Iraq's Antiquities

ziggurat of ur

The Ziggurat of Ur (sometimes called the "Great Ziggurat of Ur"; Sumerian E-temen-nigur meaning "house whose foundation creates terror") is a Neo-Sumerian ziggurat in what was the city of Ur near Nasiriyah, in present-day Dhi Qar Province, Iraq. The structure was built during the Early Bronze Age (21st century BC), but had crumbled to ruins by the 6th century BC of the Neo-Babylonian period when it was restored by King Nabonidus.

Its remains were excavated in the 1920s and 1930s by Sir Leonard Woolley. Under Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, they were encased by a partial reconstruction of the façade and the monumental staircase. The ziggurat of Ur is the best-preserved of those known from Iran and Iraq, besides the ziggurat of Dur Untash (Chogha Zanbil).[citation needed] It is one of three well preserved structures of the Neo-Sumerian city of Ur, along with the Royal Mausolea and the Palace of Ur-Nammu (the E-hursag)

Moulouya, Samarra

Samarra, about 124 km north of Baghdad, is one of the four Islamic Holy Cities of Iraq, and is considered as the largest ancient city known in the whole World with its majestic ruins which extends about 9 km horizontally and 34 km vertically along the eastern bank of the Tigris.

It was built by Caliph Al-Mu'tasim in 836 AD to replace Baghdad as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, and abandoned by Caliph Al-Mu'tamid in 892 AD. Despite the short sojourn of the Abbasid Caliphate in Samarra, the city's artistic, literary, and scientific splendors have remained a legend in Arab history 

Agargoaf, Iraq 

An ancient monument city, some 30 km to the north west of Baghdad, built on a Sumero-Babylonian plan in the 15th century BC by King Kurigalzo (thus anciently named "Dur Kurigalzo" which means: the city of King Kurigalzo), on an elongated tongue of natural limestone, and lasted as the capital of the Kassite Dynasty in Mesopotamia up to the end of the 11th century BC.

Water came to Agargoaf from a large river branched out of the Euphrates called by the Babylonian "Bitty Inlil" - the canal of the god Inlil, one of the greatest in the ancient Mesopotamian pantheon.

The city's great ziggurat, built by the Kassites during the rule of King Kurigalzo II (1344-1324 BC), though partially ruined, commands theview with its 57 m height over the surrounding plain. Its base was 69x67 m.

Only the lower level has survived, reinforced by an outer brick wall, with parts of the inner mud-brick core still protruding high above it. To hold the structure together matting and ropes were used every 8 or 9 rows, which also protected it from seepage and damp. The first story has 3 staircases in the middle, and 2 on the sides.

Other remains to see there are a number of palaces, temples, and living quarters. Indications are that the city was inhabited right through the later Babylonian age and, in parts, in Islamic times

Ctesiphon, Iraq 

The historically important site of Ctesiphon, about 30 km to the south east of Baghdad, was built by the Parthian Persians on the opposite (east) side of the Tigris from Seleucia in the middle of the 2nd century BC. The two cities were joined by a bridge, and the Arabs coupled them together, calling them jointly Al-Mada'en (the Cities).Amidst its extensive ruin stands the best-known antique site in Iraq after Ur and Babylon: the fabulous and colossal arch of the great banqueting-hall of the great palace of Sapor, the Shah's luxurious capital, which was built in the middle of the 3rd century of our era.

Experts believe that it is the widest and highest single-span vault built of baked bricks in the World: its construction at that time must have been a miracle of architectural planning.A descendant of ancient Mesopotamian structures in style, it embodied a skilful development of temples and palaces of the 3rd millennium BC, when the front part of great buildings would consist of large halls topped by high arches - as seen clearly at the entrances of Assyrian cities.When the Tigris flooded in 1987 and destroyed almost all of the rest of the building, the Arch of Ctesiphon survived.

Hatra, Iraq

Hatra, the City of the Sun god, and the perfect ruin, or as Arabs say: Hadhar, is one of Iraq's few stone reserved monuments, a site that will be loved unreservedly and at first sight, because of its stunning beauty.

It is an ancient Arab city about 80 km to the south west of Mosul and 296 km north west of Baghdad. In many people's opinion its the loveliest ancient monument in Iraq from any period in that country's immensely long history.

Although archeologists possess few texts that tells about the obscure beginnings of Hatra, it seems things started with a smallish Assyrian settlement which then grew sometime in the 3rd century BC to become a fortress and a trading center. In the 2nd century BC, it flourished as a major staging-post on the famous oriental silk road to become another link in the chain of the great Arab cities: Palmyra in Syria, Petra in Jordan, and Baalbeck in Lebanon.

Around 156 AD, and before the foundation of kingship, Hatra was governed by Arab rulers who combined religious and secular authority. Prominent among them was Nasr, father of the first two kings of Hatra: Lajash and Sanatruq. The latter whose title was King of the Arabs as inscriptions discovered in 1961 reveals and who, it seems, completed the Temple of Shamash (the Sun God), was succeeded by his son Abd Samya (190-200 AD), who in turn was succeeded by his son Sanatruq II (200-241 AD), the last Arab king of the city.

It is good to take one's time in Hatra as there is so much to look at and the compulsion is to go on looking. Hatra is fortified with two city walls and citadels. The outer wall is 8 km long, and the inner is 6 km long. The center of Hatra consists of a group of temples enclosed by a special wall. The most important is the temple of Shamash and the shrine of the goddess Shahiro (the morning star).

The group of temples has been partly restored and exemplifies the unique Hatran architecture: an elegant combination of eastern and western influences. Excavations of Hatra have only started recently. The town itself has not been uncovered yet but you are able to see the temples, the tombs, the wall and the remains of towers.

Impressive examples of Hatran art, with its statues of kings and precious collections of golden, silver and copper objects, can be admired at the National Museum of Iraq.

Nineveh, Iraq

The ancient city of Nineveh is situated just outside Mosul on the east bank of the River Tigris. Nobody knows exactly when it was inhabited for the first time, but it was a cultural settlement in the 6th millennium BC, right through Sumerian and Babylonian periods. In fact, the name of Nineveh is of Sumerian origin. Nineveh was the 3rd capital of Assyria Empire after Assur and Nimrud , dating from the reign of the great King Sennacherib (704-681 BC) and was one of the most powerful cities of the Middle East: the hub of the civilized ancient World. Its downfall came in 612 BC, when it was sacked by the Medes of Northern Persia whom killed the last great king of Nineveh, Ashurbanipal (669-624 BC).

This city, a beloved of the goddess Ishtar, was ruled by a number of great Assyrian Kings, such as Sargon II (721-705 BC), before he moved to Khorsabad, succeeded by his son Sennacherib who abandoned his father's new capital and went back to Nineveh, and Esarhaddon (681-669 BC) and Ashurbanipal, all of whom enlarged and built up the city turning it into a beautiful 700 hectares large city of wide boulevards, large squares, parks, and gardens.

Ukhaidhir, Iraq

Ukhaidhir, the colossal pre- or early Abbasid (late 8th century) fortified pleasure palace is 50 km south west of Kerbala and about 173 km south west of Baghdad, standing alone in the desert as one of the most impressive buildings in the whole World and one of the greatest monuments of early Islam.

It was built with stone and plaster on a plan which suggests the high skill of its architects in the use of vaults and arches, consisting of a fortified rectangular enclosure measuring 175x169 m, with a gateway in the center of each side. It has 4 rounded corner towers and 10 intermediate half-rounded towers.

Ukhaidhir's huge walls rise like a cliff out of the plain, and inside them you have the feeling of being in a particularly large warlike castle. The walls are immensely thick, the chambers legion, the whole massive structure 21 m high. Every room is vaulted and majestic.The word Ukhaidhir means "small green place". It is one of several fortified mansions built by Arabs on the east and northern fringes of the desert; there are others in Jordan and Syria. Some authorities claim it is an early example of Arab architecture - that is, something not a straight copy from the Persian or Byzantine.

The open-fronted hall (or ewan) and its archway framed in a rectangular panel are both Persian in origin. Byzantine acanthus leaves decorate fallen stone capitals. The whole building with its circular buttresses and vaulted colonnades is neither Greek nor Persian, but the first, perhaps overbold step in the evolution of an individual (Arab) style, which later produced the Caliph's palace in Samarra. There are interesting sights on the way to this leviathan of a building. Just outside Kerbala is a tiny shrine, with the usual dome of colored tiles, to Hurr bin Yazid El-Riahi, an officer in the army of Ubaidullah who joined Hussein's band when he realized that Ubaidullah would have no mercy. Hurr, ironically, was the first to fall.

Nimrud (Calah), Iraq

Nimrud, lying on the east bank of the Tigris, 37 km to the south east of Mosul, is the 2nd capital of Assyria Empire founded in 883 BC, and had been a well-settled place for a thousand years before it was built as a center of the kingdom of Shalmaneser I (1273-1244 BC).A famous king of Nimrud was Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC); who firstly designated it as the Assyrian capital in 879 BC housing perhaps as many as 100,000 inhabitants, making it part of a great complicated building assigned to the god Nabu (the god of Arts), and so was his son Shalmaneser III(858-824 BC) who constructed its ziggurat, the most important monument of the city, together with a temple next to it.

In antiquity, the town was known by the name Kalhu (Calah in the Old Testament). The Arabs called it Nimrud after Nimrod, the biblical mighty hunter, father of Ashur (Assur), the Assyrian hero whose name explains why Assyrians are called Assyrians.