NINEVEH nĭn’ ə və (נִֽינְוֵ֛ה, LXX Νινευή, G3778; men of Nineveh, Ninevites; Νινενιται, Matt 12:41; Luke 11:30-32). Capital city of ancient Assyria.

1. Location. The ruins of Nineveh lie c. one half m. E of the Tigris River and are now incorporated within the suburbs of modern Mosul, Iraq. The ruins are dominated by two citadel mounds, the larger to the NW, Quyunjiq (“many sheep”), divided from the southwestern, Nebi Yunus (“the prophet Jonah”) by the Khosr River.

2. Name. The Heb. ninewēh is a faithful transliteration of the Assyrian ninua, a name of the goddess Ishtar written ideographically with the cuneiform sign of a fish within an enclosure. This is not connected with the Heb. nūn, “fish,” but may well have been originally a Hurrian word. The Gr. Ninos is named by assimilation to the name of the hero.

3. History. Archeology shows that the site was occupied from prehistoric times (c. 4,500 b.c.) and through the Hassuna-Samarra-Halaf-N. ’Ubaid cultures. Genesis 10:11 describes its foundation as a great northern city by Nimrod or Ashur under Babylonian influence.

In early Akkad. times the city flourished and was known to Sargon, his sons Manishtusu (c. 2300 b.c.) who restored the temple of Ishtar (Inanna) there, and Naram-Sin. Gudea of Lagash campaigned in the area during the following cent. It appears to have been in constant occupation as a cult and trading center for an independent Assyrian king, Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1800 b.c.). He again restored Ishtar’s temple (Emashmash) as did Hammurabi of Babylon. Statues from this temple were sent by the Mitanni king who then dominated Nineveh to the Egyp. pharaoh. Under strong Middle Assyrian kings, Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I, the city was much enlarged and refortified. It thereafter became, with Ashur and Calah, one of the main centers of royal administration. Thus Tiglath-pileser I (c. 1114-1076), Ashurnasirpal II (883-859) and Sargon II (722-705) built their palaces there. The tribute from their wars including that taken from Menahem in 744 b.c. (2 Kings 15:20) and Samaria in 722 b.c. (Isa 8:4) was brought there in victory processions.

Sennacherib (705-681), to offset the rival capital of Dūr-Sharrukĩn (Khorsabad) built by his father Sargon II, set about the establishment of Nineveh on a grand scale. Outside his immense new palace with its 9880 sq. ft. of sculptured walls depicting his victories, including the siege of Lachish and exaction of tribute from Judah, he rebuilt the city walls. To introduce new water supplies he cut channels for thirty m. from the Gomel River at Bavian, built an aqueduct at Jerwan and a dam at Ajeila to control the flooding of the Khosr River. The city wall had fifteen main gates (five of which have been excavated), each guarded by stone bull colossi. Both within and without the crenellated walls Sennacherib laid out parks, a botanical garden and a zoo. To this city Sennacherib brought the tribute he had exacted from Hezekiah of Judah (2 Kings 18:15) as recorded also in his prism inscr. found here in 1830 (see Sennacherib). Here also he returned after that Palestinian campaign of 701 b.c. In 681 he was assassinated in the temple of Nisroch (Ninurta?) which must have been located within the walls. His younger son and successor, Esar-haddon, recaptured Nineveh from rebels in 680 and built himself a palace there, though he spent much time in his other residence at Calah. His twin son Ashurbanipal (669-c. 627 b.c.) returned to live mainly at Nineveh where he had spent his school days as crown prince. With the declining years of the aged king and the sagging economy under his sons Ashur-etil-ilāni and Sin-shar-ishkun, Assyria’s vassals rose in revolt. Judah took the first steps toward regaining her independence while the Medes, aided by the Babylonians sacked Ashur and Calah in 614 b.c. Two years later, joined by the Ummanmanda (Scyths?) a combined force besieged Nineveh for three months (?) and, according to the Babylonian Chronicle, breached the city defenses at a time of unu sually high flooding of the Tigris and Khosr (Nah 2:6-8) and sacked the city as predicted by the prophets Nahum and Zephaniah. Sin-shar-ishkun (Sardanapalus) perished in his burning palace, though Ashur-uballit and his court managed to escape to Harran where they held out until 609 b.c. Nineveh was left in ruins (Nah 2:10, 13), grazed by sheep (Zeph 2:13-15), unrecognized by Xenophon and his retreating Greeks as they passed in 401 b.c.

At the time of its greatest prosperity, as well described by Jonah, Nineveh itself was enveloped by a circuit wall c. seven and three quarter m. in extent. This “great city” had an area sufficient to house a population of 120,000 (Jonah 1:2; 3:2). Evidence for this comes from the more southerly capital of Calah (Nimrud) where 69,754 persons lived in a city half the size of Nineveh. It is probable that the whole district administered by Nineveh at this time encompassed a very wide area including the Sinjar-Calah-Dūr-Sharrukīn. Thus a “three day’s journey” would be needed to traverse it and a “day’s journey” to reach the city center from the outlying suburbs (Jonah 3:4). In Heb. unlike Akkad. the writing does not distinguish between the metropolis itself ([al] Ninua) and the general region (ninua [ki]). As yet there is no contemporary evidence for Jonah or for the repentance by the people of Nineveh (Jonah 3:4, 5) commended by Jesus Christ (Matt 12:41; Luke 11:30).

4. Excavations. Early explorers, attracted by the association of the mosque of Nebi Yunus reported the “city of Jonah” and the local traditions, but it was not until John Cartwright (17th cent.) that Nineveh was commonly identified with it. When C. J. Rich published his plans of the ruins in 1820 interest quickened and thus encouraged the Frenchman V. E. Botta who made the first, but abortive, soundings. He abandoned the site, thinking that the more northerly and distinctive ruins of Khorsabad covered the Biblical Nineveh. A. H. Layard and H. Rassam (1845-1854) thereupon stepped in. The immediate discovery of bas-reliefs and cuneiform inscrs. and their publication roused much interest in England, and the British Museum assumed control of their work. George Smith was sent to follow up their lead (1872-1876) but his main aim was to uncover further inscrs. relating to the Babylonian account of the Flood. In this he was successful. Further work was undertaken spasmodically by E. A. W. Budge (1882-1891) and L. W. King (1903-1905). Both found texts to supplement those found earlier in the palace of Ashurbanipal and the temple of Nabu (the god of writing and science) and then being currently published by the British Museum. In 1927 R. Campbell Thompson resumed work, this time systematically clearing the temple of Ishtar and the palace of Ashurnasirpal II on Quyunjiq. The opportunity was taken by M. E. L. Mallowan in 1931, 1932 to make a sounding down to virgin soil and thus gain the first stratification of the prehistoric occupation levels. Since 1966 the Department of Antiquities in Iraq has reopened the Palace of Sennacherib and made additional clearing of that area and of the Nergal and Shamash gates. Road-widening work by Nebi Yunus uncovered Egyp. statues brought back by Ashurbanipal from his capture of Memphis and two campaigns in Egypt.

5. The royal library. During the excavations already described more than 16,000 clay tablets or fragments, representing an estimated 10,000 texts, were recovered from Quyunjiq (hence their designation as the [Q]ouyunjiq collection). They originally had been collected by Sargon and his successors but primarily were the work of Ashurbanipal, who boasts that he was one of the few literate monarchs in antiquity. The majority of texts were originals collected in Babylonia or copied in Nineveh by skilled scribes. They cover many genres of lit., among which are the well-known epics of Creation and of the Flood (Gilgamesh) and VSS which include both episodes (Atrahasis). Legends, rituals, religious lit. of all kinds including hymns, prayers, and lists of gods and temples, letters, historical texts of many kinds as well as lexicographical and bilingual documents which have proved of great use in furthering the understanding both of Akkad. and Sumer. Sufficient copies of some texts are now available to enable a detailed comparison to be made with scribal practices throughout the Near E.

Bibliography A. H. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains (1849); Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853); G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries (1875); R. C. Thompson and R. W. Hutchinson, A Century of Exploration at Nineveh (1929); R. C. Thompson, “The Buildings on Quyunjiq, the larger mound of Nineveh,” Iraq, I (1934), 95-104; R. C. Thompson and R. W. Hutchinson, “The site of the palace of Ashurnasirpal at Nineveh,” Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 18 (1931), 79; “The British Museum Excavations on the Temple of Ishtar at Nineveh,” Liverpool Annals A. A. 19 (1932), 55-116; R. C. Thompson and M. E. L. Mallowan, The British Museum Excavations at Nineveh (1931, 1932); Liverpool Annals A. A. 20 (1933), 71-120; A. Parrot, Nineveh and the Old Testament (1955).