brought under my sway, in great quantities I took and placed therein." The inscriptions also described great feasts he had to celebrate his conquests. However his victims were horrified by his conquests.

• published: 08 Mar 2015
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