The World's Most Ancient Cities—Mosul and Nineveh

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 52, 1 March 1919, Page 17

The World's Most Ancient Cities —Mosul and Nineveh

The most important feature about Mostd, which will soon show the beneficial effects of British control, is its geographical situaton. Mosul is the meeting point of roads and caravan routes from everywhere. They wind xn through the mountain passes and over the rocky highland from Diarbekr and Bitlis, across the great desert from Aleppo and over the sands from Persia and Bagdad. Its very name, indeed, from the Arabic Al-Mousil, "tne place oi connection,*' tells its story. And as with roads and caravan routes, so it will be, _ome time again, in the future, m the matter of railways, when the famous Bagdad line is completed. At present Germany's great effort fails short of Mosul by many miles in the west and in the south, and. the "ramshackle city," as it ha» been irreverently called, still depends for its communications on the road and the cara van route as it has done through the ages. Of all the cities in the Turkish Em pire, as one writer has well said of it. perhaps Mosul is the one that ha_ beer least touched by western civilisation Built on ground that once wa. a suburb of Nineveh, it stands on the western bank of the Tigris, looking across at the moun.is which are all that remains ol the glories of the capital of ancient Assyria. Nineveh has a history that stretches throughout a period nearly _000 years long, ending with the fall ol the empire of Sennacherib about the year 600 B.C. From that time until Layard unveiled the palaces of banrpal and Sennacherib, and unearthed the literary chamber containing the famous deluge tablet, the ruins of Nineveh for 2500 long yehrs have slept undisturbed. As for Mosul it-self, it xc particularly mentioned in aU history since the Arab conquest, and it ia a chequered history indeed, for it suffered piila_e at the hands of Tamerlane, was besieged by Nadir Shah, and endured a host of other vicissitudes. The town reached its .greatest prosperity toward the beginning of the decline" of the Caliphate, when it was for a time an independent capital. In the Eleventh Century it belouzed to the Seljuks. and in the Twelfth, under the sway of the famous Ata-begs, particularly of Zenki, it had a short period ot splendour. <>ne of its curious distinctions in history is the fact that the governorship of the town, as of the pa. halik. was long hereditary in the originally Christian family of Abd-al-

11 jalil, and it was only during the NineCentury that the Porte succeeded. after a long and severe contest, I in establishing a more centralised syse jtem of government. n | The old town with its strangely nara| row streets, even for the East, is surrl rounded by a half-ruined wall, built in _'. modern times as a protection against I the Shammar Arabs. Everyone remarks I on the narrow street, of _to.«ul, on its I white, crumbling houses, on the gypsum II dust which fails constantly from the t\ walls over everything, and upon the a | stork;s. Indeed the storks of Mosul are 1 apparently its most remarkable feature, a; I>i___sing the matter, one authority c tells how. in the cool of the evening, the -j citizens of Mosul Rhare their housetops s! with innumerable storks, who buil<l c their ragged _est«s on the highest places i-l "in utter disregard of the laws ot '- gravity." '■" | The _az_ars of Mosul are not the "■"attractive places they might be expected c to be in a city of so much traffic. As j William Warfield says in his book. "The '* i Gate of Asia." they are rarely roofed. *. I and are furnished only with the comn ]monest wares. The shopkeepers are ""-1 generally Christians, but there are many b j Arabs. Garden produce is often sold in n [ the squares in open markets, and at c ! any time vendor? may be seen talking >r : in the streets, with eggs or cucumbers in lt |a basket; while the mosque courtyards •t are favoured places for sweetmeat _ ; sell*!., who display "Turkish Delight*' on >t\ scalloped copper trays. The bazaars c 5 radiate from a picturesque square quite iljnear the bridge, which is tbe centre of '• I the town. To the south and southwest •lrare the drapers, shoemaker, and harness e-makers; to the north-west, the green-s-1 grocers; while the potters and dealers i-!in hardware are to be found in narrow s store, opening on a street that runs to v j the north. a j As to the square itself, it is. of course. *. one of the famous meeting pla-ces of the s ! Mosiri. Here the caravans are gathered altogether, and their owners sit on the famous second-storey gallery of a coffee- ;- shop, while the muleteers stroll about i-' tbe crowded place, or lounge among r : baies covered wi-,.h brown and white c striped sackcloth. These men are almost c always Kurds; those from the southern c and eastern tribes dressed in tunins. ;• zouave jack .3 and turbans- They wear t baggy trousers reaching to their feet. .. which are covered with brogues of heavy c hemp or rawhide. c Then near the square is the auction c market, and here there are alway. - crowds of the true eastern type, and

bargains—the concern of everybody—are , being struck at every turn. From the bazaars a gate, surmounted by a massive i square, leads down to tbe waterside, and | beyond it is the city lumber yard. This is perhaps one of the most interesting features about Mosul. "Situated in the midst of a treeless region," to quote William Warfield'a bo_c, "with no source of supply or means of transportation save the Tigris, the city depends almost ' entirely on the wood used for the | frames of the keleks, the skin Tafts on ; which merchandise and passengera are : floated down from Diarbekr- These frames are made of light poles, rarely' more than three inches in diameter, almost invariably of poplar. They are weathered black as pitch from having been water-logged and then exposed to tbe dry air, and piled on end in this lumber yard by the Tigris. They are used for roofing and flooring, but practically nothing else. The wood for doors

, and window frames comes from the broad floor's built on the rafts that carry i passengers-" ! For many people, however, the great attraction of a visit to Mosul, the most inaccessible place in the Sult_n's dominion, lies across the famous "Bridge of Boats" at the other side of the Tigris, where the huge formless mounds, rising up out. of the sand, mark the sit. of the ancient city of Nineveh. Any attempt Ito tell the story of Nineveh would in- ; volve a Journey back to the very begat. ' ning of things. Later Assyrian writers declare with confidence that its story 1 ran -back as a matter of course to the "creation of the world," but, as a matter of fact, the firvt firm ground in th. midst of tradition i 3 reached about the year 2200 B.C. That wonderfully vivia period in Nineveh's history, with which the world, especially recently, has become familiar, lies between the ninth and the sixth centuries B.C.

In this period the reign of Sennaeh-. crib is, of course, by far the most important. At the commencement of his reign, Sennacherib found Nineveh a poor place. The ancient and renowned temple, an armoury, or storehouse, were the chief buildings. Two platforms along the Tigris front had served as foundations of the palaces hitherto built, but the platforms nad been wrecked and the palaces were in decay. "Sennacherib." one account runs, "restored and enlarged the northern platform, now covered by the Auyunjik mound, and built his palace on the south-western portion ot it. Then, on the adjoining platform to the south, the King erected an arsenal for military supplies- He brought water to the city by 18 canals from the hills and distributed it round the moat and into store tanks or pond 3 within the city rteelf. Tie laid out a. fine park for pleasure, and built up a magnificent triumphal way 662 cubits broad, and issued an edict that no householder encroach upon the street." Then he made it his court of residence, and after his destruction of Babylon, and the influx of the enormous booty brought back from his conquests, Nineveh must •have been the most magnificent and the wealthiest city of the East.

Nineveh, however, depended entirely for its greatness and power upon the conquering spirit, of its rulers and the military glory and power of its armies. And, when these were ultimately defeated, the city fell never to rise again, and its very site was quickly forgotten among the nations. "When, two hundred years later," says one writer, "Xenophon and his 10.000 Greeks fought their way through the wilderness and mountains to the Black Sea, they passed the rums of Nineveh without even mentioning her name. But a vague local tradition, always an important factor in the East, continued to linger around the desolate region between Mosul and the mouth ot the Upper _ah, where the final drama I had been enacted." Thus, in the twelfth century, one Benjamin of Tudela, a learned Spanish Jew. who traversed these districts, has no difficulty in identifying Nineveh. Speaking of Mosul, he says: "This city, situated on the Tigris, is connected with ancient Nineveh by a i-ridge- It is true, Nineveh lies now in utter ruins, but numerous villages and I small towns occupy its former space."

It is mentioned again by Leonhart Racwolff, who spent ceveral days in Mosul at the beginning of 1575. From time to time other wanderers visited the banks of the Tigris and kept the tradition alive by tales of their travels and of

the curious ruins of the great city. Perhape the most interesting of these is the account given by the English traveller, John Cartwrigbt, who visited Nineveh at the beginning of the seventeenth century. "We set forward toward Mosul," he writes, "a very antient towne in this country, . . . and so pitched on the bankes of the rivir Tigis. Here in these plaines of Assiria on the bankes of the Tigris, and in the region of Eden, was Ninevie built by Ninrrod, but finished b7 Ninus. It is agreed by all prophane writers, and confirmed by the Scriptures that this citty exceeded all other citties in circut, and answerable magnificence. For it seems by the ruinous foundation (which I thoroughly viewed) that it was built with four sides, but not equall or square; for tbe two longer sides had. each of them (as we gesse) an hundreth and fifty furlongs, the two shorter aides, ninety furlongs, which amounteth to jfonre hundred and eighty furlongs ot ground, which makes three score miles, accounting eight furlongs to an Italian mile. The walls whereof were an hundredth foote upright, and had such a breadth, as three Shariots might passe on tbe rampire in front; these walls were garnished with a thousand and five hundredth towers, which gave exceeding beauty to the rest, and a strength no less I admirable for the nature of those times."

I The old tradition which placed the I ruins of Nineveh opposite Mosul was I vindicated anew 150 years later by the Danish scholar Carsten Niebuhr, who visited the. place in 1766. His account is brief, but it contains all the elements of a correct description. The great rediscoverer of Nineveh was, of course, Sir Henry Layard, who, in the. early '40. of last century, having secured the patronage of Stratford Canning, British Ambassador at Constantinople, himself an enthusiastic archaeologist, journeyed to 'Mosul and commenced work of excavation on the mounds of Nineveh in real I earnest. The story of the wonderful series of discoveries which followed has I been told vividly in his book "Nineveh and its Remains," published in 1843. I This work created a great sensation, and the following year Layard set out East once again. This time as the agent of the British Museum, with a grant of £3000 to carry still further his great at Mosul. For more than a year his labours went on 6teadily. The paljaees of Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal at Kuynjik were partly uncovered, as well as those of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon at Nebi-Yunus, and in 1853 Layard published an account of his second series of excavations in his book "Nineveh and Babylon."