1998. Greco-Parthian Nineveh

Greco-Parthian Nineveh Author(s): J. E. Reade Source: Iraq, Vol. 60 (1998), pp. 65-83 Published by: British Institute for the Study of Iraq Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4200453 . Accessed: 12/01/2014 08:22 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . British Institute for the Study of Iraq is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Iraq. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 65 GRECO-PARTHIAN NINEVEH By J. E. READE Nineveh, after its sack in 612 BC, had two entirely distinct histories. One is exotic and largely lost. The suspiciously Assyrian name of Assarakos appears in Homer as that of an ancestor of Aeneas (Iliad 20: 239-40), and we can envisage, from occasional Aramaic and Greek allusions, a multiplying host of fantastic tales about the city and its ancient rulers, which must have been widely current in the taverns and market-places of the ancient world (Andre-Salvini 1994: 29-38). These legends were to re-emerge in later European literature, such as the play "Sardanapalus" by Byron. While a few anecdotes probably reflect real events, they cannot be taken as free-standing evidence. The alternative history is what really happened at Nineveh when metropolitan Assyria was first devastated in the late seventh century and later transformed, under Seleucid and Parthian rule, into the kin gdom or province of Adiabene (see map, p. 81). Evidence for the region in these periods is widely scattered, consisting of a few serious documents and a mass of poorly digested archaeological data. The current paper deals with some of the more prominent items. Nineveh, though not the principal centre of Adiabene, retained the natural advantages of its position as a market-town beside a crossing-point of the Tigris, and eventually regained some of its importance. Its actual name survived, remaining attached to the ruins down to modem times, but contemporary references to the city and its vicinity during the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid periods are problematic (Dalley 1993). A Nabonidus text names the son of a priest of the Lady of Nineveh (Zadok 1985: 238), but it is not certain that the reference is to a priest employed at Nineveh itself, since this Ishtar may still have had shrines in a number of places. Some Neo-Elamite tablets were certainly found at Nineveh, which is what one might have expected at a Median administrative centre, but their date is uncertain and a Neo-Assyrian origin is more likely (Reade 1992). We do not even know whether Nineveh and metropolitan Assyria were under the control of Medes or Babylonians or neither after 612 BC (Curtis 1989: 53-4); it must have been a very insecure region. After capturing Babylon in 539 BC, Cyrus the Persian sent some divine statues back to their places of origin (Grayson 1975: 110). Further details are given in the Cyrus Cylinder, and it has been suggested that Nineveh heads the list, coming before Assur: istu [uruNi-nla-aki! uruAs-sur ... (V R 35, 30; cf. Berger 1974: 198, 215). I. L. Finkel's collation of the relevant passage, however, suggests that it should rather read istu [(uru)Babilik]i a-di uruAs-sur ..., with Babylon restored as the place from which the statues were sent, Assur first in the list of cities to which they went, and no mention of Nineveh (Fig. 1). A 'Gate of the Ninevites' at Babylon is dubious (Herodotus 3.155), but Achaemenid material has been found in Assyria, including the Yarimtepe tablet dated by Cyrus (Kuhrt 1990: 184); the Tell Fisna tablet (Black 1997) suggests that even the Assyrian cuneiform script survived for a while. About 411-408 BC an Achaemenid messenger travelling west from Erbil, classical Arbela, came afterwards to Halsu, resembling in name a district south or south-east of Nineveh in the Neo-Assyrian period (Oates 1968: 59), as if Nineveh itself was unimportant or off the road. There are practical alternative routes passing both north and south of Nineveh. Xenophon in 401 BC (Anabasis 3: 4.10), arriving at a site which can hardly have been anywhere other than Nineveh, states that it was deserted, though there were people available to tell him its name and stories about its past. The name is given as Mespila, for which no really convincing explanation has been offered; the same applies to the name Larisa which he gives for Nimrud. As there was some confusion or omission in Xenophon's notes on the region, since he only mentions crossing one of the two Zab rivers, perhaps these city names are mistaken or garbled. The only plausible suggestion so far made for Mespila is that it corresponds not to modern Mosul but to Akkadian muspalum, a word used in Sennacherib's inscriptions concerning Nineveh (Luckenbill 1924: 114), or rather to Aramaic mspyl', meaning a depression, an area of low-lying terrain. Nineveh is mentioned in connection with Alexander the Great's march from the Tigris to Erbil Iraq LX (1998) This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 66 J. E. READE Fig.DetilfCyrCylndr(99)3'tih Fig. 1 Detail of Cyrus Cylinder (WA 90920) with critical break in top line. British Museum photograph. in 331 BC. Strabo (16: 1: 3-4) insists that Alexander associated the Battle of Gaugamela with Erbil, the city he reached immediately afterwards, and that the renamed opos vKaTroplov, Mountain of Victory, was close to Erbil. On the other hand Diodorus (17: 53) states that Darius chose the plains of Nineveh as a suitable site for the battle. Tacitus (12: 13), relating a much later event, states: sed capta in transitu urbs Ninos, vetustissima sedes Assyriae, castellum insigne fama, quod postremo inter Darium atque Alexandrumproelio Persarumillic opes conciderant:"On the way they captured the city of Ninos (i.e. Nineveh), ancient capital of Assyria, a fortress celebrated because it was there, with the final battle between Darius and Alexander, that the Persian empire collapsed." Many commentators have inserted a conjunction to separate sedes Assyriae from castellum, on the grounds that the site of the battle was not Nineveh but Gaugamela; a somewhat similar passage in Ammianus (23: 6, 22), which lists Nineveh, Erbil, and lastly Gaugamela which is described as the site of the battle, supports the change. Yet the unemended text seems more in keeping with Tacitean style, and was defended by Hutchinson (1934) on the grounds that Nineveh could well have become a castellum. In any event the city was still worth a mention, as a means of locating the general area of Gaugamela, in at least one of the sources from which information reached Diodorus and Tacitus. This is so whether the battle was actually fought 30 km away across the plain at Karamleis, or at the more likely site of Tell Gomel (Jomel, once Gogomel: placed much too far south on Stein's map), 40 km away across a range of hills (Fiey 1965: I, 181; Gregory and Kennedy 1985: 402). While any Hellenistic monument there may be on Alexander's Mountain of Victory has yet to be found, it may be relevant, since Middle Eastern rock sculptures of different periods often cluster together, that the north side of Jebel Maqlub overlooking Tell Gomel is well known for the Parthian sculptures studied by Boehmer (1981) at Gali Zerdak. On Kuyunjik, the principal mound of ancient Nineveh (Fig. 2), there are abundant structural remains with associated objects which have to be dated between the Median or Neo-Babylonian and Islamic periods (Hutchinson 1934: 88) but they are dreadfully confused and await detailed study and classification. Some buildings incorporate reused Assyrian stone slabs and other material retrieved from the ruins, which must therefore have been reasonably accessible, but it is not yet possible to determine how soon the place was reoccupied on any significant scale. Scraps of This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions GRECO-PARTHIANNINEVEH 67 Fig. 2 Greco-ParthianNineveh.Drawnby author. archaeological evidence from all periods are to be expected, since a site of this nature is seldom totally abandoned for long, but a particular problem at Nineveh is that even the most systematic of the older excavators, namely Campbell Thompson and his colleagues during 1928-32, preferred to record and preserve those sherds which were decorated rather than those which were plain. The historical periods without much decorated pottery are therefore likely to be under-represented in the publications, a phenomenon also observed in the prehistoric deep sounding (Gut 1995: 186). Maybe there was an early restoration of the Assyrian Nabu Temple, as at Assur and apparently at Kalhu: repairs to it were noted by Thompson and Hutchinson (1929: 106-7), while a paved road alongside incorporated a wall-panel of Sennacherib and many slabs that had been inscribed by Ashurbanipal for a Nabu Temple courtyard; the inscriptions "were set herein and in other restorations usually face downwards" (Thompson and Mallowan 1933: 111), which conceivably implies that the work was done at a time when it was still undesirable to display the name of an Assyrian king. Madhloom (1968: 50) and Russell (n.d.) mention structures inside the Assyrian South-West Palace some of which immediately overlay the destruction layer and reutilized Assyrian wall-panels. Similarly four levels of Post-Assyrian occupation, earlier than a mud-brick platform of Parthian date, were observed on the eastern edge of the mound by Stronach (1990: 108). On the other hand, a large building which was situated northward from the area of Court 0 in the Assyrian North Palace, and which also incorporated many Assyrian wall-panel fragments, was This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 68 J. E. READE ascribedby Rassam (1897: 36) to "some well-to-doSassanianor Arab", and describedby King (1904: 5, 12) as "probablya ParthianTemple". The fortunesof Adiabenethroughthe Parthianand early Sasanianperiods,especiallyin so far as the regionwas affectedby Roman activities,can be followedin the pages of Debevoise(1938) or Oates (1968: 67-80, 99); Maricq (1957) and Teixidor(1968) discuss some of the political complications.MithridatesI of Parthiaconqueredthe regionabout 141BC, perhapscommemorating the event in a rock-sculpture,dated aroundthe firstcenturyBC (Mathiesen1992:I, 22-3), at Khanas-Bavian.Ninevehis namedas a significantplacecapturedby TigranesI of Armeniaabout 90-80 BC. It was captured again about AD 50 by Meherdates, who had Roman support in claiming the Parthian throne and was passing through Adiabene; this is the passage of Tacitus quoted above. Sometimes there were differences of opinion between Adiabene and Parthia, and on several later occasions Roman armiescame close to Nineveh or occupiedthe area:underTrajanabout 115, after which for a year or so Adiabene/Assyria was regarded as a Roman province; about 166 under Lucius Verus, in whose time the Roman frontier was advanced eastward from the Euphrates to Nisibis, probably Sinjar, and perhaps the Tigris; under Septimius Severus in 195 and 198-9; and in 216 under Caracalla,who sacked the tombs of the Persian(i.e. Adiabenian)kings at Arbela.Adiabenesupportedthe Sasaniandynastyin its earlyyears,and therewerefurtherRoman incursions:AlexanderSeverusinvadedthe regionin 232, afterwhicha Romanforcewas stationed not far away in the Arab city of Hatra; Gordian III was there in 243-4, Galerius in 298-9, and some of Julian's forces in 363.1 The nature of the population of Nineveh during these centuries, and their preferred political affiliations, remain unclear. Certainly their commercial and cultural relations stretched both east and west. Oates (1968: 61) observed that the plan of a temple containing a "Hermes" statue, thought to belong in the second or early third century AD (Muhammad Ali Mustafa 1954; Scott and MacGinnis 1990: 69-71; Mathiesen 1992: I, 51), recalled the conventions of Neo-Assyrian architecture,suggestinga degree of local continuity.Yet Nineveh was also a Greek settlement, one of the many easterncolonies about which no clear-cuthistoricalinformationsurvives.While thereis no evidencefor distinctivelyGreekdomestichousingor city-planning,it was at one stage a roAigpossessingcharacteristicofficialsand municipalinstitutions.There are various possible dates for the foundation. Given its proximity to Gaugamela, one might have expected a mention of it, with a triumphal name such as Nicopolis or Nicephorion, had Alexander himself been the founder. The most likely date seems to be around 300 BC, when Seleucus I was establishing Macedonian or Greek colonies at strategic points throughout Mesopotamia (Jones 1971: 216-17); his short-lived Mesopotamian an alternative is around 80 BC, when Tigranes I filled (EvE7rAqacE) 1962: from the west (Dillemann 249-51). Both rulers must have empire with Greeks deported are other possible dates, under the in this Yet there neighbourhood. recognised the value of a site within the cosmopolitan and our evidence dates In and fact all Seleucids specific subsequently. when the rulers of Adiabene Parthian frequently took independent action. period, unpredictable The Parthian kings themselves, besides enjoying Greek drama, were well aware of the importance of Greek cities such as Seleucia, which continued to flourish into the second century AD. Evidence for the use of Greek at Nineveh was discussed by Le Rider (1967), and the following summary incorporates many of his perceptions. 1. A hoard of Parthian bronze coinage found on Kuyunjik is dated by Le Rider (1967: 4-17) mainly to Mithridates II, c. 124-90 BC, and possibly to rulers before and immediately after him, so it may have been buried at the time of the Armenian attack. Le Rider points out that, as the circulation of coins like this was always limited, they may have been minted at Nineveh itself, and that one coin (No. 597) preserves what could be part of a formula appropriate to those produced in Greek cities: [... TCrV rpo]s r[T.u TeypeL]. Otherwise there is no evidence for or against the existence of a mint at Nineveh. At least three Seleucid coins are recorded from the site: two of Antiochus IV, 175-164 BC, one from an Islamic hoard on Kuyunjik (Thompson and Hamilton ' A usefulby-productof the Romanadvanceto the Tigris employedTigris boatmenon the Britishfrontier(Holder was that they encounteredthe local round riverboat, the 1982: 125). For the Roman empirein the east, see Isaac qufa, whichresemblesthe Britishcoracle.Theysubsequently 1993. This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions GRECO-PARTHIAN NINEVEH 69 *' Fig. 3 Inscribedcolumn.Size and presentlocationunknown. 1932: 78), and the other from excavations at site SH north of Kuyunjik (Thompson and Mallowan 1933: 78); and one of Antiochus VII, 138-129 BC (ibid.: 75). Coins of Adiabene (de Callatay 1996) have not been identified from the excavations. A Roman mint, once thought to have been sited at Nineveh, was actually at Ninica Claudiopolis in Cilicia (Le Rider 1967: 14). 2. An inscription on a column is dedicated by Apollophanes son of Asclepiades in honour of the "attentive gods", OEOT E7rTKOOt (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929: 140-2; Le Rider 1967: 15). The dedication is on behalf of one Apollonios, who has the offices of commander and mayor of the city, arparqyos and borrda-rdn rs 7TroAccows, titles also used at Parthian Dura Europus and Babylon and possibly indicating a Seleucid origin for the municipal organisation (Teixidor 1987: 190- 1). A date was given, but the letters are damaged; they may read 281, which would correspond to 32/31 BC if this is the Seleucid era. The text is written over another erased Greek inscription which might then be an authentic Seleucid text. The column was found on Kuyunjik in 1904 during excavations in the area of the Nabu Temple; it now seems to be lost, unless it was sent with other small finds to the museum at Constantinople, but is reproduced here from a photograph which belonged to Thompson (Fig. 3). 3. A Greek inscription, on a reused Assyrian altar to the Sibitti, is a dedication to the city, ITOAeL,by one Apollonios son of Demetrios (Postgate 1970). The dedicant has the title of magistrate, apXwv, and could even be the same man, or a member of the same family, as the Apollonios named in the previous text. This altar was found in lower ground south of Kuyunjik. 4. A limestone statue of Herakles Epitrapezios, in the style of Lysippos (Fig. 4), now in the British Museum, was found on the site of the South-West Palace on Kuyunjik. It is signed by Diogenes, and was dedicated by Sarapiodoros son of Artemidoros in fulfilment of a vow. Various dates have been suggested for its manufacture: Invernizzi (1989) opted for the second century AD, Bartman (1992: 181) for the first. It is surprising to find such an accomplished piece of sculpture at Nineveh. Works of art from the west did travel widely (Colledge 1977: 82); the stone is not obviously local, though it might be; and one might have expected a local sculptor to opt for the abundant, fine-grained and easily carved local alabaster, though this may not have been strong enough for a piece cut in this fashion. Yet both signature and dedication are in the same script, This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 70 J. E. READE Fig. 4 Limestonestatueof HeraklesEpitrapezios(GR 1881-7-1,1). Heightof statue50 cm; heightof plinth3 cm, width28, depth25-5. BritishMuseumphotograph. with similar traces of red infill, strongly suggesting local manufacture, perhaps by a sculptor trained elsewhere. The name Sarapiodoros recalls the head of Isis very tentatively proposed by Le Rider (1967: 11) as the motif of one of the bronze coins from Nineveh. Invernizzi also mentions a gold pendant, ascribed to the late second or early third century AD and said to have been bought at Mosul, the modern city adjoining Nineveh; this represents Serapis between two manifestations of Isis. Le Rider cites the existence of a Serapis cult in Hellenistic Iran, so it could have been introduced to Nineveh during the Seleucid period. It is impossible that the cult should go back directly to the late seventh century, though there had been at that time a significant Egyptian element in the population of Nineveh, as Serapis did not yet exist. 5. The word ev'rvxL, presumably "for the lucky (god)" or "the god who brings good luck", is inscribed on the base of a group of three broken statuettes in the British Museum (Figs. 5-6). A nineteenth-century field label pasted to the back confirms the provenance of this piece as Kuyunjik. It appears to be made of local alabaster. The script resembles that of the Herakles Epitrapezios, with the broken central bar on the epsilon. The statuette in the middle was a standing female or goddess; folds of drapery fall to the ground between her feet, much as they do on another abraded alabaster statuette also in the British Museum and recorded as coming from Nineveh (Fig. 7), while vertical lines represent the remainder of her dress. To the right of the goddess (the viewer's left) there was apparently another standing figure whose feet are both partly preserved; a stone stub beside the right foot might be the end of a club, and a larger stub by the left foot might be the base of a rock supporting the figure; if so this could have been another Herakles. To the left of the goddess, to judge by the size and shape of the breaks in the surviving stub of stone, there was a smaller god or animal. This base does not seem to have been published previously. The three statuettes were manufactured separately, inserted into slots in the base, and secured with cement. Traces of red pigment on the drapery of the goddess look as if they were applied before the cement. The two outer figures were broken and repaired in antiquity. A hole for a tenon had been drilled vertically This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions GREICO-PARTHIAN NINlEVEH 71 Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 Group of alabaster statuettes on base: WA 115642 = 1856-9-3, 1504. Overall height 8 cm, width 19-6, depth at left 6-8 tapering to 5 at right. British Museum photographs. through each of them; the hole through the possible Herakles figure seems to retain traces of a wooden tenon, while both holes are otherwise filled with bitumen; there are further traces of bitumen beside the left foot of the possible Herakles. 6. Philostratos (1: 19), referring to a period around AD 40 50, states that Apollonios of Tyana acquired his Syrian diarist Damis at Nineveh, and that the Greek written by Damis, though unsophisticated because of his provincial background, was fully adequate for the everyday recording of events. While the reliability of the Apollonios story itself is arguable, Philostratos plainly regarded it as sensible that an inhabitant of Nineveh should speak and write Greek. However that may be, the Greek-speaking elements of the population must have gradually lost ground, while Aramaic presumably remained the predominant language of the surrounding countryside. We do not even know by what name the Herakles Epitrapezios would have been recognised by most of the population of Nineveh. There are fine statues of Herakles from Hatra, where he was assimilated to Assyro-Babylonian Nergal and Iranian Verethragna (Al-Salihi 1973; Colledge This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 72 J. E. READE Fig. 7 Alabasterstatuette:WA 118783=1855-12-5,411.Heightc. 17-3cm,width5-5,depth5-1. BritishMuseumphotograph. 1986: 8, 17). Tacitus (12: 13) mentions a ceremony in Adiabene where a god named as the local equivalent of Hercules was worshipped as a mighty hunter; the rock-reliefs at Gunduik north-east of Nineveh, probably dating to the third or second millennium BC (Amin 1948: 204-11), are in the correct area and show some such hunting deity, whose equation with Herakles would be just one more example of the remarkable complexity of religious thought in the Parthian empire (e.g. Colpe 1983: 840-3). The popularity of Herakles, as an iconographic type in the Orient, is reflected in classical myths about his travels to India. The arrival of new religions, with Judaism, Christianity, Magism and varieties of gnosticism all eventually present in Adiabene, is comparable with the co-existence of Muslim, Christian, Yezidi and Shabbak communities today, emphasizing the range of influences to which Nineveh was exposed by its geographical position. Perhaps it was discreet to call gods "attentive" or "lucky", instead of insisting on specific names. The uncertainty over Nineveh's status may be partly explained by the topography of the site and the history of excavation. It would have been much more convenient in times of peace for most of the population to reside not on the 25-30 m-high and easily defensible mound of Kuyunjik, but on the flat land below; this alternating pattern of settlement seems to be typical of sites in Assyria (Oates and Oates 1958: 136-7; Oates 1968: 61). The available historical records, by concentrating on occasional military campaigns, mask the long intervals of peace. While Kuyunjik has been extensively excavated, our knowledge of the lower terrain depends largely on chance discoveries. Yet this is where the Apollonios altar and the "Hermes" temple were found, during building works south of Kuyunjik. In the same general area some baked-brick foundations and part of a colossal "marble" statue were regarded as Assyrian by Layard (1853: 598), but marble suggests a later date. Bottles of the first century BC found on the mound of Nebi Yunus (Oates and Oates 1958: 129) suggest the presence of graves there. Further traces of Greco-Parthian occupation have been recorded in two areas north of Kuyunjik, in one of which the Antiochos IV coin was excavated (Thompson and Mallowan 1933: 75-7; Madhloom 1968: 50-1). Lumsden This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions GRECO-PARTHIAN 73 NINEVEH Fig. 8 Gap in Assyrian wall, near Ashur Gate, possibly from south. Photograph by R. Campbell Thompson. _Hy~., 'A Fig. 9 - - . Entrance to Damlamajah, from south-east, 1928. Photograph by R. Campbell Thompson. This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 74 J. E. READE * Fig. 10 Entranceto Damlamajah,from east, 1971,after partialcollapseof vault. Author's photograph. Fig. 11 Interiorarch and spring,Damlamajah,1971.Author'sphotograph. (1991: 3) found a scatter of Hellenistic pottery on the surface east of the Khosr, and I am indebted to him for the information that it included sherds deriving from so-called fish-plates, known also from levels of the late third second century BC at Nimrud (Oates 1968: 130). Madhloom (1969: 48-9) refers to Parthian coffins, on the north bank of the Khosr, but the type described sounds as if it may equally well be Assyrian. This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 75 GRECO-PARTHIANNINEVEH Fig. 12 Capital. Location and dimensions unknown. . Fig. 12 Capital.Locationand dimensionsunknown. Fig. 13 Limestonelintel: WA118896=Sm 2490. Height 26.5cm, width 18.3, depth 12. BritishMuseumphotograph. Fig. 14 Base of limestonestatue. WA92003=81-2-4, 11. Height 14, width 28 5, depth 24. BritishMuseumphotograph. It was perhaps in the Greco-Parthian period that some wide openings were cut for convenience through the massive mound of the Assyrian city-wall. This wall was mainly mud brick with a thick outer lining of stone. It has been diminished by natural erosion, by stone-robbing, and in places by the passage of feet over 2600 years, but remains even today a dominant feature of the Nineveh landscape. Nonetheless a few gaps, notably two in the western face north and south of This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 76 J. E. READE Nebi Yunus,one in the southernface (Fig. 8), and possiblyone in the easternface, existedbefore the twentieth century, and are so substantialthat they may have been the result of ancient municipalactivity. Just outside the walls of the Assyrian city, the spring of Damlamajahis the one structure standing and visible at Nineveh which appears to be Hellenisticin date (Fiey 1965: 517). A photographof 1928-9 showsgood masonry,apparentlythe base of an archrepairedin the Islamic period(Fig. 9), whichstood at the headof a shortflightof stone stepsleadingdown to the spring. By 1971 (Fig. 10) some of this masonryhad gone, but anotherstone arch was still completeat the bottom of the steps, with erodedpilasterson eitherside;beyondwere the remainsof a stone apse wherethe water emerged(Fig. 11).2 Rich (1836: 41-2) refersto an Islamicdome over the spring itself. Also the vault over the stairs between the two arches, which had largely fallen between 1929and 1971, appearsto be Islamicwork. Most of our evidence for the period, however, derives from Kuyunjik.This mound then contained substantialbuildings,though none demonstrablySeleucid.Madhloom(1968: 50, PI. 14) has illustratedstone foundationswhich lay above Court H of the South-WestPalace. The reused column-baseshown in his photographis Assyrian,but at least one elaboratelycarved Corinthiancapital has been found, presumablyon Kuyunjik(Fig. 12: Thompsonand Hamilton 1932: P1. LI.5), and there is a limestonelintel from the South-WestPalace (Fig. 13), which is comparablewith architravesof the Hellenistictempleat Hatra(Safar and MuhammadAli 1974: 347;Downey 1988:161);both piecesprobablydate to the secondor earlythirdcenturyAD. Dalley (1993: 138) regardedthe provenanceof this lintel, in an Assyriandoorway(Smith 1875:146), as evidencethat the ancientmud-brickwalls were still being used, but there is ample evidencefor later remainsarrivingin earlierlevels.Probablyabout the samedate and in the samearea,a large limestonestatuewas erected;partof its base survives,with one foot wearinga finesandal(Fig. 14), and it is a typicallyParthiantype of monument,that might equallyhave been erectedat Hatra. This and the HeraklesEpitrapeziospresumablystood in one or more shrinessituatedabove the South-WestPalace. There is the structurepreviouslymentioned,over the North Palace, which King describedas "probablya Parthiantemple". Jones (1855: sheet 1) marks an excavated "Parthiantomb" on Kuyunjik,but this seemsto be part of the South-WestPalace.No defensive walls of the period have yet been identified,but Stronach(1990: 107-8) refersto two levels of substantial"Parthian"structuresincluding a mud-brickplatform on the eastern edge of the mound, and it sounds as if the platform could have been on the line of a wall surrounding Kuyunjik. Much of the mound was probablycovered by smallerGreco-Parthianbuildings,which have produced a great abundanceof pottery, figurinesand other small objects; many have been publishedin drawingsand occasionallyphotographs(notablyThompsonand Hutchinson1929: 138, Pls. LIII-LVII;1931:83-93, Pls. XXI-XXV, XXXVI-XXXVIII;Thompsonand Hamilton 1932:74-7, Pls. LI-LII, LXII, LXV-LXVIII;Thompsonand Mallowan1933:72-4, Pls. LXXVLXXVIII; Hutchinson 1934: 88). Much of this material is in the British Museum and the AshmoleanMuseum,Oxford, but has still to be studiedin detail. Nimrudparallels(Oates and Oates 1958: 126-9, 135-6) suggestthat the settlementgoes back to the third or second century BC. There are also sherdsof Roman sigillata and of Parthianand Sasanianimpressedwares,but as usual little plain pottery. The firstspecificallyParthianobjectfrom Kuyunjikis as earlyas the firstor even secondcentury BC. It was found above the Nabu Temple,and is a well-madebone handle, now in the British Museum(Fig. 15: Thompsonand Hutchinson1929:P1.LVII.343).At one end it has an incised and colouredpatternof a rosettewithina runningmeander,whileon its side is incisedin Pahlavi the name "Tiridat(son) of Bay". I am indebtedfor this readingto A. B. Nikitin, throughthe good officesof my colleagueSt John Simpson.Anotherrelevanttext is writtenin ink on a broken scapulafrom the South-WestPalace(Figs. 16-17: Smith 1875:427). ProfessorA. D. H. Bivar,in 21 am indebted to Alan Hills and Tony Milton for computer enhancement of the slides from which Figs. 10 and 11 are taken. This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions GRECO-PARTHIAN NINEIVIEH 77 M^i^^'" :"1n'?-^ffT^-7-^^fe^K^J^~~~~~~~~~~c Fig. 15 Bone handle:WA 1929-10-12,281. Length10-8cm, maximumdiameter1-7. British Museumphotograph. Fig. 16and Fig. 17 Inscribedscapula:WA 127401= DT 503. Height3-2cm, width6.6, depth 1. BritishMuseumphotographs. a letter of 18 May 1983, tentatively identified it as referring to a delivery of goods to the governor (principal face, line 2: [l-y]d pht'), and suggested a date in the first century BC or AD. Although the main military roads continued to by-pass Nineveh, Mosul on the left bank is a possible site for adfl[umen] Tigrem of the Pcutinger Table, and was overlooked at one stage by a Roman outpost (Kennedy 1988). The prosperity and extensive economic links of the city are suggested by goldwork in a group of tombs found near the Assyrian Ishtar Temple and published by Curtis (1976), who cites a range of parallels from Hellenistic Syria and Mesopotamia, dating them around Al) 100 150; perhaps there is some connection with part of a Hellenistic funerary This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 78 J. E. READE 2: .- I - Fig. 18 Grave stela. Height c. 50cm. British Museum excavations, 1930-1. CampbellThompsonphotograph. Fig. 19 Roman eagle mount. WA 1930-5-8, 133. Diameter 6-8. BritishMuseumphotograph. stela from the same area (Fig. 18: Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 78, PI. LI. ). Two silver hoards are briefly discussed by Le Rider (1967: 4, 15): one consisted of 88 Roman coins, reaching down to AD 201 or later, the other of some 300 Roman and 92 Parthian coins, reaching down to AD 215. The latter, like a hoard of similar date from Qal'a Shergat, probably ancient Libana (cf. Assyrian libbi ali), might have been buried because of Caracalla's proximity. Nineveh's Greek constitution may well have disappeared before AD 200; it seems most improbable that it should have survived the various wars between Romans, Hatrenes, Adiabenians, Parthians and Sasanians during the first half of the third century. One relic of this warfare, among the finds from Kuyunjik, is a Roman eagle mount (Fig. 19: Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: 92-3, PI. XXII.6). Decorated in openwork with a central eagle and the legend CON OPTIME MAXIME, it would originally have been one of a set of three baldric ornaments. The CON stands for conserva, and the inscription would have been completed on the other pieces of the set: "Preserve (us), best and greatest (of the gods)!" Parts of these sets are known from the Roman frontier in England, Germany and Morocco, one of them securely dated about the first half of the third century (Allason-Jones 1996; Reade, in press). There are also four helmets, which were found here and there on Kuyunjik as if lost or mislaid in the confusion of war. They are discussed by James (1986: 117-19), who was unable to decide from the modest comparative evidence whether three of them were Parthian or Sasanian; for a fourth he found parallels both from the eighth-tenth centuries and from modern Tibet, though they hardly preclude an earlier date. One might even speculate that both eagle mount and helmets were lost in a single battle. Nineveh did continue to exist during the Sasanian period, becoming the seat of Jacobite and Nestorian bishops. Rather than suffering any one decisive catastrophe, the city broadly seems to have just declined in importance as the Sasanian and Muslim military base of Mosul on the opposite bank of the Tigris expanded and became the major centre. It may be helpful in this context to draw attention to several more items which either do come This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions GRECO-PARTHIANNINEVEH 79 Fig. 20 Tablets in unidentifiedscript. From left to right, top row: Sm 2095, Sm 2089, Sm 2087;middleright:Sm 2092;bottom row:Sm 2098, Sm 2153, Sm 2154. BritishMuseum photographs. from Greco-Parthian Nineveh, or do not come from there, or which are perhaps in danger of being assigned to this site and period without adequate evidence. 1. A stone tablet inscribed with a list of Macedonian months is published as found at Nineveh (Hamilton 1839; Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum 4672). The list uses the Roman order of months, incorporates a serious mistake in the last name, and has been assigned to the third century AD, though an earlier date seems possible. I am indebted to Mr Charles Hunt, however, for the information that this object is not from Nineveh. It was brought to Europe about 1822 by Dr Robert Wilson, whose journal "Mesopotamia, Assyria and Babylon", Ms 419 in Marischal College, University of Aberdeen, records that he purchased it at "Opis", i.e. probably Seleucia or thereabouts. Hamilton's provenance seems to derive from the fact that Wilson also visited Nineveh, where he obtained a pot. Mr Hunt tells me that by 1907 the tablet itself was no longer in the Anthropological Museum at Marischal College. 2. A group of fragments from two or three inscribed clay tablets are in the British Museum (Fig. 20). One tablet (Sm 2087, 2089, 2092, 2095) was made in a most peculiar way from strips This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 80 J. E. READEI Fig. 21 Grave stela. WA 1889-4-26,211. Height 25-3cm, width 13-3, depth 3-3. British Museum photograph. Fig. 22 Limestone head. WA 135992A. Height c. 32cm, width 21, depth 16. British Museum photograph. of clay jammed together and smoothed on one surface only; so was another fragment (Sm 2098), possibly from another tablet; it is not clear whether the other two fragments (Sm 2153 4), which have been subjected to heat, were made in a similar way. All of them were brought back from Nineveh by George Smith (1875: 426 7), and must correspond to those described by him as written in Pahlavi and deriving from the South-West Palace. Bezold (1896: 1530) catalogued them as being in "rare alphabetic characters", but the system by which they were written, if any, is enigmatic. Sayce (1885: 756) took the trouble to copy them as "fragments written in characters resembling Pehlevi which cannot be older than the Persian epoch", but apparently did not publish his copies. They have been rejected by every scholar of Pahlavi, and other specialists, to whom I have shown them. It has been suggested that they are fakes, created for Smith by one of his workmen, but they do not look modern. The alternative is that they arc ancient examples of an alphabetic cursive script, or an imitation of one, which was incised on an unfamiliar material, clay, because the writers knew that that was what the Assyrians did. So they are illustrated here in the hope that someone may resolve this problem. 3. A broken marble grave-stela was acquired for the British Museum by Wallis Budge during an expedition to the Middle East (Fig. 21). It shows a woman on a couch, with the inscription [... EY]TYXEI, "farewell". There may somewhere be a safe record of its original place of acquisition, but if so I have not located it. It arrived together with other objects some of which were excavated at Nineveh and some purchased in Babylonia, and is itself registered as coming from Babylonia. So, however, are several Assyrian stone hands that plainly belong with others of the same kind excavated at Nineveh (Curtis and Reade 1995: 102). Besides the finer example of this kind of funerary scene shown in Fig. 18, the Mosul Museum in 1966 contained an uninscribed stela, possibly from Nineveh, showing a man on a couch. So there must be a suspicion that the Budge stela, despite its unusual material, comes from Nineveh. Yet Budge is a notoriously unreliable witness: according to Woolley (1962: 33) his attitude to an object was that "If it comes from an excavation, the excavator gives me all sorts of information about its level and its date This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions GRECO-PARTHIAN NINEVEH 81 WesternAdiabene,Hatra, and the Roman frontier.Base-mapadaptedfrom Oates 1968: 14, Fig 2. and its history and so on, which isn't very interesting. Whereas if I buy from a dealer I can use my own imagination and say what it really is." So he may have acquired this stela elsewhere in the Levant. 4. A limestone Parthian head with a few traces of stucco (Fig. 22) has certainly been in the British Museum very many years; it is mounted on a stone base of a kind apparently used about 1880-1940. Because so many objects excavated at Nineveh during 1878-82 were not properly entered in the Museum registers on arrival, the suspicion may arise that it was found there at that time. Yet if so its mount would probably have acquired a museum number in the 90,000 range. In fact the upper back of the head is slightly eroded in a way suggesting exposure, and it may have been a casual surface find. The head is broadly similar to ones from Hatra, a site which many British officers must have visited in the 1920s. 5. Finally there is an inscribed tombstone, a tabula ansata, of which my rough copy reads FAIOC AOVKIOC BACCOC BOVAEVTHC EIIOHCEN EK TWN IAIWN TO MNHMA [TWN TEKNW?]N MAPKOV KAI AOVKIOV: "Gaios Loukios Bassos, councillor, erected at his own expense the memorial of [his children?] Markos and Loukios." The text evidently derives from a place where some people had Roman names, where Greek was the language they used for town-council. memorial stones, and which possessed a flovArX, I saw this stone about 1965, when it was stored unnumbered in an outbuilding of the then new Iraq Museum; the material with it included a Nimrud Room B wall-panel, Ur door-sockets, and fragments of sculpture from Aqar Quf, all excavated before 1945. The late Professor Fuad Safar, who encouraged me to publish the piece and to whom all scholars then working in Iraq were indebted for his great breadth of knowledge liberally shared, had not known of the piece and This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 82 J. E. READE could locate no record of when or how it had entered the museum, but supposed that it had been found by chance somewhere in northern Iraq. Since some at least of the contents of this outbuilding were later moved to Mosul or Nineveh, maybe this stone may in future be thought to have been excavated there: Greek Nineveh must have had a town-council, and there may from time to time have been families with Romanized names resident in the city. If this stone does really come from Iraq, however, a more likely provenance is the Roman colonia, presumably complete with towncouncil, at Sinjar. References Allason-Jones, L. 1996. An eagle mount from Carlisle. Saalburg Jahrbuch 42: 68-9. Al-Salihi, W. 1973. Hercules-Nergal at Hatra (II). Iraq 35: 65-9. Amin, M. al- 1948. Archaeological discoveries in the north of Iraq. Sumer 4 (2), Arabic section: 180-219. Andre-Salvini, B. 1994. "Ofu sont-ils ces remparts de Ninive?": les sources de connaissance de l'Assyrie avant les fouilles. In E. Fontan, editor, De Khorsabad a Paris: 22-39. Ball, W. 1989. Seh Gubba, a Roman frontier post in northern Iraq. In D. H. French and C. S. 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Fuller and A. D. H. Bivar, Parthian Ostraca from the Syrian Jazira, Bulletin of the Asia Institute: Studies in Honor of VladimirA. Livshits, NS 10 (1996): 25-31. This content downloaded from 77.103.134.18 on Sun, 12 Jan 2014 08:22:59 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions