At the beginning of the eighth century B.C. King Sennacherib ruled Assyria. He decided to build a palace at Nineveh. He wanted it to be the biggest and most elaborate of all Assyrian palaces. He called it the ‘Palace Without a Rival’. We know about the building of this palace because Sennacherib left many inscriptions describing the building of the palace in detail.

“At that time Nineveh, the city beloved of the goddess Ishtar, had become too small and badly built. But I Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, decided to carry out work according to th

Sennacherib chose a site for the palace close to the Tebiltu river, but there were already foundations of an older building there which the river had eroded.

Sennacherib wanted his palace to be built on solid ground so he had the course of the river changed.

“I forced people from many countries who did not respect me to make bricks. The old palace I pulled down completely.

The river Tebiltu, which had flowed by the palace and during floods had caused much damage, I changed its course to water farm land instead.”
Sennacherib had a platform built above the river’s flood level. The platform was the base for the palace.

“I made the platform of the old palace larger and higher. To make sure that the platform was not weakened over time or by flooding, I surrounded the foundations with great stones.”

It was time to build the new palace. Mud-brick, stone, and many precious materials such as cedar wood and ivory were used.

“Palaces of gold, silver, bronze, alabaster, ivory, cedar, pine for my royal residence I constructed. Beams of cedar and cypress, whose scent is pleasant and which come from the snow-capped Amanus Mountain, I placed there. Doors of cedar, cypress and pine I covered with silver and copper, and I set them up to frame the doorways. “

The palace was decorated with huge columns of bronze or cedar. The cedar was brought to Assyria from forests on the mountains of Lebanon. Stone reliefs of magical spirits decorated walls in the palace. They protected the king from evil forces. Large stone statues of human-headed winged bulls and lions guarded the doorways. They were there to magically protect the king and his palace. Similar smaller statues also supported columns.

“I Sennacherib, the chief of all princes, who has knowledge of all crafts, made great pillars of bronze and colossal lions, open at the knees, such as no earlier king had made. Colossal bronze bulls covered with gold and colossal alabaster bulls I set up to frame the doorways. “

Huge slabs of alabaster were brought from quarries to line the walls of the palace.

They were put in place and carved with scenes of Sennacherib’s army, foreigners bringing tribute and the palace being built.

“With slabs of alabaster I surrounded the palace walls, I caused them to be a wond

When the palace was finished, Sennacherib surrounded it with a great park. He filled the park with many different types of plants and trees from lands across his empire.

He divided the land into plots which the citizens of Nineveh could use to plant orchards.

“I planted a great park beside the palace, like that of the Amanus Mountain, with all kinds of herbs and fruit trees which came from the mountains and from Babylonia.“ Because there wasn’t enough water, a canal was built from the mountains to the orchards.

“To increase the area for planting, I dug a canal with pickaxes and directed it through high and low ground … using irrigation ditches I led the water among the orchards.”

Finally, Sennacherib invited Ashur and other important Assyrian gods and goddesses to the city of Nineveh. He offered sacrifices to them and held a banquet to celebrate finishing the new palace.

“After I had brought the work on my palace to an end, I gathered into it Ashur, the great lord, and the gods and goddesses who live in Assyria. I offered them sacrifices and gifts.”

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• Isis, Egyptian Goddess of Magic and Giver of Life
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• Zoroastrians and Judaism
• All About Ancient Assyria
• The Sumerians Civilization
• The Life of Cyrus The Great
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Many lands in the west were not part of the Assyrian empire. Paying tribute meant that the Assyrian king would not threaten them with war and destruction. Soon after Sennacherib became king some kings from the west rebelled against him. When Sennacherib learnt that the kings were not paying their usual tribute, he decided to go to war. Sennacherib assembled his army and marched west from the heartland of Assyria.

The Assyrian army marched for many weeks until it reached the shores of ‘The Great Sea’.

At the sight of the huge army many of the kings offered tribute to the Assyrian king. But some of them still refused to pay tribute. One of these kings was Hezekiah, the king of Judah. He had joined the rebellion against Sennacherib. Sennacherib marched to Lachish, an important city in the kingdom of Judah. When the army arrived, they prepared to lay siege to the city.(...)
Read the rest of All About Ancient Assyria (392 words)

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From about 900 B.C. Assyrian kings sent out their armies to conquer new lands. Over 300 years Mesopotamia and lands further to the east and west became part of an Assyrian empire. Conquering foreign cities brought wealth.

Regions which had been conquered by the Assyrian army had to pay tribute to the king every year. If they rebelled against his rule, or refused to give tribute, the king would lead his army against them.

There were few armies who could defeat the Assyrians as they were well trained and they had good weapons.

And Read :

• From Abraham to David – Yahweh
• Zoroastrians and Judaism
• The Sumerians Civilization
• All About Ancient Assyria
• Sumeria, Ancient Sumeria (Sumer), A history of Ancient Sumer Including its Contributions
• Achaemenid Empire (550 BC–330 BC)
• The Life of Cyrus The Great
• Achaemenid Army
• Sumerians Writing and Religion
• The Hurrians – History of Ancient Torkey

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