Nineveh (Nergal Gate)

History: Nineveh (Nergal Gate)

Nineveh, on the east bank of the Tigris opposite the old centre of Mosul, was the capital and largest city of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Around 700 BC King Sennacherib laid out new streets and squares, built a vast palace and ringed the city with walls pierced by fifteen great gates; the Nergal Gate marked here is one of them. For about fifty years Nineveh was the largest city in the world, until a coalition of Babylonians, Medes and Scythians sacked it in 612 BC.

The Bible places Sennacherib at Nineveh after his campaign against Judah (2 Kings 19:36). The Book of Jonah tells of the prophet sent to preach there and of the city's repentance, and the Book of Nahum foretells its fall. One of the two great mounds within the walls, Tell Nebi Yunus, is the site of a shrine to Jonah. By late antiquity Nineveh was the seat of a bishop of the Church of the East. In 2016 Daesh destroyed two other gates of the city, the Adad and Mashki gates, with sections of the walls.

An interesting detail

Reliefs from Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh show his siege of Lachish in 701 BC, an event the Bible also records (2 Kings 18:13–14).