Ninive sometimes Nineveh (Arab: rear nīnwā RTL نينوى) is an old town of Assyrie, on the Tigre, which is at present not far from the town of Mosul in Iraq.

History

It is one of the oldest cities of Mésopotamie: one finds there traces going back to the Protohistoire (). Its first written mention goes up around -2100. The Bible mentions its creation in the book of the Genèse, and allots it to Nimrod (Gn 10,11), great-grandson of Noah. Ninive was dedicated to the goddess Ishtar.

The Assyrian king Sennacherib (eighth century BC) makes his capital of it. It is of him which date its splendor: it builds palate, fortifications and aqueducts. The city is destroyed by Babylonian Mèdes and the in -612.

According to the Bible, at the time of Yonah (or Jonas), approximately 840 - 850 years before our era, the city comprised 120  000 men without counting the women and the children. The size of the city was estimated at three days of walk. It was called the sanguinary city by a Hebrew prophet of the name of Nahoum.

Ninive fallen and destroyed, in 612 before J.C, one ends up forgetting the place where it was, which Hérodote mentions. It will be found only in 1847, by Austen Henry Layard, with the palate of 71 parts and the Bibliothèque of Assurbanipal container 22  000 shelves of clay in good state of conservation, testimonys single on Assyrian civilization. The excavations remain nevertheless unfinished to date (2006).