Nineveh and Babylon: A Narrative of a Second Expedition to Assyria during the Years 1849, 1850, & 1851

1874

Special Collections DS70.5 N47 LD546 1874

London: John Murray

In 1849, Layard and Rassam were back in Iraq to uncover the largest Assyrian palace, that of King Sennacherib (740-681BC), at Kouyunjik or Nineveh. A team of workers dug down and discovered a large, organised 29-acre palace complex within a larger 1700-acre organised city area. Serviced by a sophisticated canal system, which brought water to the city, it is thought by some that it was also the site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It is in these ancient city ruins that the cuneiform tablets containing the Epic of Gilgamesh were found in the Library of Ashurbanipal (d. 627BC), one of Sennacherib’s successors.