Nineveh
Nineveh ( ; , ''URUNI.NU.A, Ninua''; , ''Nīnəwē''; , ''Nīnawā''; , ''Nīnwē''), was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul (itself built out of the Assyrian town of Mepsila) in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River and was the capital and largest city of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, as well as the largest city in the world for several decades. Today, it is a common name for the half of Mosul that lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and the country's Nineveh Governorate takes its name from it. It was the largest city in the world for approximately fifty years until the year 612 BC when, after a bitter period of civil war in Assyria, it was sacked by a coalition of its former subject peoples including the Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians. The city was never again a political or administrative centre, but by Late Antiquity it was the seat of an Assyrian Christian bishop of the Assyrian Ch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neo-Assyrian Empire
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, North Africa and East Mediterranean throughout much of the 9th to 7th centuries BC, becoming the List of largest empires, largest empire in history up to that point. Because of its geopolitical dominance and ideology based in world domination, the Neo-Assyrian Empire has been described as the first world empire in history. It influenced other empires of the ancient world culturally, administratively, and militarily, including the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Neo-Babylonians, the Achaemenid dynasty, Achaemenids, and the Seleucid Empire, Seleucids. At its height, the empire was the strongest military power in the world and ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt, as well as parts of Anatolia, Arabian Peninsula, Arabia and modern-day Ir ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mosul
Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ancient Old Assyrian Empire, Assyrian city of Nineveh—once the List of largest cities throughout history, largest city in the world—on its east side. Due to its strategic and central location, the city has traditionally served as one of the hubs of international commerce and travel in the region. It is considered as one of the historically and culturally significant cities of the Arab world. The North Mesopotamian dialect of Arabic commonly known as North Mesopotamian Arabic, ''Moslawi'' is named after Mosul, and is widely spoken in the region. Together, with the Nineveh Plains, Mosul is a historical center of the Assyrian people, Assyrians. The surrounding region is ethnically and religiously diverse; a large majority of the city is A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jonah
Jonah the son of Amittai or Jonas ( , ) is a Jewish prophet from Gath-hepher in the Northern Kingdom of Israel around the 8th century BCE according to the Hebrew Bible. He is the central figure of the Book of Jonah, one of the minor prophets, which details his reluctance in delivering the judgment of God to the city of Nineveh (near present-day Mosul) in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After he is swallowed by a large sea creature () and then released, he returns to the divine mission. In Judaism, the story of Jonah represents the teaching of repentance in Judaism, the ability to repent to God for forgiveness. In the New Testament of Christianity, Jesus calls himself "greater than Jonah" and promises the Pharisees "the sign of Jonah" when referring to his resurrection. Early Christian interpreters viewed Jonah as a ''type'' of Jesus. Jonah in Islam is regarded as a prophet and the narrative of Jonah appears in a surah of the Quran named after him, Yūnus. Many modern Bibl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Nineveh (612 BC)
The Battle of Nineveh, also called the fall of Nineveh is conventionally dated between 613 and 611 BC, with 612 BC being the most supported date. After Assyrian defeat at the battle of Assur, an allied army which combined the forces of Medes and the Babylonians besieged Nineveh and sacked 750 hectares of what was, at that time, one of the greatest cities in the world. The fall of Nineveh led to the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire as the dominant state in the Ancient Near East over the following three years. Archeological records show that the capital of the once mighty Assyrian Empire was extensively de-urbanized and depopulated in the decades and centuries following the battle. A garbled account of the fall of the city later led to the story of the legendary king Sardanapalus. Babylon became the imperial center of Mesopotamia for the first time in over a thousand years, leading to the Neo-Babylonian Empire, claiming imperial continuity as a new dynasty. Background The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Assyrian People
Assyrians (, ) are an ethnic group Indigenous peoples, indigenous to Mesopotamia, a geographical region in West Asia. Modern Assyrians Assyrian continuity, share descent directly from the ancient Assyrians, one of the key civilizations of Mesopotamia. While they are distinct from other Mesopotamian groups, such as the Babylonians, they share in the broader cultural heritage of the Mesopotamian region. Modern Assyrians may culturally self-identify as Terms for Syriac Christians#Syriac identity, Syriacs, Chaldean Catholics, Chaldeans, or Terms for Syriac Christians#Aramean identity, Arameans for religious, geographic, and tribal identification. Assyrians speak various dialects of Neo-Aramaic, specifically those known as Suret and Turoyo, which are among the oldest continuously spoken and written languages in the world. Aramaic was the lingua franca of West Asia for centuries and was the language spoken by historical Jesus, Jesus. It has influenced other languages such as Hebrew an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nineveh Governorate
Nineveh Governorate (; , ) is a governorate in northern Iraq. It has an area of and an estimated population of 2,453,000 people as of 2003. Its largest city and provincial capital is Mosul, which lies across the Tigris river from the ruins of ancient Nineveh. Before 1976, it was called ''Mosul Province'' and included the present-day Dohuk Governorate. The second largest city is Tal Afar, which has an almost exclusively Turkmen population. An ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse region, it was partly conquered by ISIS in 2014. Iraqi government forces retook the city of Mosul in 2017. Recent history and administration Its two cities endured the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and emerged unscathed. In 2004, however, Mosul and Tal Afar were the scenes of fierce battles between US-led troops and Iraqi insurgents. The insurgents moved to Nineveh after the Battle of Fallujah in 2004. After the invasion, the military of the province was led by (then Major Genera ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC to the 7th century BC. Spanning from the early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age, modern historians typically divide ancient Assyrian history into the Early Assyrian period, Early Assyrian ( 2600–2025 BC), Old Assyrian period, Old Assyrian ( 2025–1364 BC), Middle Assyrian Empire, Middle Assyrian ( 1363–912 BC), Neo-Assyrian Empire, Neo-Assyrian (911–609 BC), and Post-imperial Assyria, post-imperial (609 BC– AD 240) periods, based on political events and gradual changes in language. Assur, the first Assyrian capital, was founded 2600 BC, but there is no evidence that the city was independent until the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, in the 21st century BC, when a line of independent kings starting with Puzur-Ashur I began rulin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Assyrian Sculpture
Assyrian sculpture is the sculpture of the ancient Assyrian states, especially the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911 to 612 BC, which was centered around the city of Assur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) which at its height, ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt, as well as portions of Anatolia, Arabia and modern-day Iran and Armenia. It forms a phase of the art of Mesopotamia, differing in particular because of its much greater use of stone and gypsum alabaster for large sculpture. Much the best-known works are the huge ''lamassu'' guarding entrance ways, and Assyrian palace reliefs on thin slabs of alabaster, which were originally painted, at least in part, and fixed on the wall all round the main rooms of palaces. Most of these are in museums in Europe or America, following a hectic period of excavations from 1842 to 1855, which took Assyrian art from being almost completely unknown to being the subject of several best-selling books, and imitated in political cartoo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of the modern Middle East. Just beyond it lies southwestern Iran, where the region transitions into the Iranian plateau, Persian plateau, marking the shift from the Arab world to Iran. In the broader sense, the historical region of Mesopotamia also includes parts of present-day Iran (southwest), Turkey (southeast), Syria (northeast), and Kuwait. Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been identified as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history, including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops, the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy, and agriculture". It is recognised as the cradle of some of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Babylonians
Babylonia (; , ) was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as an Akkadian-populated but Amorite-ruled state . During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was retrospectively called "the country of Akkad" ( in Akkadian), a deliberate archaism in reference to the previous glory of the Akkadian Empire. It was often involved in rivalry with the older ethno-linguistically related state of Assyria in the north of Mesopotamia and Elam to the east in Ancient Iran. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi (fl. –1752 BC middle chronology, or –1654 BC, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire. The Babylonian Empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi and reverted to a small kingdom centered around t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Destruction Of Cultural Heritage By The Islamic State
Since 2014, the Islamic State has destroyed cultural heritage on an unprecedented scale, primarily in Iraq and Syria, but also in Libya. These attacks and demolitions targeted a variety of ancient and medieval artifacts, museums, libraries, and places of worship, among other sites of importance to human history. Between June 2014 and February 2015, the Islamic State's Salafi jihadists plundered and destroyed at least 28 historic religious buildings in Mosul alone. Many of the valuables that were looted during these demolitions were used to bolster the economy of the Islamic State. Along with antique Mesopotamian sites of significance, the Islamic State inflicted particularly cataclysmic levels of damage upon Iraqi Christian heritage. It also destroyed Islamic sites that it declared to be in contradiction of that which is permissible in the Islamic State ideology, thus culminating in the destruction of Shia Islamic sites and non-compliant Sunni Islamic sites. Motivation ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jonah In Islam
Yunus ibn Matta () is a prophet of God in Islam corresponding to Jonah son of Amittai in the Hebrew Bible. Jonah is the only one of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Hebrew Bible to be named in the Quran.''Encyclopedia of Islam'', ''Yunus'', pg. 348 The tenth chapter of the Quran, Yunus, is named after him. In the Quran, Yunus is mentioned several times by name, as an apostle of god, and as ''Dhu l-Nun'' (). Quranic mentions In Al-Anbiya 21:87 and Al-Qalam 68:48, Yunus is called Dhul-Nūn (). In An-Nisa 4:163 and Al-An'am 6:86, he is referred to as "an apostle of God". Surah 37:139-148 retells the full story of Yunus:The Quran does not mention Yunus' heritage, but Muslim tradition teaches that Yunus was from the tribe of Benjamin. Hadithic mentions Yunus is also mentioned in a few incidents during the lifetime of Muhammad. In some instances, Yunus' name is spoken of with praise and reverence by Muhammad. According to historical narrations about Muhammad's life, after t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |