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Akhenaten › Who Was
Definition and Origins
Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 BCE) was a pharaoh of Egypt of the 18th Dynasty. He is also known as `Akhenaton' or `Ikhnaton' and also `Khuenaten', all of which are translated to mean `successful for' or `of great use to' the god Aten. Akhenaten chose this name for himself after his conversion to the cult of Aten. Prior to this conversion, he was known as Amenhotep IV (or Amenophis IV). He was the son of Amenhotep III (1386-1353 BCE) and his wife Tiye, husband of Queen Nefertiti, and father of both Tutankhamun (by a lesser wife named Lady Kiya) and Tutankhamun's wife Ankhsenamun (by Nefertiti).
His reign as Amenhotep IV lasted five years during which he followed the policies of his father and the religious traditions of Egypt. However, in the fifth year, he underwent a dramatic religious transformation, changed his devotion from the cult of Amun to that of Aten, and, for the next twelve years, became famous (or infamous) as the `heretic king' who abolished the traditional religious rites of Egypt and instituted the first known monotheistic state religion in the world and, according to some, monotheism itself.
His reign is known as The Amarna Period because he moved the capital of Egypt from the traditional site at Thebes to the city he founded, Akhetaten, which came to be known as Amarna (also Tell el-Amarna). The Amarna Period is the most controversial era in Egyptian history and has been studied, debated, and written about more than any other.
AMENHOTEP IV BECOMES AKHENATEN
Amenhotep IV may have been co-regent with his father, Amenhotep III, and it has been noted that the sun-disk known as the `Aten' is displayed on a number of inscriptions from this period of the earlier king's reign. The Aten was not new to the rule of Akhenaten and, prior to his conversion, was simply another cult among the many in ancient Egypt. It should be noted that `cult' did not have the same meaning in this regard as it does in the present day. There was absolutely nothing negative in the designation of a community of worshippers being known as a `cult' in ancient Egypt. It carried the same meaning then as a member of the Christian community today being designated a Baptist, a Lutheran, a Presbyterian, or Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. The gods and practices of the various cults all represented the same end: eternal harmony and balance.
AKHENATEN'S RELIGIOUS REFORMS MAY HAVE BEEN THE FIRST EVER INSTANCE OF MONOTHEISM.
Amenhotep III ruled over a land whose priesthood, centered on the god Amun, had been steadily growing in power for centuries. By the time Amenhotep IV came to power, the priests of Amun were on almost equal standing with the royal house in wealth and influence.
The historian Lewis Spence writes, "With the exception of Ra and Osiris, the worship of Amun was more widespread than that of any other god in the Nile Valley; but the circumstances behind the growth of his cult certainly point to its having been disseminated by political rather than religious propaganda" (137). By the time of Amenhotep IV, the Cult of Amun owned more land than the king. In the 5th year of his reign, Amenhotep IV outlawed the old religion and proclaimed himself the living incarnation of a single all-powerful deity known as Aten and, by the 9th year, he had closed all the temples and suppressed religious practices. The historian Barbara Watterson writes:
By the ninth year of his reign, Akhenaten had proscribed the old gods of Egypt, and ordered their temples to be closed, a very serious matter, for these institutions played an important part in the economic and social life of the country. Religious persecution was new to the Egyptians, who had always worshipped many deities and were ever ready to add new gods to the pantheon. Atenism, however, was a very exclusive religion confined to the royal family, with the king as the only mediator between man and god (111-112).
Amenhotep IV moved his seat of power from the traditional palace at Thebes to one he built at the city he founded, Akhetaten, changed his name to Akhenaten, and continued the religious reforms which resulted in his being despised as `the heretic king' by some later writers while admired as a champion of monotheism by others.
Stela of Akhenaten
AKHENATEN'S MONOTHEISM
Some historians have praised Akhenaten's reforms as the first instance of monotheism and the benefits of monotheistic belief;but these reforms were not at all beneficial to the people of Egypt at the time. The historian Durant, for example, writes that Akhenaten's reforms were "the first out-standing expression of monotheism - seven hundred years before Isaiah [of the Bible ] and an astounding advance upon the old tribal deities" (210). Those `old tribal deities' of Egypt, however, had encouraged peace, harmony, and the development of one of the greatest ancient cultures the world has ever known.
The polytheism of the ancient Egyptians encouraged a world view where peace and balance were emphasized and religious tolerance was not considered an issue; there is not even a word directly corresponding to the concept of `religious tolerance' in the ancient Egyptian texts. A hallmark of any monotheistic belief system, however, is that it encourages the belief that, in order for it to be right, other systems must necessarily be wrong. This insistence on being the sole arbiter of ultimate truth leads to intolerance of other beliefs and their suppression; this is precisely what happened in Egypt. The names of the god Amun and the other gods were chiseled from monuments throughout Egypt, the temples were closed, and the old practices outlawed.The Egyptologist Zahi Hawass writes:
Dating to this point in Akhenaten's reign was a campaign to excise the name of gods other than the Aten, especially Amun, from the monuments of Egypt. This was done with violence: hieroglyphs were brutally hacked from the walls of temples and tombs. This was probably carried out, at least in part, by illiterate iconoclasts, presumably following the orders of their king. [Akhenaten] carried out a religious revolution the like of which had never been seen before in Egypt. His reign represents a significant departure from religious, artistic, and political norms (42-43).
Priests of Amun who had the time and resources hid statuary and texts from the palace guards sent to destroy them and then abandoned their temple complexes. Akhenaten ordained new priests, or simply forced priests of Amun into the service of his new monotheism, and proclaimed himself and his queen gods.
THE PHARAOH AS A SERVANT OF THE GODS, & IDENTIFIED WITH A CERTAIN GOD WAS COMMON PRACTICE BUT NO ONE BEFORE AKHENATEN HAD PROCLAIMED HIMSELF AN ACTUAL GOD,
NEGLECTING EGYPT'S ALLIES
The pharaoh as a servant of the gods, and identified with a certain god (most often Horus ), was common practice in ancient Egypt but no one before Akhenaten had proclaimed himself an actual god incarnate. As a god, he seems to have felt that the affairs of state were beneath him and simply stopped attending to his responsibilities One of the many unfortunate results of Akhenaten's religious reforms was a neglect of foreign policy.
From documents and letters of the time it is known that other nations, formerly allies, wrote numerous times asking Egypt for help in various affairs and that most of these requests were ignored by the deified king. Egypt was a wealthy and prosperous nation at the time and had been steadily growing in power since before the reign of Queen Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BCE).Hatshepsut and her successors, such as Tuthmosis III (1458-1425 BCE), employed a balanced approach of diplomacy and military action in dealing with foreign nations; Akhenaten chose simply to largely ignore what happened beyond the borders of Egypt and, it seems, most things outside of his palace at Akhetaten.
Watterson notes that Ribaddi (Rib-Hadda), king of Byblos, who was one of Egypt's most loyal allies, sent over fifty letters to Akhenaten asking for help in fighting off Abdiashirta (also known as Aziru) of Amor (Amurru) but these all went unanswered and Byblos was lost to Egypt (112). Tushratta, the king of Mitanni, who had also been a close ally of Egypt, complained that Amenhotep III had sent him statues of gold while Akhenaten only sent gold-plated statues.
THE AMARNA LETTERS
The Amarna Letters, (correspondence found in the city of Amarna between the kings of Egypt and those of foreign nations) which provide evidence of Akhenaten's negligence, also show him to have a keen sense of foreign policy when the situation interested him. He strongly rebuked Abdiashirta for his actions against Ribaddi and for his friendship with the Hittites who were then Egypt's enemy. This no doubt had more to do with his desire to keep friendly the buffer states between Egypt and the Land of the Hatti ( Canaan and Syria, for example, which were under Abdiashirta's influence) than any sense of justice for the death of Ribaddi and the taking of Byblos.
There is no doubt that his attention to this problem served the interests of the state but, as other similar issues were ignored, it seems that he only chose those situations which interested him personally. Akhenaten had Abdiashirta brought to Egypt and imprisoned for a year until Hittite advances in the north compelled his release but there seems a marked difference between his letters dealing with this situation and other king's correspondence on similar matters.
Amarna Letter
While there are, then, examples of Akhenaten looking after state affairs, there are more which substantiate the claim of his disregard for anything other than his religious reforms and life in the palace. It should be noted, however, that this is a point hotly debated among scholars in the modern day, as is the whole of the so-called Amarna Period of Akhenaten's rule.Regarding this, Hawass writes, “More has been written on this period in Egyptian history than any other and scholars have been known to come to blows, or at least to major episodes of impoliteness, over their conflicting opinions” (35). The preponderance of the evidence, both from the Amarna letters and from Tutankhamun's later decree, as well as archaeological indications, strongly suggests that Akhenaten was a very poor ruler as far as his subjects and vassal states were concerned and his reign, in the words of Hawass, was “an inward-focused regime that had lost interest in its foreign policy” (45).
Any evidence that Akhenaten involved himself in matters outside of his city at Akhetaten always comes back to self-interest rather than state-interest. Hawass writes:
Akhenaten did not, however, abandon the rest of the country and retire exclusively to Akhetaten. When he laid out his city, he also commanded that a series of boundary stelae be carved in the cliffs surrounding the site.Among other things, these state that if he were to die outside of his home city, his body should be brought back and buried in the tomb that was being prepared for him in the eastern cliffs. There is evidence that, as Amenhotep IV, he carried out building projects in Nubia, and there were temples to the Aten in Memphis and Heliopolis, and possibly elsewhere as well (45).
AKHETATEN & AMARNA ART
Life in his palace at Akhetaten seems to have been his primary concern. The city was built on virgin land in the middle of Egypt facing towards the east and precisely positioned to direct the rays of the morning sun toward temples and doorways. The city was:
Laid out parallel to the river, its boundaries marked by stelae carved into the cliffs ringing the site. The king himself took responsibility for its cosmologically significant master plan. In the center of his city, the king built a formal reception palace where he could meet officials and foreign dignitaries. The palaces in which he and his family lived were to the north and a road led from the royal dwelling to the reception palace. Each day, Akhenaten and Nefertiti processed in their chariots from one end of the city to the other, mirroring the journey of the sun across the sky. In this, as in many other aspects of their lives that have come to us through art and texts, Akhenaten and Nefertiti were seen, or at least saw themselves, as deities in their own right. It was only through them that the Aten could be worshipped: they were both priests and gods (Hawass, 39).
The art Hawass references is another important deviation of the Amarna Period from earlier and later Egyptian eras. Unlike the images from other dynasties of Egyptian history, the art from the Amarna Period depicts the royal family with elongated necks and arms and spindly legs. Scholars have theorized that perhaps the king “suffered from a genetic disorder called Marfan's syndrome” (Hawass, 36) which would account for these depictions of him and his family as so lean and seemingly oddly-proportioned.
A much more likely reason for this style of art, however, is the king's religious beliefs. The Aten was seen as the one true god who presided over all and infused all living things. It was envisioned as a sun disk whose rays ended in hands touching and caressing those on earth. Perhaps, then, the elongation of the figures in these images was meant to show human transformation when touched by the power of the Aten.
The famous Stele of Akhenaten, depicting the royal family, shows the rays of the Aten touching them all and each of them, even Nefertiti, depicted with the same elongation as the king. To consider these images as realistic depictions of the royal family, afflicted with some disorder, seems to be a mistake in that there would be no reason for Nefertiti to share in the king's supposed disorder. The depiction, then, could illustrate Akhenaten and Nefertiti as those who had been transformed to god-like status by their devotion to the Aten to such an extent that their faith is seen even in their children.
Akhenaten
The other aspect of Amarna Period art which differentiates it from earlier and later periods is the intimacy of the images, best exemplified in the Stele of Akhenaten showing the family enjoying each other's company in a private moment. Images of pharaohs before and after this period depict the ruler as a solitary figure engaged in hunting or battle or standing in the company of a god or his queen in dignity and honor. This can also be explained as stemming from Akhenaten's religious beliefs in that the Aten, not the pharaoh, was the most important consideration (as in the Stele of Akhenaten, it is the Aten disk, not the family, which is the center of the composition) and, under the influence of the Aten's love and grace, the pharaoh and his family thrives.
AKHENATEN'S MONOTHEISM & LEGACY
This image of the Aten as an all-powerful, all-loving, deity, supreme creator and sustainer of the universe, is thought to have had a potent influence on the later development of monotheistic religious faith. Whether Akhenaten was motivated by a political agenda to suppress the power of the Cult of Amun or if he experienced a true religious revelation, he was the first on record to envision a single, supreme deity who cared for the individual lives and fates of human beings. Sigmund Freud, in his 1939 CE work Moses and Monotheism, argues that Moses was an Egyptian who had been an adherent of the Cult of Aten and was driven from Egypt following Akhenaten's death and the return to the old religious paradigm. Freud quotes from James Henry Breasted, the noted archaeologist, that:
It is important to notice that his name, Moses, was Egyptian. It is simply the Egyptian word `mose' meaning `child', and is an abridgement of a fuller form of such names as `Amen-mose' meaning `Amon-a-child' or `Ptah-mose' meaning `Ptah-a-child'…and the name Mose, `child', is not uncommon on the Egyptian monuments (5).
Freud recognizes that the Cult of Aten existed long before Akhenaten raised it to prominence but points out that Akhenaten added a component unknown previously in religious belief: “He added the something new that turned into monotheism, the doctrine of a universal god: the quality of exclusiveness” (24). The Greek philosopher Xenophanes (c. 570-c.478 BCE) would later experience a similar vision that the many gods of the Greek city-states were vain imaginings and there was only one true god and, though he shared this vision through his poetry, he never established the belief as a revolutionary new way of understanding oneself and the universe. Whether one regards Akhenaten as a hero or villain in Egypt's history, his elevation of the Aten to supremacy changed not only that nation's history, but the course of world civilization.
To those who came after him in Egypt, however, he was the `heretic king' and `the enemy' whose memory needed to be eradicated. His son, Tutankhamun (c.1336-1327 BCE) was given the name Tutankhaten at birth but changed his name upon ascending the throne to reflect his rejection of Atenism and his return of the country to the ways of Amun and the old gods.Tutankhamun's successors Ay (1327-1323 BCE) and, especially, Horemheb (c. 1320-1292 BCE) tore down the temples and monuments built by Akhenaten to honor his god and had his name, and the names of his immediate successors, stricken from the record.
In fact, Akhenaten was unknown in Egyptian history until the discovery of Amarna in the 19th century CE. Horemheb's inscriptions listed himself as the successor to Amenhoptep III and made no mention of the rulers of the Amarna Period.Akhenaten's tomb was uncovered by the great archaeologist Flinders Petrie in 1907 CE and Tutankhamun's tomb, more famously, by Howard Carter in 1922 CE. Interest in Tutankhamun spread to the family of the `golden king' and so attention was brought to bear again on Akhenaten after almost 4,000 years. His legacy of monotheism, however, if Freud and others are correct, influenced other religious thinkers to emulate his ideal of a one, true god and reject the polytheism which had characterized human religious belief for millenia.
Kalhu › Who Was
Definition and Origins
Kalhu (also known as Caleh, Calah, and Nimrud, in modern-day northern Iraq) was a city in ancient Mesopotamia that became the capital of the Assyrian Empire under Ashurnasirpal II (reigned 884-859 BCE) who moved the central government there from the traditional capital of Ashur. The city existed as an important trade center from at least the 1st millennium BCE. It was located directly on a prosperous route just north of Ashur and south of Nineveh. The city had been built on the location of an earlier business community under the reign of Shalmaneser I (1274-1245 BCE) but had become dilapidated over the centuries. Ashurnasirpal II ordered the debris removed from the crumbling towers and walls and decreed a completely new city should be built, which would include a royal residence greater than that of any previous king. The Assyrian Empire was ruled from Kalhu from 879-706 BCE, when Sargon II (reigned 722-705 BCE) moved the capital to his new city of Dur-Sharrukin.
The great kings of Assyria continued to be buried at Ashur, but their queens were buried at Kalhu. Tombs of the queens of Ashurnasirpal II, Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, and Sargon II, among others, have been uncovered at Kalhu. The city is widely known as Nimrud because that is the name 19th and 20th century CE archaeologists gave to it, believing it was the city of the biblical king Nimrod mentioned in the Book of Genesis. The city is mentioned specifically in Genesis 10: 11-12 as "Calah" and Nimrod is mentioned earlier:
And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city (Genesis 10: 8-12).
Ashur ( Assur ), in the biblical text, would be the son of Nimrod, son of Cush, son of Ham, son of Noah and so Kalhu, if one accepts the biblical narrative, would be one of the first cities built after the Great Flood. Whether it in fact was, and whether there even was a Great Flood, is not as important in this regard as the fact that the narrative refers to Kalhu as “a great city”, which attests to its fame and importance long before Ashurnasirpal II made it the capital of the Assyrian Empire, whether one accepts the date of the Book of Genesis' composition at c. 1400 BCE or even the traditionally assigned date of 1272 BCE.
MANY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND BEST KNOWN ASSYRIAN WORKS OF ART DISPLAYED IN MUSEUMS TODAY COME FROM KALHU, INCLUDING ASHURNASIRPAL II'S RELIEFS, IVORIES, AND THE SO-CALLED NIMRUD LETTERS.
THE NEW CAPITAL
When he ascended to the throne in 884 BCE, Ashurnasirpal II instantly had to attend to revolts that had broken out across the empire. He ruthlessly put down all rebellions, destroyed the rebel cities and, as a warning to others, impaled, burned, and flayed alive any who had opposed him. He then secured his borders and expanded them through campaigns that filled the royal treasury with booty. Having secured his empire, Ashurnasirpal II turned his attention to his capital at Ashur, which he renovated (as he also did with Nineveh and many other cities during his reign). Ashur was among the most prosperous of the Assyrian cities and had been the capital of the Assyrian Empire since the reign of Adad Nirari I (1307-1275 BCE). Once he had added his own adornments and improvements to the great city, Ashurnasirpal II now felt it was time for a change in its status. The residents of Ashur were proud of their city and of their prestige as citizens of the capital. It has been proposed by a number of scholars that Ashurnasirpal II wanted a completely new city, with a new population, that he could call his own in order to elevate his name above his predecessors and rule over a populace devoted to him, rather than to their city. This is only one theory, however, as it is not clear what exactly motivated him to move the capital from Ashur. He chose the ruined city of Kalhu and his inscriptions read:
The former city of Caleh, which Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, a prince who preceded me, had built, that city had fallen into decay and lay in ruins, it was turned into a mound and ruin heap. That city I built anew. I laid out orchards round about it, fruit and wine I offered unto Assur, my lord, I dug down to the water level. I built the wallthereof; from its foundation unto its top I built and completed it.
Head of Ashurnasirpal II
The new city of Kalhu covered 360 hectares (890 acres) with a surrounding wall of 4.6 miles (7.5 kilometers). When it was completed, Ashurnasirpal II re-located an entirely new population (16,000 people) within the city's walls and took up residence in his new palace. According to the historian Karen Radner:
Kalhu's most impressive building at the time of Ashurnasirpal was certainly his new royal palace. At 200 metres long (656 feet) and 130 metres wide (426 feet), it dominated its surroundings and its position on the citadel mound led to its modern name, the Northwest Palace. It was organised around three courtyards, accommodating the state apartments, the administrative wing and the private quarters which also housed the royal women. Here, several underground tombs were uncovered in 1989, including the last resting place of Ashurnasirpal's queen Mullissu-mukannišat-Ninua, the daughter of the king's cupbearer, one of the foremost officials at court. Her rich burial goods give a vivid impression of the luxury in which the king and his entourage lived (1).
Ashurnasirpal II wanted his new city to be the grandest and most luxuriant in the empire. Ashur was long known for its beauty, and the king wanted his city to be even more impressive. He created a zoo (thought to be the first of its kind) and botanical gardens that featured exotic animals, trees, and flowers he had brought back from his military campaigns. In his inscriptions he writes:
I dug a canal from the Upper Zab [River], cut it through a mountain top, and called it Patti-hegalli. I irrigated the lowlands of the Tigris and planted orchards with all kinds of fruit trees in them. I pressed wine and offered first-fruit offerings to Assur, my lord, and to the temples of my land… The canal cascades from above into the gardens. The alleys smell sweet, brooks like the stars of heaven flow in the pleasure garden.
When the city and gardens and palace were completed and fully decorated with the reliefs lining the walls of its corridors, Ashurnasirpal II invited the surrounding population and dignitaries from other lands to celebrate. The festival lasted ten days, and his Banquet Stele records that 69,574 people attended. The menu from this celebration included, but was not limited to, 1,000 oxen, 1,000 domestic cattle and sheep, 14,000 imported and fattened sheep, 1,000 lambs, 500 game birds, 500 gazelles, 10,000 fish, 10,000 eggs, 10,000 loaves of bread, 10,000 measures of beer, and 10,000 containers of wine. When the celebration was done, he sent his guests home “in peace and joy” after allowing the dignitaries to view the reliefs in his new palace. His famous Standard Inscription told again and again of his triumphs in conquest and vividly depicted the horrible fate of those who rose against him. The inscription also let the dignitaries from his own realm, and others, know precisely who they were dealing with. He claimed the titles “great king, king of the world, the valiant hero who goes forth with the help of Ashur; he who has no rival in all four quarters of the world, the exalted shepherd, the powerful torrent that none can withstand, he who has overcome all mankind, whose hand has conquered all lands and taken all the mountain ranges” (Bauer, 337). His empire stretched across the territory, which today would comprise western Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and part of Turkey and, after his party guests were gone, he settled into his new palace to rule.
KALHU AS CAPITAL OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE
Kalhu continued as capital under the Assyrian kings from its inauguration by Ashurnasirpal II in 879 BCE until Sargon II built his new city of Dur-Sharrukin between 717-707 BCE and moved the capital there in 706 BCE. The kings who ruled from Kalhu following Ashurnasirpal include:
- Ashurnasirpal's son, Shalmaneser III (reigned 859-824 BCE) who continued improvements upon the city which included the temple complex and Great Ziggurat of Kalhu.
- Shamshi-Adad V (reigned 824-811 BCE) under whose reign civil war broke out in the empire; Kalhu was successfully defended against the rebel faction.
- The regent Shammuramat (reigned 811-806 BCE). Better known as Queen Semiramis, Shammuramat held the throne for her young son Adad Nirari III who then reigned from 806-782 BCE and built his own palace at Kalhu. At this time, Ashurnasirpal II's palace was transformed into an administrative government building.
- Shalmaneser IV (son of Adad Nirari III, reigned 782-773 BCE) about whom little is known beyond references to his Urartu campaigns.
- Ashur-Dan III (younger son of Adad Nirari III, reigned 772-755 BCE) under whose reign the plague struck Assyria and Kalhu was depopulated.
- Ashur-Nirari V (youngest son of Adad Nirari III, reigned 754-746 BCE) whose reign was marked with unrest and stagnation. The military by this time had become more powerful than the throne and provincial governors were operating with an alarming degree of autonomy. In 746 BCE Ashur Nirari V was assassinated at Kalhu in a coup by a usurper named Pula who then reigned as Tiglath-Pileser III.
- Tiglath-Pileser III (reigned 745-727 BCE) is recognized as one of the greatest kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. From his capital at Kalhu he re-organized and re-vitalized the empire, created the first professional army in the history of the world, and re-structured the government as well as expanding the boundaries of the empire considerably. He added to Kalhu by building the Central Palace and renovating the temple.
- Shalmaneser V (son of Tiglath-Pileser III, reigned 727-722 BCE) who continued his father's policies and under whose reign a number of campaigns were launched but not successfully completed. His reign was ended abruptly in a coup which brought Sargon II to the throne.
- Sargon II (reigned 722-705 BCE) may have been Shalmaneser V's younger brother. He brought the Assyrian Empire to its greatest height as a political and military entity. He also improved upon Kalhu through building projects but had a whole other capital in mind. Shortly after assuming the throne, he decreed a new city should be built as the capital of the empire (perhaps to separate his reign from those of his predecessors). His city, Dur-Sharrukin (“Fortress of Sargon”), was constructed between 717-707 BE and he moved into the palace in 706 BCE. He was killed in battle the following year, and the capital was then moved by his son, Sennacherib, to Nineveh.
IVORY PLAQUE DEPICTING A WINGED SPHINX
DESTRUCTION & DISCOVERY
After the capital was moved from Kalhu, it continued on as a provincial capital but had lost its prestige. The city remained a royal residence for the kings when they visited the region, and archaeological evidence suggests that it continued in this capacity until the fall of the Assyrian Empire. The kings who came after Sargon II all ruled from Nineveh but still valued cities like Kalhu and Ashur. Sennacherib (reigned 705-681 BCE), Esarhaddon (reigned 681-669 BCE), and Ashurbanipal (reigned 668-627 BCE) all seem to have considered Kalhu respectfully. After Ashurbanipal's death in 627 BCE, the empire began breaking apart. Kalhu was burned in 612 BCE, along with Ashur and Nineveh, by the invading coalition of Persians, Medes, and Babylonians. The city was sacked and the ruins were left to sink into the earth.
The city lay buried for 2,000 years until, in 1820 CE, Claudius James Rich of the British East India Company visited the site and wrote a description of it. This description attracted the attention of the archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, who began excavations at Kalhu in 1845 CE. Assisted by Hormuzd Rassam, Layard uncovered the Northwest Palace and a number of temples. Layard was under the impression that he had discovered Nineveh, and so his published account of the excavations, in 1849 CE, was titled Nineveh and its Remains and, owing to Nineveh's fame from the Bible, the book became a best seller.The success of the book sparked further interest in Mesopotamian history as a means of corroborating biblical narratives of the Old Testament, and so further expeditions were sent to the region in search of other cities mentioned in the Bible. It was around this time that archaeologists recognized that the site was not Nineveh and began referring to it as Nimrud.
The archaeologist William K. Loftus took over from Layard and Rassam in 1854-1855 CE, discovering the famous ivories now known as the Loftus Ivories and (also, more accurately, as the Nimrud Ivories) as well as the Treasures of Nimrud, an assortment of gold jewelry and precious gems. Excavations continued, at intervals, up through the 1960's CE, and many of the most important and best known Assyrian works of art displayed in museums today come from Kalhu. Ashurnasirpal II's reliefs in the British Museum line the walls there, as they once did the grand palace, and the ivories are on display in museums from London to Iraq to the United States. Equally important are the so-called Nimrud Letters, which were discovered in the ruins of the palace in 1952 CE. These letters constitute the royal correspondence during the reigns of Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, and Sargon II and were most likely stored in the palace after it became an administrative office. Due to the conflicts in the region in the past decades, no further archaeological work has been done at Kalhu, even though it is suspected that there are more artifacts buried in the sands there.
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