Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 19, 2025
Asshur-izir-pal had undoubtedly some constructions of former monarchs to copy from, both in his palatial and in his sacred edifices; the old palaces and temples at Kileh-Sherghat must have had a certain grandeur; and in his architecture this monarch may have merely amplified and improved upon the models left him by his predecessors; but his ornamentation, so far as appears, was his own.
There is reason to think that the subjection of Assyria continued to the very end of the dynasty, and that this region, whose capital was at Kileh-Sherghat, was administered by viceroys deriving their authority from Chaldaean monarchs.
In front of the temple, but not exactly opposite its centre, may be seen the prophylaea, consisting of a squared doorway placed under a battlemented wall, between two towers also battlemented. It is curious that the paths do not lead to the propylaea, but seen to curve round the hill. Remains of ziggurats similar to this have been discovered at Khorsabad, at Nimrud, and at Kileh-Sherghat.
The true heart of Assyria was the country close along the Tigris, from lat. 35° to 36° 30'. Within these limits were the four great cities, marked by the mounds at Khorsabad, Mosul, Nimrud, and Kileh-Sherghat, besides a multitude of places of inferior consequence.
Bavian, Khorsabad, Shereef-Khan, Neb-bi-Yunus, Koyunjik, and Nimrud, which have furnished by far the most valuable and interesting of the Assyrian monuments, all lie east of the Tigris; while on the west two places only have yielded relics worthy to be compared with these, Arban and Kileh-Sherghat.
This city has been supposed to represent the Biblical Resen; but the description of that place as lying "between Nineveh and Calah" seems to render the identification worse than uncertain. The ruins at Kileh-Sherghat are the last of any extent towards the south, possessing a decidedly Assyrian character.
We observe that her capital is still fixed at Kileh-Sherghat, where a new series of kings, bearing names which, for the most part, resemble those of the earlier period, are found employing themselves in the repair and enlargement of public buildings, in connection with which they obtain honorable mention in an inscription of a later monarch.
The mounds of Kileh-Sherghat have yielded bricks in abundance, but not a single fragment of a sculptured slab.
The mounds of Kileh-Sherghat have yielded no bas-reliefs, nor do they show any traces of buildings on the scale of those which, at Nimrud, Koyunjik, and Khorsabad, provoke the admiration of the traveller. The longest of the halls, which faced towards the north, and was the first room entered by one who approached from the town, was in length 154 and in breadth 33 feet.
Besides Asshur, which is fixed to the ruins at Kileh-Sherghat, we can only locate with certainty some half-dozen places.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking