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Updated: June 26, 2025
Paul's steeple," old travellers loved to say marks the place on the east bank of the Tigris, twenty miles south of Nineveh; and, before Calah, Assyria had an earlier capital forty miles still nearer the Babylonian border, at Asshur, now Kalah-Shergat, on the west of the Tigris; and each capital had its palaces and records, and all are now equally buried in clay and utter oblivion.
In the opposite direction at the distance of about twenty miles, is Keremles, an Assyrian ruin, whose name cannot yet be rendered phonetically. West of this site, and about half-way between the ruins of Nineveh and Nimrud or Calah, is Selamiyah, a village of some size, the walls of which are thought to be of Assyrian construction.
"The palace of Assur-nazir-pal, servant of Assur, servant of the god Beltis, the god Ninit, the shining one of Anu and Dagon, servant of the Great Gods, Mighty King, king of hosts, king of the land of Assyria; son of Bin-nirari, a strong warrior, who in the service of Assur his Lord marched vigorously among the princes of the four regions, who had no equal, a mighty leader who had no rival, a king subduing all disobedient to him; who rules multitudes of men; crushing all his foes, even the masses of the rebels.... The city of Calah, which my predecessor, Shalmanezer, King of Assyria had built had fallen into decay: His city I rebuilt; a palace of cedar, box, cypress, for the seat of my royalty, for the fullness of my princedom, to endure for generations, I placed upon it.
Tashmitum. The consort of Nabu was permitted to share the honors in the temple of Nabu at Calah, but beyond this and Ashurbanabal's constant association of Tashmitum with Nabu in the subscript to his tablets, she appears only when the kings of Assyria coming to Babylonia as they were wont to do, in order to perform sacrifices, enumerate the chief gods of the Babylonian pantheon. Ea.
At Calah he began the construction of a building which apparently was intended for a palace, but which contrasts most painfully with the palatial erections of former kings.
Dwelling in the capital Calah, he is 'the strong, the mighty, the supreme one, the perfect hero, who is invincible in battle, the 'destroyer of all opposition, who holds the lock of heaven and earth, who opens the deep; the strong one, endowed with youthful vigor, whose decree is unchangeable, without whom no decision is made in heaven or on earth, whose attack is like a flood, who sweeps away the land of his enemies, and so forth, through a bewildering array of epithets.
Calah was certainly, and Nineveh probably, not yet built; but still the kingdom had obtained a name among the nations; the term Assyria was applied geographically to the whole valley of the middle Tigris; and a prophetic eye could see in the hitherto quiescent power the nation fated to send expeditions into Palestine, and to bear off its inhabitants into captivity.
Ashur gives way under the glorious reign of Ashurnasirbal to Calah, which becomes the capitol in the year 880 B.C.; and Calah, in turn, yields to Nineveh, which becomes, from the time of Tiglathpileser II., in the middle of the eighth century, the center of the great kingdom. Under Ashurbanabal, who rules from 668 to 626 B.C., the climax of Assyrian power is reached.
Her name appears in the inscriptions connected with both places; and she is probably the "Anammelech," whom the Sepharvites honored in conjunction with Adrammelech, the "Fire-King." In later times she had also temples independent of her husband, at Babylon and Borsippa, as well as at Calah Asshur.
The palace of Esar-haddon at Calah was built at the south-western corner of the Nimrud mound, abutting towards the west on the Tigris, and towards the south on the valley formed by the Shor-Derreh torrent. It faced northwards, and was entered on this side from the open space of the platform, through a portal guarded by two winged bulls of the ordinary character.
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