The oval of the mound of ancient Nimrud measures on the long axis ca. 700 meters and on the short axis ca. 400 meters. The remains of houses, the Ishtar, Ninurta and Nabu Temples, the New Palace, including the Domestic Wing and the Upper Chamber, the Palace of Adad-Nirari III, the obelisk, the South-West, Central, Governor's and Burnt Palace were all excavated some 50-60 years ago. Impressive was the evidence for the great wooden doors whose wooden pole pivoted in copper sockets sunk into big stone jambs. These were the kinds of doors of which the prophet Jeremiah said,

"Howl, gate; cry, city." Isaiah 14:31 (NJB)

... when the doors rattled, creaked and squeaked in the desert wind. But the most interesting and important discoveries were the baked clay tablets with cuneiform writing. The Archaeologists discovered soon that the local peasants in some areas still used some of the words they had deciphered on the tablets as for example the word sufla, `lower city'. The usage of titles as found on the tablets was also of great interest. Titles included:

shaknu - older title for perhaps town governor bel pihati - District Governor - today's `Mutesarrif'
turtan - commander in chief
rab alani - commandant of towns, today's `mudir nahiya'
amel SAG - head man, Chief Land Registrar

In the spring of 1950 they began to discover the defenses of the acropolis of Nimrod, ancient Calah. Digging in the area of the NW Palace of Ashurnasirpal II in the hope of completing its plan, and also of recovering earlier documents of the 9th century BC, they hoped to find one or more of the clay tablets in one of the smaller chambers of the palace. Once the archaeologists realized that the fallen bull colossus, left behind by Layard, must have been gazing at something, they set to work what that might have been. Searching, they succeeded in exposing two spacious chambers which contained a number of large storage jars, and another great brick-paved with a sandstone monument and a chamber behind it. Between these two rooms there was a recess. Digging up the fallen mud bricks they found "... the inscribed burnt-brick pavement of Assurnasirpal, on which the monument had originally been placed, surmounted by a later one. ... The bricks in the upper pavement were of the size used by Shalmaneser III. ... In the debries surrounding the base of the stela there were two very finely carved ivories, the first a panel (ND1082), depicting King Assurnasirpal himself carrying a cup on the tips of his fingers in the right hand, and in his left the bird-headed sickle of the god Ninurta which ha also carries on the statue found by Layard in the temple of Ishtar-belit-mati."

It became obvious soon that the object the bull colossi had been looking at was this ¾ ton, large sandstone stela of Assurnasirpal which had been assigned a permanent position. [010]

The caption of the stela states, `... height 4 feet 2 inches (127 cm). It represents the king in full canonicals, and the symbols of the gods. 154 lines of inscriptions celebrate the completion of the city in 879 BC and include an inventory of its buildings and record the number of persons who attended a banquet for the occasion. This monument, ND1104, found in 1951, is now in the Museum of Mosul.'

`On the face of the stela, at the top, there is a recessed panel depicting Assurnasirpal II in profile, facing to the right, holding the long royal scepter in his right hand and his mace in the left. He is clad in full ceremonial attire, probably those worn at his coronation and similar state occasions. The long tasseled coat open at the front may have been woven at the neighboring town of `Kurba'il'. This garment has at the waist a heavy belt, perhaps fastened by golden clasps, and a pair of sheathed royal daggers. The high crown with a conical knob at the top, to which is attached a double pig-tail, was the formal headgear of the Assyrian king during this period. The elaborate beard may have been false, for there was a tradition derived from the Sumerians, that the king wore a false beard tied on to the ears. Perhaps this was symbolic for the strength of the bull gods whose services were dedicated to the Sumerian god Anu, one of the principal gods in the pantheon, known as `The Bull of Heaven'. In the royal cemeteries of Ur, musical instruments were decorated with bulls' heads wearing lapis lazuli beards very similar in cut to the one of the king seen here. This Assyrian practice, therefore, conformed with religious theories about the celestial origin of kings. A Sumerian text relates that after the Flood, kingship descended from heaven; and Assyrian art gave a clear expression of that concept.'[020]

`The jewelry and medals were also archaic in style. On the wrist there was a rosette-bangle - the original must have been in gold - which was an equally archaic symbol of divinity. The handsome earring can be matched by a fortunate discovery which we made in another place in the outer town; it consisted of a rock crystal drop pendant encased in copper. The row of beads at the neck probably represented semi-precious stones such as carnelian and lapis lazuli which had a protective amuletic value; no doubt some were of gold.'

[010] See the cuneiform inscribed stela of Assurnasirpal in M.E.L. Mallowan, Nimrud and Its Remains', London, 1966, p. 62.
[020] Ibid., p. 62-64.

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