KOUYUNJIK, so called by the Turks, but Armushiali by the Arabs, are mounds, opposite Mosul, long believed to be the remains of Nineveh. The ruins include the great mounds of Kouyun jik and Nabbi Yunus on the eastern bank of the river Tigris, and were examined by Sir A. H. Layard in 1849 and 1850. He sent to Great Britain, to the British Museum, many Assyrian and Babylonian sculptures, which were described in 1883 by Dr. Birch. They consist of slabs of gypsum or alabaster from the walls of Senna cherib's palace, of date between B.C. 705 and 681; also slabs of the time of Sennacherib's grandson, Assurbanipal, of date between B.C. 668 and 626 ; these are split and shattered by fire, which con sumed the palace.
Three expeditions conducted by George Smith, and later ones of Hormuz Rassam, have added largely to the stock of tablets from Kouyunjik, originally acquired for the British Museum by Sir A. H. Layard, and have also brought to light a few other tablets from the libraries of Babylonia.
George Smith, the Assyriologist, deciphered the terra-cotta tablets inscribed with cuneiform cha racters belonging to the great fictile library of Kouyunjik.
Nimrud is stated to have migrated from Cappa docia to the land of Sumer or Shinar, and, meeting there with the Semitic population, he settled with his followers, and built Babylon and Birs Nimrud or supposed Tower of Babel. The language of
these settlers, known as Akkadian, is yet preserved in several tablets, but it seems to have been en tirely supplanted by the Babylonian about the 12th or 10th century B.C., the Babylonian incor porating many Akkadian words. From the fusion of the intellectual race of Nimrud with the martial Babylonians sprang the two great nations to whom history and tradition ascribe the foremost place of sovereignty among the empires of the ancient world, in science and arts as in war. Mr. Theo. G. Pinches considers that art reached a high degree of excellence during the reign of Assur Nazir - pal, declined for a time, and then again rose to very high excellence about B.C. 700, at the beginning of the reign of Sennacherib.
Assur was the national god of the Assyrians. Bel was the Babylonian god. Istar of Nineveh was the goddess of love. Um-napistim was the Assyrian Noah. — Sayce, Fresh Light front the Ancient Monuments, p. 17.