Khorsabad

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Khorsabad
Capital of Assyria c. 710 - 705 BC. Occupied c. 710 - 612 BC

Khorsabad (ancient Dur Sharrukin), 12 miles (20km) north east of Mosul in northern Iraq, was founded by Sargon II, king of Assyria 721 705 BC, as a new capital to replace NIMRUD (Kalhu) where his predecessors had resided since the early 9th century. No trace of earlier occupation has been found on the site and there was, at most, a village there. After Sargon's death his son Sennacherib removed the administration to NINEVEH, and we know nothing of the history of Khorsabad in the 7th century. It presumably shared the fate of the other Assyrian royal cities and was sacked during the Median invasions of 614 and 612 BC; there was only a brief and impoverished reoccupation and, as at Nimrud, a village stood on the ruined citadel in the Hel¬lenistic period. Unlike Nineveh, Khorsabad was never an important centre of communications and its sudden rise and decline apparently reflect only the whim of a single monarch.



The city wall encloses an approximate square of 1.1 miles (1.75km) each side, and was pierced by seven gates, now visible as mounds rising from the low ridge that marks the line of the fortifications. A vast complex including the royal palace, a number of temples and a ziggurat stood on a terrace straddling the north west wall, and immediately overlooking the modern highway from Mosul to Ain Sifni. Little of the palace plan can now be traced, but the ruins of the modern excavation house overlie its small internal courtyard with the throne room immediately to the north east. Many of its stone reliefs were removed in the 19th century, but portal figures and friezes depicting processions of courtiers can be seen in the Iraq Museum. South of the terrace and linked to it by a stone bridge, of which the abutments are still visible, was the temple of Nabu, and along its cityward sides were four large residences occupied by the vizier and other ministers; this whole official area comprised a citadel separated by massive walls from the outer city. Just outside the citadel on the south west, and close to the modern road, a temple dedicated to the Sibitti, the Pleiades, was recently excavated and restored. A second large mound on the south west city wall marks the headquarters of the arsenal, the outer bailey of which occupied all this corner of the city. Like the arsenal of Kalhu it contained a secondary royal palace, only a small part of which has been excavated.