Khinnis is an

Assyrian Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...

archaeological site, also known as Bavian, its neighbouring village) in

Duhok Governorate ar, محافظة دهوك , image_skyline = Collage_of_Dohuk_Governorate.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_seal = ...

in the

Kurdistan Region Kurdistan Region ( ku, هەرێمی کوردستان, translit=Herêmî Kurdistan; ar, إقليم كردستان), abbr. KRI, is an autonomous region in Iraq comprising the four Kurdish-majority governorates of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

. It is notable for its rock reliefs, built by king

Sennacherib Sennacherib ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: or , meaning " Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Sargon II in 705BC to his own death in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynas ...

around 690 BC. During the reign of Sennacherib (705–681 BC), Khinnis was built in order to "celebrate the construction of a complex system of canals whose aim was to supply the capital of the empire, Nineveh, and its hinterland with water", according to the

World Monuments Fund World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and trainin ...

. The reliefs face the River Gomel Su, and an inscription records the construction of a hydraulic system built by Sennacherib. The construction of the monument therefore had a propagandistic purpose for the Assyrian king.

Austin Henry Layard Sir Austen Henry Layard (; 5 March 18175 July 1894) was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in It ...

was the first Western scholar to describe the site in 1853. Layard stated that Khinnis had been discovered by Simon Rouet, the French consul in Mosul. The rock reliefs and tombs at Khinnis are noted by the Duhok Governorate's website to be "the finest ancient rock carvings in the Badinan Region". According to Langendorfer (2012), the site's Great Relief is "the largest single Assyrian sculpture in existence, which depicts a pair of gods attended by the duplicated figure of the Assyrian king". Langendorfer notes that in the site's inscriptions, "Sennacherib emphasizes his ingenious technical ability to manipulate water for the benefit of the Assyrian state, either through the creative irrigation of the Assyrian heartland and the new capital, or the destructive flooding and leveling of Babylon". The Directorate of Antiquities of Dohuk is in charge of the site, and the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project of the

University of Udine The University of Udine (Italian ''Università degli Studi di Udine'') is a university in the city of Udine, Italy. It was founded in 1978 as part of the reconstruction plan of Friuli after the earthquake in 1976. Its aim was to provide the Friul ...

has been recording the rock reliefs with a laser scanner.

References

Archaeological sites in Iraq Dohuk Governorate {{NEast-archaeology-stub