Winged genie from Sargon's palace at Dur Sharrukin. [present day Khorsabad]Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
Posted on 12/15/2024 5:54:06 PM PST by SunkenCiv
One of Sargon II's (r. 721–706 BCE) many acts -- besides conquering Samaria and taking the ten northern tribes of Israel into exile, of course -- was the establishment of a brand-new capital for the Assyrian Empire, Dur-Sharrukin. Before the purpose-built city was completed, however, Sargon fell in battle, and his son, Sennacherib, moved the capital instead to Nineveh, leaving the unfinished Dur-Sharrukin to be buried by history. Now, a joint French-German team is discovering that much more of the city had been completed than previously thought...
Utilizing a high-resolution magnetometer, the team conducted a large-scale survey, scanning 2.79 million square feet of the site over a week. While this is less than ten percent of the ancient city's overall area, the team still made some incredible discoveries, including five previously unknown monumental buildings, as well as the city's water gate and several palace gardens. One of the monumental buildings was an enormous 127-room villa, twice the size of the White House. These discoveries help prove that despite only lasting for around a decade before being abandoned, Dur-Sharrukin was a genuinely lived-in city.
...the surrounding region is still potentially dangerous even with the Islamic State occupation of the area having ended in 2017. During their occupation, Islamic State destroyed parts of the ancient site, and it was later the site of fighting between Islamic State and Kurdish forces. Fortunately, very little of the site has been excavated and thus most of it was protected from threats.
(Excerpt) Read more at biblicalarchaeology.org ...
Winged genie from Sargon's palace at Dur Sharrukin. [present day Khorsabad]Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
BC - NOT BCE
One of *those* topics.
[snip] Under Midas, the son of Gordias, the Phrygian kingdom reached the peak of its power;5 while Midas, even more than his father, was an object of legendary motifs—whatever he touched turned to gold, he had the ears of an ass—he was also a historical person, and is attested in contemporary documents.6 He reigned, according to the chronicle of Hieronymus, preserved by Eusebius, from -742 to -696;7 his prosperity and growing power involved him in international intrigue: he conspired with the rebellious king of Carchemish against Sargon II of Assyria (-722 to -705), and the curbing of Midas was the aim of Sargon’s campaign of the year -715.8 But eastern Anatolia was not yet pacified, and continuing disturbances brought Sargon several more times to the defense of his northeastern frontier; he finally met his death there in battle in -705. [/snip]The Trojans and their Allies
New Light on the Dark Age of Greece | Jan Sammer | varchive.org
Boo hoo.
Winged Genie——
Better than GTA!
These Assyrian genies could make a nice spin for the reboot of the 1960s TV show.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057897/ (1964)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058815/ (1965)
BTTT
This is like Amarna, a totally artificial city. How it is laid out will tell us a great deal about how the leaders thought about things. Which is always interesting.
Good analogy, this could have been rooted in Sargon II’s chosen favorite deity, as Ahketaten was.
OTOH, I wonder if it was partly about the general random growth of old capitals making it desirable to start again from scratch.
Walt Disney bought a big chunk of property when he started Disneyworld because the Anaheim original was so hemmed in.
The Akkadian era Assyrians had at least two capitals one of which was started from scratch (The Curse of Agade is an old poem about the last one). The more ancient kdm of Elam had Anshan, but at least one later capital. Persia had at least two.
Y’know, maybe the US needs a new one...
Simians are much less destructive than Musloids.
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