By such blessings and curses Tukulti-Ninib hoped to ensure the preservation of his name and the rebuilding of his city, should it at any time be neglected and fall into decay. Curiously enough, it was in this very city that Tukulti-Ninib met his own fate less than seven years after he had founded it. At that time one of his own sons, who bore the name of Ashur-nasir-pal, conspired against his father and stirred up the nobles to revolt. The insurrection was arranged when Tukulti-Ninib was absent from his capital and staying in Kar-Tukulti-Ninib, where he was probably protected by only a small bodyguard, the bulk of his veteran warriors remaining behind in garrison at Ashur. The insurgent nobles, headed by Ashur-nasir-pal, fell upon the king without warning when he was passing through the city without any suspicion of risk from a treacherous attack. The king defended himself and sought refuge in a neighbouring house, but the conspirators surrounded the building and, having forced an entrance, slew him with the sword. Thus Tukulti-Ninib perished in the city he had built and beautified with the spoils of his campaigns, where he had looked forward to passing a peaceful and secure old age. Of the fate of the city itself we know little except that its site is marked to-day by a few mounds which rise slightly above the level of the surrounding desert. The king’s memorial tablet only has survived. For some 3,200 years it rested undisturbed in the foundations of the wall of unburnt brick, where it was buried by Tukulti-Ninib on the completion of the city wall.
King of Assyria, about B. C. 1275.
Thence it was removed by the hands of modern Arabs, and it is now preserved in the British Museum, where the characters of the inscription may be seen to be as sharp and uninjured as on the day when the Assyrian graver inscribed them by order of the king.
In the account of his first campaign, which is preserved upon the memorial tablet, it is stated that the peoples conquered by Tukulti-Ninib brought their yearly tribute to the city of Ashur. This fact is of considerable interest, for it proves that Tukulti-Ninib restored the capital of Assyria to the city of Ashur, removing it from Calah, whither it had been transferred by his father Shalmaneser I. The city of Calah had been founded and built by Shalmaneser I in the same way that his son Tukulti-Ninib built the city of Kar-Tukulti-Ninib, and the building of both cities is striking evidence of the rapid growth of Assyria and her need of expansion around fresh centres prepared for administration and defence. The shifting of the Assyrian capital to Calah by Shalmaneser I was also due to the extension of Assyrian power in the north, in consequence of which there was need of having the capital nearer the centre of the country so enlarged. Ashur’s recovery of her old position under Tukulti-Ninib I was only a temporary check to this movement northwards, and, so long as Babylon remained a conquered province of the Assyrian empire, obviously the need for a capital farther north than Ashur would not have been pressing.
But with Tukulti-Ninib’s death Babylon regained her independence and freed herself from Assyrian control, and the centre of the northern kingdom was once more subject to the influences which eventually resulted in the permanent transference of her capital to Nineveh. To the comparative neglect into which Ashur and Calah consequently fell, we may probably trace the extensive remains of buildings belonging to the earlier periods of Assyrian history which have been recovered and still remain to be found, in the mounds that mark their sites.
We have given some account of the results already achieved from the excavations carried out during the last two years at Sherghat, the site of the city of Ashur. That much remains to be done on the site of Calah, the other early capital of Assyria, is evident from even a cursory examination of the present condition of the mounds that mark the location of the city. These mounds are now known by the name of Nimrûd and are situated on the left or eastern bank of the Tigris, a short distance above the point at which it is joined by the stream of the Upper Zâb, and the great mound which still covers the remains of the ziggurat, or temple tower, can be seen from a considerable distance across the plain. During the excavations formerly carried out here for the British Museum, remains of palaces were recovered which had been built or restored by Shal-maneser I, Ashur-nasir-pal, Shalmaneser II, Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon, Esarhaddon, and Ashur-etil-ilâni. After the conclusion of the diggings and the removal of many of the sculptures to England, the site was covered again with earth, in order to protect the remains of Assyrian buildings which were left in place. Since that time the soil has sunk and been washed away by the rains so that many of the larger sculptures are now protruding above the soil, an example of which is seen in the two winged bulls in the palace of Ashur-nasir-pal. It is improbable that the mounds of Nimrûd will yield such rich results as Sherghat, but the site would probably well repay prolonged and systematic excavation.