nineveh

4 definitions found

nineveh - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Nineveh \Nineveh\ prop. n.
     An ancient Assyrian city.
     [WordNet 1.5]

nineveh - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  Nineveh
      n 1: an ancient Assyrian city on the Tigris across from the
           modern city of Mosul in the northern part of what is now
           known as Iraq

nineveh - Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary :

  Nineveh
  First mentioned in Gen. 10:11, which is rendered in the Revised
  Version, "He [i.e., Nimrod] went forth into Assyria and builded
  Nineveh." It is not again noticed till the days of Jonah, when
  it is described (Jonah 3:3; 4:11) as a great and populous city,
  the flourishing capital of the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 19:36;
  Isa. 37:37). The book of the prophet Nahum is almost exclusively
  taken up with prophetic denunciations against this city. Its
  ruin and utter desolation are foretold (Nah.1:14; 3:19, etc.).
  Zephaniah also (2:13-15) predicts its destruction along with the
  fall of the empire of which it was the capital. From this time
  there is no mention of it in Scripture till it is named in
  gospel history (Matt. 12:41; Luke 11:32).
  
    This "exceeding great city" lay on the eastern or left bank of
  the river Tigris, along which it stretched for some 30 miles,
  having an average breadth of 10 miles or more from the river
  back toward the eastern hills. This whole extensive space is now
  one immense area of ruins. Occupying a central position on the
  great highway between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean,
  thus uniting the East and the West, wealth flowed into it from
  many sources, so that it became the greatest of all ancient
  cities.
  
    About B.C. 633 the Assyrian empire began to show signs of
  weakness, and Nineveh was attacked by the Medes, who
  subsequently, about B.C. 625, being joined by the Babylonians
  and Susianians, again attacked it, when it fell, and was razed
  to the ground. The Assyrian empire then came to an end, the
  Medes and Babylonians dividing its provinces between them.
  "After having ruled for more than six hundred years with hideous
  tyranny and violence, from the Caucasus and the Caspian to the
  Persian Gulf, and from beyond the Tigris to Asia Minor and
  Egypt, it vanished like a dream" (Nah. 2:6-11). Its end was
  strange, sudden, tragic. It was God's doing, his judgement on
  Assyria's pride (Isa. 10:5-19).
  
    Forty years ago our knowledge of the great Assyrian empire and
  of its magnificent capital was almost wholly a blank. Vague
  memories had indeed survived of its power and greatness, but
  very little was definitely known about it. Other cities which
  had perished, as Palmyra, Persepolis, and Thebes, had left ruins
  to mark their sites and tell of their former greatness; but of
  this city, imperial Nineveh, not a single vestige seemed to
  remain, and the very place on which it had stood was only matter
  of conjecture. In fulfilment of prophecy, God made "an utter end
  of the place." It became a "desolation."
  
    In the days of the Greek historian Herodotus, B.C. 400, it had
  become a thing of the past; and when Xenophon the historian
  passed the place in the "Retreat of the Ten Thousand," the very
  memory of its name had been lost. It was buried out of sight,
  and no one knew its grave. It is never again to rise from its
  ruins.
  
    At length, after being lost for more than two thousand years,
  the city was disentombed. A little more than forty years ago the
  French consul at Mosul began to search the vast mounds that lay
  along the opposite bank of the river. The Arabs whom he employed
  in these excavations, to their great surprise, came upon the
  ruins of a building at the mound of Khorsabad, which, on further
  exploration, turned out to be the royal palace of Sargon, one of
  the Assyrian kings. They found their way into its extensive
  courts and chambers, and brought forth form its hidded depths
  many wonderful sculptures and other relics of those ancient
  times.
  
    The work of exploration has been carried on almost
  continuously by M. Botta, Sir Henry Layard, George Smith, and
  others, in the mounds of Nebi-Yunus, Nimrud, Koyunjik, and
  Khorsabad, and a vast treasury of specimens of old Assyrian art
  has been exhumed. Palace after palace has been discovered, with
  their decorations and their sculptured slabs, revealing the life
  and manners of this ancient people, their arts of war and peace,
  the forms of their religion, the style of their architecture,
  and the magnificence of their monarchs. The streets of the city
  have been explored, the inscriptions on the bricks and tablets
  and sculptured figures have been read, and now the secrets of
  their history have been brought to light.
  
    One of the most remarkable of recent discoveries is that of
  the library of King Assur-bani-pal, or, as the Greek historians
  call him, Sardanapalos, the grandson of Sennacherib (q.v.). (See
  ASNAPPER.) This library consists of about ten thousand
  flat bricks or tablets, all written over with Assyrian
  characters. They contain a record of the history, the laws, and
  the religion of Assyria, of the greatest value. These strange
  clay leaves found in the royal library form the most valuable of
  all the treasuries of the literature of the old world. The
  library contains also old Accadian documents, which are the
  oldest extant documents in the world, dating as far back as
  probably about the time of Abraham. (See SARGON.)
  
    "The Assyrian royalty is, perhaps, the most luxurious of our
  century [reign of Assur-bani-pa]...Its victories and conquests,
  uninterrupted for one hundred years, have enriched it with the
  spoil of twenty peoples. Sargon has taken what remained to the
  Hittites; Sennacherib overcame Chaldea, and the treasures of
  Babylon were transferred to his coffers; Esarhaddon and
  Assur-bani-pal himself have pillaged Egypt and her great cities,
  Sais, Memphis, and Thebes of the hundred gates...Now foreign
  merchants flock into Nineveh, bringing with them the most
  valuable productions from all countries, gold and perfume from
  South Arabia and the Chaldean Sea, Egyptian linen and
  glass-work, carved enamels, goldsmiths' work, tin, silver,
  Phoenician purple; cedar wood from Lebanon, unassailable by
  worms; furs and iron from Asia Minor and Armenia" (Ancient Egypt
  and Assyria, by G. Maspero, page 271).
  
    The bas-reliefs, alabaster slabs, and sculptured monuments
  found in these recovered palaces serve in a remarkable manner to
  confirm the Old Testament history of the kings of Israel. The
  appearance of the ruins shows that the destruction of the city
  was due not only to the assailing foe but also to the flood and
  the fire, thus confirming the ancient prophecies concerning it.
  "The recent excavations," says Rawlinson, "have shown that fire
  was a great instrument in the destruction of the Nineveh
  palaces. Calcined alabaster, charred wood, and charcoal,
  colossal statues split through with heat, are met with in parts
  of the Nineveh mounds, and attest the veracity of prophecy."
  
    Nineveh in its glory was (Jonah 3:4) an "exceeding great city
  of three days' journey", i.e., probably in circuit. This would
  give a circumference of about 60 miles. At the four corners of
  an irregular quadrangle are the ruins of Kouyunjik, Nimrud,
  Karamless and Khorsabad. These four great masses of ruins, with
  the whole area included within the parallelogram they form by
  lines drawn from the one to the other, are generally regarded as
  composing the whole ruins of Nineveh.

nineveh - U.S. Gazetteer (1990) :

  Nineveh, IN
    Zip code(s): 46164
  Nineveh, NY
    Zip code(s): 13813
  Nineveh, PA
    Zip code(s): 15353