Dur-Sharrukin

Background

Dur-Sharrukin was a brief capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire that was built by Sargon II during his reign between 722 BC and 705 BC. A translation of the name means Fortress of Sargon and became the personal obsession and massive building project of Sargon II during his reign.

Dur Sharrukin is located near modern day Khorsabad in Iraq and covered an area around 1.78 km (1.11 sq mi) with a length of 1,759 m (5,770 ft) and a width of 1,635 m (5,364 ft) and featured defensive walls that rose 12 m (39 ft) off the ground and were 14 m (45 ft) thick in order to prevent sieges. From high in the sky the city was outlined in a near perfect square and featured a magnificent palace as well as a massive four story Ziggurat.

The city was built, from Sargon’s design, to form a near perfect square from which rose a “palace without rival” (as Sargon described it) and a four-story ziggurat. The historian Stephen Bertman comments on the construction and design writing:Sargon’s capital city was over a mile square and its design became his preoccupation. The city’s dimensions, for example, were based on the numerological value of Sargon’s name. Tablets describing the story of the palace’s construction were deposited in its cornerstone with the identical text repeated on individual tablets of copper, lead, silver, gold, limestone, magnesite, and lapis lazuli, while paintings illustrated how cedar wood was imported from Lebanon to provide needed timber. Colossal stone bulls with wings and human heads guarded its entranceways. And the walls of the palace were decorated with so much sculpture that the panels, if laid end to end, would stretch for a mile (19).Construction began in 717 BC and would continue for the next ten years. Sargon II was away on campaign during much of this time but kept in touch with his son, the crown prince Sennacherib, regarding the city’s progress. He moved in to his new palace in 706 BC but died on campaign a year later. After his death, the city was abandoned.SARGON II HAD WANTED A CITY MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN KALHU OR ASHUR, A CITY NO ONE BEFORE HIM HAD LIVED IN, AND NOW HE HAD IT.THE NEED FOR A NEW CAPITALThe city of Ashur had been the traditional capital of the Assyrian Empire until the reign of King Ashurnasirpal II (884-859 BC) who moved the capital to his newly-built city of Kalhu (also known as Nimrud). Ashurnasirpal II decided on this move in order to separate his reign from those of his predecessors but also because the people of Ashur had become more independent owing to the great wealth and prestige of the city. Ashurnasirpal II felt he could no longer count on the populace to unwaveringly support him and wanted a new city, with a new palace, to assert his authority. Kalhu proved to be just the city he was looking for. It had first been built under the reign of Shalmaneser I (reigned 1274-1245 BC) but had become dilapidated in the years since his reign. Ashurnasirpal II renovated the city, rebuilt the temple, had a new palace constructed, and inaugurated the city as his capital in 879 BC. Kalhu served the kings of Assyria over the next century but, in 746 BC, the usurper Tiglath Pileser III (reigned 745-727 BC) overthrew the ruling monarch and took the throne. Regarding this, the historian Karen Radner writes:That Kalhu's elite could no longer be seen as unquestioningly loyal to whoever happened to be king became very clear in 746 BC. In that year, a rebellion against king Aššur-nerari V (754-745 BC) started in Kalhu, in the very centre of the Assyrian state. The revolt was successful and eventually resulted in the ascension of Tiglath-Pileser III to the throne. Having profited from Kalhu's new-found independence from the royal court, he and his chosen heir Shalmaneser V (726-722 BC) had little reason to fear it. Sargon II, however, faced fierce resistance to his rule after he ousted his brother Shalmaneser in 722 BC and usurped royal power. Rebellions arose in the western provinces but also, and much more worryingly, in the Assyrian heartland. After he managed to crush the opposition in 720 BC, he exiled those of his enemies in central Assyria who had survived. Moreover, he immediately took steps to relocate the court and central administration (1).Dur-Sharrukin was envisaged as a completely new beginning for Sargon II. He purchased the land from an agricultural community called Magganubba and claimed to have paid the going market price without invoking any kind of royal privilege. Sargon II writes in one inscription:Magganubba, which lies at the foot of Mount Muṣri and towers above a spring and the surroundings of Nineveh - none of the 350 earlier regents of Assyria realized its favorable location, understood the benefits of its settlement or commanded to dig a canal there. I planned and plotted day and night how to settle this city and to build a sanctuary as the seat of the great gods and palaces as the residence of my rule, and therefore commanded their construction (Khorsabad cylinder inscription, ll. 44-49)Once the land had been purchased and construction had begun, Sargon II needed to leave on military campaigns to secure his empire. He continued to oversee his project from afar, however, as is clear from his letters to his son and to those directly involved in building the city.Sargon II's SteleSargon II's SteleCONSTRUCTION OF THE CITYSargon II was no longer interested in ruling from Kalhu and wanted the city built quickly. He was also interested in quality, however, and wanted to make sure it was built well. He canceled the debts of workers in order to procure a steady stream of labor and had his overseers give incentives to skilled workers. He also, no doubt, used the forced labor of prisoners of war and those civilian populations which had been relocated following conquest (such as the people of Israel and Samaria, whom he conquered early in his reign, c. 720 BC). His level of personal involvement in the project is made clear through the letters he sent home. The historian Marc Van De Mieroop writes:A total of 113 letters can be associated with the building of Dur-Sharrukin, a tenth of all preserved letters from his reign. They involve twenty-six provincial governors, which shows how resources from the entire empire were used. Six letters seem to have been written by the king himself, demanding materials or labor. Three of them are translated here:1 Letter found in NinevehThe king’s word to the governor of Kalhu: 700 bales of straw and 700 bundles of reed, each bundle more than a donkey can carry, must arrive in Dur-Sharrukin by the first of the month Kislev. Should one day pass by, you will die.2 Letters found in KalhuThe 1100 limestones that Bel-lishir-talaktu is loading, let them be brought to me in Dur-Sharrukin quickly! Addressed to the second vizier.700 limestones that Bel-lishir-talaktu is loading, quickly bring them to me in Dur-Sharrukin! Addressed to the eunuchs (235).The city rose steadily through the efforts of a massive labor force even though, at times, there were accidents and delays. One such accident was the loss of two winged bull colossi in the river Tigris. The official overseeing the movement of the statues wrote to the king saying,To the king, my lord: your servant Assur-bani. Good health to the king, my Lord! Assur-sumi-ke’in called me to help and loaded the bull colossi on the boats, but the boats could not carry the load and sank. Now, although it cost me a great trouble, I have now hauled them up again.Between 713-710 BC Sargon II remained, more or less, in Kalhu and regularly oversaw the construction of his city. In 710 BC he felt he had to finally deal with a problem which had bested him early in his reign. A tribal chief named Merodach-Baladan had taken Babylon and, with Elamite allies, had defeated Sargon II’s forces in c. 719 BC and had then claimed the throne of Babylon and the southern reaches of Mesopotamia. Sargon II again entrusted the building of Dur-Sharrukin to Sennacherib and marched his forces against Elam.Neo-Assyrian EmpireNeo-Assyrian EmpireBABYLON, DEATH, & THE END OF DUR-SHARRUKINSargon II had been defeated previously by the Elamites and Babylonians because he faced them in a frontal assault on the field. This time he swung his armies to the east and first defeated Elam in order to deprive Babylon of its allies. Merodach-Baladan fled the city and Sargon II entered Babylon, had himself crowned king, and accepted the territories of the south in his role as liberator. He then remained at Babylon for the next three years until word reached him that his city was complete and he could move into his palace.The city was not actually complete. The walls were done and most of the buildings and, most importantly, the palace, but excavations at the site and ancient letters indicate there was still some significant work to be done. Even so, the city was very impressive. The historian Gwendolyn Leick writes:There were seven gates, each dedicated to an Assyrian god. Within a separate enclosure stood the palace and the administrative complex known as the “Palace without Rival”. According to the French excavators, it contained more than 210 rooms, grouped around three courtyards. The portals were guarded by colossal human-headed, winged bulls made of stone, and the walls of the palace were lined with relief-covered limestone slabs that showed the triumph of the Assyrian army and the deeds of Sargon. There were several sanctuaries at Dur-Sharrukin; the most notable was dedicated to the god Nabu and decorated with glazed tiles (51-52).Further, there was the great ziggurat of Dur-Sharrukin: a four-story structure with a spiral staircase winding up around it. Each of the levels was painted a different color: white, black, red, and blue. The doors of the palace were bronze, while carved ivory decorated the walls and ceilings. The reliefs that lined the walls depicted Sargon II as a mighty king who destroyed his enemies and built towering monuments. The historian Susan Wise Bauer comments on this, writing how the reliefs “show his greatness. His huge figure pushes even the forms of the gods into the background” (381). He had wanted a city more beautiful than Kalhu or Ashur, a city no one before him had lived in, and now he had it.He did not enjoy it for very long. Sargon II moved into his grand palace in 706 BC and, in 705 BC, was killed in battle. The Tabal people of Anatolia had risen against the Assyrian Empire and, instead of sending a general to take care of the problem, Sargon II led his army himself. He was killed on the field and the fighting was so fierce that his men could not retrieve his body. This was considered a bad omen by the people of Assyria who concluded that Sargon II must have committed some terrible sin for the gods to have deserted him so completely when he needed them most. Since Dur-Sharrukin was so closely associated with the king, it was thought to have been tainted by whatever transgression against the gods he had committed and so was abandoned. Sennacherib moved the capital to Nineveh and initiated his own building projects there. Anything which could be moved was taken from Dur-Sharrukin and brought to Nineveh. The city was deserted. While some modern-day scholars claim that Dur-Sharrukin continued on as a provincial capital, others contend that it became effectively a ghost town after the move to Nineveh. The discrepancies in these views come from different interpretations of the modern-day site and the ancient inscriptions.An Altar from Dur-SharrukinAn Altar from Dur-SharrukinCOLLAPSE & LATER DISCOVERYDur-Sharrukin eventually collapsed in the fires which took the region after the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC. The combined forces of the Persians, Medes, Babylonians, and others swept through the cities of the Assyrians following the death of Sargon II’s great-grandson, King Ashurbanipal, in 627 BC and destroyed them. In time, the ruins were buried by the sands and the city was forgotten. The settlement known as Khorsabad came to be established on the spot, and then, in 1873 CE the archaeologist Paul Emile Botta began excavations there. These were later carried on by another archaeologist named Victor Place. These men were accompanied, as was standard practice, by artists who would sketch the ruins and the artifacts which were to be moved in situ. Artists like Eugene Flandin and Felix Thomas made careful drawings of every artifact discovered at Dur-Sharrukin, and it was very fortunate that they did.One boatload of treasures that was being shipped down the Tigris River in 1853 CE was attacked by Bedouins and sank, while another boatload in 1855 CE sank under the weight of the artifacts which had been loaded on to it. The second sinking resulted in the loss of two bull colossi, possibly the same two colossi which had sunk the boats in the 8th century BC. Unlike the workmen under Sargon II, however, no attempts were made in the 19th century CE to retrieve the treasures from the bottom of the Tigris River and they remain there to the present day. In part due to military conflicts in the region, any plans to raise the sunken treasures in the latter 20th and early 21st centuries CE have never been implemented.Those artifacts which did wind up leaving the country may be viewed today in the British Museum, the Louvre, The Oriental Institute of Chicago in the USA and, in country, at the Archaeological Museum in Iraq. Excavations at the site continued into the mid-20th century CE, with the Oriental Institute of Chicago overseeing the work there from 1928-1935 CE. The Iraqi Department of Antiquities took over the site in the 1950’s CE, and further excavations were conducted under their authority with finds going to the museum in Baghdad. No further work has been carried out at Dur-Sharrukin and, as with the artifacts at the bottom of the Tigris River, this is partly due to armed conflict in the region.Dur-Sharrukin ("Fortress of Sargon"; Arabic: دور شروكين‎), present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Khorsabad is a village in northern Iraq, 15 km northeast of Mosul.. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC. After the unexpected death of Sargon in battle, the capital was shifted 20 km south to Nineveh.Lamassu found during Botta's excavation, now in the Louvre Museum.Mesopotamia in the Neo-Assyrian period (place names in French)Sargon II ruled from 722 to 705 BC. In 717, Sargon ordered the construction of a new palace-city at the confluence of the Tigris and the Greater Zab rivers. The demands for timber and other materials and craftsmen, who came from as far as coastal Phoenicia, are documented in contemporary Assyrian letters. The debts of construction workers were nullified in order to attract a sufficient labour force. The land in the environs of the town was taken under cultivation, and olive groves were planted to increase Assyria's deficient oil-production. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC, when the court moved to Dur-Sharrukin, although it was not completely finished yet. Sargon was killed during a battle in 705. After his unexpected death his son and successor Sennacherib abandoned the project, and relocated the capital with its administration to the city of Nineveh, 20 km south. The city was never completed and it was finally abandoned a century later when the Assyrian empire fell. [1]Destruction by ISILOn 8 March 2015 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant reportedly started the plunder and demolition of Dur-Sharrukin, according to the Kurdish official from Mosul Saeed Mamuzini.[2] The Iraqi Tourism and Antiquities Ministry launched the related investigation on the same day.[2]FeaturesPlan of Dur-Sharrukin, 1867Plan of Palace of Sargon Khosrabad Reconstruction 1905Reconstructed Model of Palace of Sargon at Khosrabad 1905Khorsabad brick, Assyria. Babylonian; Louvre Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival CollectionThe town was of rectangular layout and measured 1758.6 by 1635 metres. The enclosed area comprised 3 square kilometres, or 288 hectares. The length of the walls was 16280 Assyrian units, which corresponded to the numerical value of Sargon's name.[citation needed] The city walls were massive and 157 towers protected its sides. Seven gates entered the city from all directions. A walled terrace contained temples and the royal palace. The main temples were dedicated to the gods Nabu, Shamash and Sin, while Adad, Ningal and Ninurta had smaller shrines. A temple tower, ziqqurat, was also constructed. The palace was adorned with sculptures and wall reliefs, and the gates were flanked with winged-bull shedu statues weighing up to 40 tons. Sargon supposedly lost at least one of these winged bulls in the river.In addition to the great city, there was a royal hunting park and a garden that included "all the aromatic plants of Hatti[3] and the fruit-trees of every mountain", a "record of power and conquest", as Robin Lane Fox has observed.[4] Surviving correspondence mentions the moving of thousands of young fruit trees, quinces, almonds, apples and medlars.[5] "On the central canal of Sargon's garden stood a pillared pleasure-pavilion which looked up to a great topographic creation: a man-made Garden Mound. This Mound was planted with cedars and cypresses and was modelled after a foreign landscape, the Amanus mountains in north Syria, which had so amazed the Assyrian kings. In their flat palace-gardens they built a replica of what they had encountered."[6]ArchaeologyDur-Sharrukin foundation cylinderPalace of Dur-SharrukinDur-Sharrukin is roughly a square with a border marked by a city wall 24 meters thick with a stone foundation pierced by seven massive gates. A mound in the northeast section marks the location of the palace of Sargon II. At the time of its construction, the village on the site was named Maganuba. [7]The site was first noticed by the French Consul General at Mosul, Paul-Émile Botta in 1842. Botta believed, however, that Khorsabad was the site of biblical Nineveh. The site was excavated by Botta in 1842-44, joined in the later stages by artist Eugène Flandin.[8][9] Victor Place resumed the excavations from 1852 to 1855.[10][11]A significant number of the items recovered by the French at Dur-Sharrukin were lost in two river shipping incidents. In 1853, Place attempted to move two 30-ton statues and other material to Paris from Khorsabad on a large boat and four rafts. All of the vessels except two of the rafts were scuttled by pirates. In 1855, Place and Jules Oppert attempted to transport the remaining finds from Dur-Sharrukin, as well as material from other sites being worked by the French, mainly Nimrud. Almost all of the collection, over 200 crates, was lost in the river.[12] Surviving artifacts from this excavation were taken to the Louvre in Paris.The site of Khorsabad was excavated 1928–1935 by American archaeologists from the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Work in the first season was led by Edward Chiera and concentrated on the palace area. A colossal bull estimated to weigh 40 tons was uncovered outside the throne room. It was found split into three large fragments. The torso alone weighed about 20 tons. This was shipped to Chicago. The preparation and shipment of the bull back to the Oriental Institute was incredibly arduous. The remaining seasons were led by Gordon Loud and Hamilton Darby. Their work examined one of the city gates, continued work at the palace, and excavated extensively at the palace's temple complex.[13] Since Dur-Sharrukin was a single-period site that was evacuated in an orderly manner after the death of Sargon II, few individual objects were found. The primary discoveries from Khorsabad shed light on Assyrian art and architecture.In 1957, archaeologists from the Iraqi Department Antiquities, led by Fuad Safar excavated at the site, uncovering the temple of Sibitti.[14]Plan of Dur-Šarruken (Khorsabad) by the French excavator Victor Place, reproduced from G. Loud, Khorsabad, Part 1: Excavations in the Palace and at a City Gate (Oriental Institute Publications 38), Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1936, p. 2.A history of all nations from the earliest times; being a universal historical library Year: 1905 (1900s) Authors: Wright, John Henry, 1852-1908Dur-SharrukinFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaDur-Šharru-ukinܕܘܪ ܫܪܘ ܘܟܢ (Syriac)دور شروكين (Arabic)Lammasu.jpgA human-headed winged bull known as a lamassu from Dur-Sharrukin. Neo-Assyrian Period, ca. 721–705 BCDur-Sharrukin is located in Iraq Dur-SharrukinShown within IraqAlternate nameKhorsabadLocationKhorsabad, Nineveh Province, IraqRegionMesopotamiaCoordinates36°30′34″N 43°13′46″ECoordinates: 36°30′34″N 43°13′46″ETypeSettlementLength1,760 m (5,770 ft)Width1,635 m (5,364 ft)Area2.88 km2 (1.11 sq mi)HistoryFoundedIn the decade preceding 706 BCAbandonedApproximately 605 BCPeriodsNeo-Assyrian EmpireCulturesAssyrianSite notesExcavation dates1842–1844, 1852–1855 1928–1935, 1957ArchaeologistsPaul-Émile Botta, Eugène Flandin, Victor Place, Edward Chiera, Gordon Loud, Hamilton Darby, Fuad SafarConditionDestroyed/irreparably damagedPublic accessInaccessibleDur-Sharrukin ("Fortress of Sargon"; Arabic: دور شروكين‎‎), present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Khorsabad is a village in northern Iraq, 15 km northeast of Mosul. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC. After the unexpected death of Sargon in battle, the capital was shifted 20 km south to Nineveh.Contents [hide]1History1.1Destruction by ISIL2Features3Archaeology4See also5Notes6References7External linksHistory[edit]Lamassu found during Botta's excavation, now in the Louvre Museum.Mesopotamia in the Neo-Assyrian period (place names in French)Sargon II ruled from 722 to 705 BC. In 717, Sargon ordered the construction of a new palace-city at the confluence of the Tigris and the Greater Zab rivers. The demands for timber and other materials and craftsmen, who came from as far as coastal Phoenicia, are documented in contemporary Assyrian letters. The debts of construction workers were nullified in order to attract a sufficient labour force. The land in the environs of the town was taken under cultivation, and olive groves were planted to increase Assyria's deficient oil-production. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC, when the court moved to Dur-Sharrukin, although it was not completely finished yet. Sargon was killed during a battle in 705. After his unexpected death his son and successor Sennacherib abandoned the project, and relocated the capital with its administration to the city of Nineveh, 20 km south. The city was never completed and it was finally abandoned a century later when the Assyrian empire fell. [1]Destruction by ISIL[edit]On 8 March 2015 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant reportedly started the plunder and demolition of Dur-Sharrukin, according to the Kurdish official from Mosul Saeed Mamuzini.[2] The Iraqi Tourism and Antiquities Ministry launched the related investigation on the same day.[2]Features[edit]Plan of Dur-Sharrukin, 1867Plan of Palace of Sargon Khorsabad Reconstruction 1905Reconstructed Model of Palace of Sargon at Khorsabad 1905Khorsabad brick, Assyria. Babylonian; Louvre Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival CollectionThe town was of rectangular layout and measured 1758.6 by 1635 metres. The enclosed area comprised 3 square kilometres, or 288 hectares. The length of the walls was 16280 Assyrian units, which corresponded to the numerical value of Sargon's name.[citation needed] The city walls were massive and 157 towers protected its sides. Seven gates entered the city from all directions. A walled terrace contained temples and the royal palace. The main temples were dedicated to the gods Nabu, Shamash and Sin, while Adad, Ningal and Ninurta had smaller shrines. A temple tower, ziqqurat, was also constructed. The palace was adorned with sculptures and wall reliefs, and the gates were flanked with winged-bull shedu statues weighing up to 40 tons. Sargon supposedly lost at least one of these winged bulls in the river.In addition to the great city, there was a royal hunting park and a garden that included "all the aromatic plants of Hatti[3] and the fruit-trees of every mountain", a "record of power and conquest", as Robin Lane Fox has observed.[4] Surviving correspondence mentions the moving of thousands of young fruit trees, quinces, almonds, apples and medlars.[5]"On the central canal of Sargon's garden stood a pillared pleasure-pavilion which looked up to a great topographic creation: a man-made Garden Mound. This Mound was planted with cedars and cypresses and was modelled after a foreign landscape, the Amanus mountains in north Syria, which had so amazed the Assyrian kings. In their flat palace-gardens they built a replica of what they had encountered."[6]Archaeology[edit]Dur-Sharrukin foundation cylinderPalace of Dur-SharrukinDur-Sharrukin is roughly a square with a border marked by a city wall 24 meters thick with a stone foundation pierced by seven massive gates. A mound in the northeast section marks the location of the palace of Sargon II. At the time of its construction, the village on the site was named Maganuba. [7]The site was first noticed by the French Consul General at Mosul, Paul-Émile Botta in 1842. Botta believed, however, that Khorsabad was the site of biblical Nineveh. The site was excavated by Botta in 1842-44, joined in the later stages by artist Eugène Flandin.[8][9] Victor Place resumed the excavations from 1852 to 1855.[10][11]A significant number of the items recovered by the French at Dur-Sharrukin were lost in two river shipping incidents. In 1853, Place attempted to move two 30-ton statues and other material to Paris from Khorsabad on a large boat and four rafts. All of the vessels except two of the rafts were scuttled by pirates. In 1855, Place and Jules Oppert attempted to transport the remaining finds from Dur-Sharrukin, as well as material from other sites being worked by the French, mainly Nimrud. Almost all of the collection, over 200 crates, was lost in the river.[12] Surviving artifacts from this excavation were taken to the Louvre in Paris.The site of Khorsabad was excavated 1928–1935 by American archaeologists from the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Work in the first season was led by Edward Chiera and concentrated on the palace area. A colossal bull estimated to weigh 40 tons was uncovered outside the throne room. It was found split into three large fragments. The torso alone weighed about 20 tons. This was shipped to Chicago. The preparation and shipment of the bull back to the Oriental Institute was incredibly arduous. The remaining seasons were led by Gordon Loud and Hamilton Darby. Their work examined one of the city gates, continued work at the palace, and excavated extensively at the palace's temple complex.[13] Since Dur-Sharrukin was a single-period site that was evacuated in an orderly manner after the death of Sargon II, few individual objects were found. The primary discoveries from Khorsabad shed light on Assyrian art and architecture.In 1957, archaeologists from the Iraqi Department Antiquities, led by Fuad Safar excavated at the site, uncovering the temple of Sibitti.[14]See also[edit]Cities of the ancient Near EastDestruction of cultural heritage by ISILShort chronology timelineList of megalithic sitesNotes[edit]Jump up ^ Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 - 323 BC, (Wiley-Blackwell) 2006, ISBN 1-4051-4911-6^ Jump up to: a b "Ancient site Khorsabad attacked by Islamic State: reports". Toronto Star. 8 March 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2015.Jump up ^ Hatti: in this context, all the areas to the west of the Euphrates controlled by Neo-Hittite kingdoms.Jump up ^ D.D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol II:242, quoted in Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer 2008, pp26f.Jump up ^ Lane Fox 2008:27; texts are in Luckenbill 1927:II.Jump up ^ Lane Fox 2008:27, noting D. Stronach, "The Garden as a political statement: some case-studies from the Near East in the first millennium BC", Bulletin of the Asia Institute 4 (1990:171-80). The garden mount first documented at Dur-Sharrukin was to have a long career in the history of gardening.Jump up ^ Cultraro M., Gabellone F., Scardozzi G, Integrated Methodologies and Technologies for the Reconstructive Study of Dur-Sharrukin (Iraq), XXI International CIPA Symposium, 2007Jump up ^ Paul Emile Botta and Eugene Flandin, Monument de Ninive, in 5 volumes, Imprimerie nationale, 1946-50Jump up ^ E. Guralnick, New drawings of Khorsabad sculptures by Paul Émile Botta, Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale, vol. 95, pp. 23-56, 2002Jump up ^ Victor Place, Nineve et l'Assyie, in 3 volumes, Imprimerie impériale, 1867–1879Jump up ^ Joseph Bonomi, Ninevah and Its Palaces: The Discoveries of Botta and Layard, Applied to the Elucidation of Holy Writ, Bohn, 1957 (2003 Reprint, Gorgias Press LLC, ISBN 1-59333-067-7)Jump up ^ Robert William Rogers, A history of Babylonia and Assyria: Volume 1, Abingdon Press, 1915Jump up ^ [1] OIC 16. Tell Asmar, Khafaje and Khorsabad: Second Preliminary Report of the Iraq Expedition, Henri Frankfort, 1933; [2] OIC 17. Iraq Excavations of the Oriental Institute 1932/33: Third Preliminary Report of the Iraq Expedition, Henri Frankfort, 1934; [3] Gordon Loud, Khorsabad, Part 1: Excavations in the Palace and at a City Gate, Oriental Institute Publications 38, University of Chicago Press, 1936; [4] Gordon Loud and Charles B. Altman, Khorsabad, Part 2: The Citadel and the Town, Oriental Institute Publications 40, University of Chicago Press, 1938Jump up ^ F. Safar, "The Temple of Sibitti at Khorsabad", Sumer 13 (1957:219-21).References[edit]A. Fuchs, Die Inschriften Sargons II. aus Khorsabad, Cuvillier, 1994, ISBN 3-930340-42-9A. Caubet, Khorsabad: le palais de Sargon II, roi d'Assyrie: Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le Services culturel les 21 et 22 janvier 1994, La Documentation française, 1996, ISBN 2-11-003416-5Arno Poebel, The Assyrian King-List from Khorsabad, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 247–306, 1942Arno Poebel, The Assyrian King List from Khorsabad (Continued), Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 460–492, 1942Pauline Albenda, The palace of Sargon, King of Assyria: Monumental wall reliefs at Dur-Sharrukin, from original drawings made at the time of their discovery in 1843–1844 by Botta and Flandin, Editions Recherche sur les civilisations, 1986, ISBN 2-86538-152-8External links[edit]Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dur-Sharrukin.Khorsabad Relief Project - Oriental InstituteShelby White - Leon Levy grant to publish 3rd volume of OI excavation reportsNew York Public Library[hide] v t eNineveh plains region in northern IraqMain settlementsAl-Hamdaniya DistrictBakhdida Bartella Karemlesh Bashiqa BahzaniTel Keppe DistrictTel Keppe Alqosh Batnaya Tesqopa Baqofa SharafiyaShekhan DistrictAin Sifni Dashqotan Qasrok Ba'adraNineveh Plains Iraq.svgArchaeological sitesBalawat Shibaniba Nimrud Dur-Sharrukin Tell Arpachiyah Tepe GawraReligious sitesMar Mattai Monastery Rabban Hormizd Monastery Lalish Mar Oraha Monastery Mar Behnam Monastery Naqortaya Monastery Tomb of Prophet Nahum