Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/470

 456 NIMWEGEN NINEVEH NIMWEGEN. See NIMEGTJEX. NINEVEH (Gr. NZvof ; Lat. Ninu$ ; Assyrian Ninua), an ancient city of Asia, the capital of the Assyrian empire, situated on the E. bank of the Tigris, opposite the present city of Mo- sul, and about 220 m. N. N. W. of Bagdad. The name appears to be formed from that of an Assyrian deity, Nin, occurring in the names of several Assyrian kings, as in Ninus, the mythical founder of the city. According to Schrader, it signified "abode," correspond- ing to the Hebrew naveh. In the Assyrian in- scriptions Nineveh is also supposed to be called the " city of Bel." It is often mentioned in the historical and prophetical books of the Bible ; the prophet Jonah warned it to re- pent; and its overthrow is the principal theme Plan of the Site of Nineveh. of the prophecies of Nahum. It is mentioned by Herodotus, Ctesias, Strabo, and Diodorus, among classical writers; but its overthrow and ruin was so complete, that Xenophon, though in 401 B. C. he led the 10,000 Greeks over the ground on which it had stood, does not even mention its name; and though 70 years later Alexander fought the great battle of Arbela in the vicinity, none of his histo- rians allude to the ruins of the city. Huge mounds, apparently of mere earth and rubbish, covered its site, the most important of which are known as the mounds of Nimrud, of Ko- yunjik, of Selamiyeh, of Nebi Yunus or the prophet Jonah (so called from the current be- lief among the people that the sepulchre of the prophet is on its summit, a tradition which probably originated in the former existence on the spot of a Christian church dedicated to Jonah), of Keremlis, about 15 m. N. E. of Nim- rud, and of Khorsabad, 12 m. N. E. of Mosul. The first accurate description and plan of these ruins was given by Claudius James Rich, who was for several years the English East India company's political agent at Bagdad. In 1820 he made a survey, which was published after his death. From the neighboring inhabitants he learned that not long before his visit sculp- tured figures of men and animals had been dug out of one of the mounds, and had been de- stroyed as idols. He collected a few specimens of pottery and brick inscribed with cuneiform or arrow-headed characters. In 1843 M. Paul Emile Botta, French consul at Mosul, after hav- ing examined the mound of Koyunjik without making discoveries of much importance, turned his attention to the mound of Khorsabad, where he soon laid bare the ruins of a mag- nificent palace which had evidently been de- stroyed by fire. He found among the remains a series of apartments panelled with slabs of coarse gray alabaster, on which were sculp- tured in bass relief figures of men and animals, with inscriptions in the cuneiform character. In November, 1845, Austen Henry Layard, an English traveller, began excavations at Nim- rud, which were continued till April, 1847, with great success. He discovered immense quan- tities of sculptures, inscriptions, pottery, and antiquities of all sorts, by means of which more light has been thrown on the history and civil- ization of the Assyrians than by all the ac- counts transmitted to us by the writers of an- tiquity. Excavations with like results were also made in the mounds of Koyunjik and Nebi Yunus. In the latter part of 1849, under the direction and at the expense of the trustees of the British museum, Mr. Layard resumed his ex- plorations, and continued them for about a year. Before these explorations the ruins which occupied the presumed site of Nineveh seemed to consist of mere shapeless heaps or mounds of earth and rubbish, with little sign of arti- ficial construction except occasional traces of a rude wall of sun-dried bricks. Some of the mounds were so large as to seem natural hills, and some had been chosen as sites for villages, or for small mud forts for defence against marauding Bedouins and Kurds. They are spread over a considerable space, and com- prise various separate arid distinct groups of ruins, four of which certainly are the remains of fortified enclosures, defended by walls and ditches, towers and ramparts. The ruins op- posite Mosul consist of an enclosure formed by a continuous line of mounds, marking the remains of a wall the western face of which is interrupted by the two great mounds of Koyunjik and Nebi Yunus. Eastward is a par- allel line of ramparts and moats. The whole enclosure is a quadrangle, the northern side of which is 7,000 ft. long; the western 13,600 ft., forming the chord to the arc of the river, which anciently flowed parallel and close to the wall ; the eastern, which is somewhat curved outward, 15,900 ft.; the southern 3,000 ft.; the entire circumference thus being be- tween 7 and 8 m. The general height of this