Editing Nineveh (section)

==== <span id="Sennacherib's_Nineveh"></span>Sennacherib's development of Nineveh ====
[[File:Relief from Nineveh Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin.jpg|thumb|Refined low-relief section of a bull-hunt frieze from Nineveh, [[alabaster]], {{Circa|695 BC}} ([[Pergamon Museum]], Berlin)]]
[[File:Nineveh north palace king hunting lion.jpg|thumb|Relief of [[Ashurbanipal]] hunting a [[Mesopotamian lion]],<ref name="Ashrafian2011"/> from the Northern Palace in Nineveh, as seen at the [[British Museum]]]]
It was [[Sennacherib]] who made Nineveh a truly influential city ({{circa|700 BC}}), as he laid out new streets and squares and built within it the South West Palace, or "palace without a rival", the plan of which has been mostly recovered and has overall dimensions of about {{convert|503|x|242|m|ft|0}}. It had at least 80 rooms, many of which were lined with sculpture. A large number of [[cuneiform]] tablets were found in the palace. The solid foundation was made out of limestone blocks and mud bricks; it was {{convert|22|m|ft|0}} tall. In total, the foundation is made of roughly {{convert|2680000|m3|yd3|0}} of brick (approximately 160&nbsp;million bricks). The walls on top, made out of mud brick, were an additional {{convert|20|m|ft|0}} tall.

Some of the principal doorways were flanked by colossal stone ''[[lamassu]]'' door figures weighing up to {{convert|30000|kg|t|0}}; these were winged [[Asiatic lion|Mesopotamian lions]]<ref name="Ashrafian2011">{{Cite journal |last=Ashrafian |first=H. |year=2011 |title=An extinct Mesopotamian lion subspecies |journal=Veterinary Heritage |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=47–49}}</ref> or [[bull]]s, with human heads. These were transported {{convert|50|km|mi|0}} from quarries at Balatai, and they had to be lifted up {{convert|20|m|ft|0}} once they arrived at the site, presumably by a [[Inclined plane|ramp]]. There are also {{convert|3000|m|ft|0}} of stone [[Assyrian palace reliefs]], that include pictorial records documenting every construction step including carving the statues and transporting them on a barge. One picture shows 44 men towing a colossal statue. The carving shows three men directing the operation while standing on the Colossus. Once the statues arrived at their destination, the final carving was done. Most of the statues weigh between {{convert|9000|and|27000|kg|lb|0}}.<ref>"The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World" edited by Chris Scarre 1999 (Thames and Hudson)</ref>

The stone carvings in the walls include many battle scenes, impalings and scenes showing Sennacherib's men parading the spoils of war before him. The inscriptions boasted of his conquests: he wrote of [[Babylon]]: "Its inhabitants, young and old, I did not spare, and with their corpses I filled the streets of the city." A full and characteristic [[Lachish relief|set shows the campaign leading up to the siege of Lachish]] in 701; it is the "finest" from the reign of [[Sennacherib]], and now in the British Museum.<ref>Reade, Julian, ''Assyrian Sculpture'', pp. 56 (quoted), 65–71, 1998 (2nd ed.), The British Museum Press, {{ISBN|9780714121413}}</ref> He later wrote about a battle in [[Lachish]]: "And [[Hezekiah]] of Judah who had not submitted to my yoke&nbsp;... him I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city like a caged bird. Earthworks I threw up against him, and anyone coming out of his city gate I made pay for his crime. His cities which I had plundered I had cut off from his land."<ref>Time Life Lost Civilizations series: ''Mesopotamia: The Mighty Kings'' (1995)</ref>

At this time, Nineveh comprised about {{convert|7|km2|acre|0}} of land, and fifteen great gates penetrated its walls. An elaborate system of eighteen canals brought water from the hills to Nineveh, and several sections of a magnificently constructed aqueduct erected by Sennacherib were discovered at [[Jerwan]], about {{convert|65|km|mi|0}} distant.<ref>Thorkild Jacobsen and Seton Lloyd, [http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/oip24.pdf "Sennacherib's Aqueduct at Jerwan"], Oriental Institute Publication 24, [[University of Chicago Press]], 1935</ref> The enclosed area had more than 100,000 inhabitants (maybe closer to 150,000), about twice as many as [[Babylon]] at the time, placing it among the largest settlements worldwide.

Some scholars such as [[Stephanie Dalley]] at [[Oxford University|Oxford]] believe that the garden which Sennacherib built next to his palace, with its associated irrigation works, were the original [[Hanging Gardens of Babylon]]; Dalley's argument is based on a disputation of the traditional placement of the Hanging Gardens attributed to [[Berossus]] together with a combination of literary and archaeological evidence.<ref name="Dalley2013">{{cite book |last1=Dalley |first1=Stephanie|author-link1=Stephanie Dalley |date=2013 |title=The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: an elusive World Wonder traced |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-966226-5}}</ref>