Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures

DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10196-1
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Bricks in Nineveh
Davide Nadali*
Dipartimento di Scienze, dellAntichit, Sapienza Universit di Roma, Rome, Italy

Nineveh was completely rebuilt, restored, and enlarged when it was elected as the capital city of the
Assyrian empire by the king Sennacherib (704681 BC) in the seventh century BC. He had nally
abandoned Dur Sharrukin, the city founded by his father Sargon II (721705 BC).
Sennacherib deeply changed the aspect of Nineveh. The city was an important urban center since
the most ancient period because of the presence of the temple dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. During
the Assyrian time, the city always had a signicant role because of the Temple of Ishtar, but it nally
acquired a new political status when it also hosted the seat of the Assyrian kingship. In the seventh
century BC, after Sennacherib, Nineveh kept the role of the Assyrian capital of the empire as it did
also during the reigns of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. In the last phase of Neo-Assyrian history,
Nineveh underwent major works of restoration of old structures and construction of new buildings.
The building activities are in fact largely described and registered in detail in the Assyrian royal
inscriptions. Precise accounts are given of the building projects by King Sennacherib for the
restoration and extension of the defensive walls and urban gates, the construction of the new royal
residence (the so-called Palace without Rivals in the southwestern sector of the citadel of Quyunjiq),
and generally the remaking of the whole urban pattern and structure with new roads, bridges, and
aqueducts, the control of water sources and rivers, and the realization of botanical gardens (Grayson
& Novotny, 2012).
The massive works carried out during Sennacheribs kingdom deeply renewed the aspects of
Nineveh. As a consequence, mud bricks were intensively produced to accomplish the transformation
of the city during what can be labeled the Assyrian renaissance. They produced technological
innovations and knowledge improvements so that the new architectures and visual programs under
the reign of Sennacherib were qualied as masterful and artful with no comparisons and rivals
(Winter, 2008).
Architectural indications of measurements in the inscriptions refer to the number of bricks used.
For the walls of Nineveh, it is said that they were 40 bricks thick and 180/200 brick-courses high; for
the construction of Sennacheribs palace, inscriptions say that the height of the mud brick terrace was
raised to 180 brick courses. Standard mud brick sizes found during the excavations of Nineveh are
about 37 by 37 by 12 cm, and, according to these dimensions, it is possible to reconstruct the original
height of the wall of Nineveh (about 22 m with a maximum height of 25 m) and the imposing
structure of the terrace of Sennacheribs palace (about 22 m high) (Reade, 2000, pp. 399400).
Bricks were massively produced according to standardized dimensions; there were different types of
bricks, particularly for different shapes and decorations. As a consequence, bricks were differently
used in the constructions as either part of the elevation of the buildings or the decoration of external
faades. In this respect, one of the sides of the bricks was painted and colored with geometrical
drawings and representations of humans and animals gures, and, in some special instances, bricks
were even molded and decorated with high-relief motifs.
For the technique and manufacture of glazed bricks in Assyria, Assyrian glazed bricks are
undoubtedly inferior in quality to the contemporary and later Babylonian production. Actually,

*Email: davide.nadali@uniroma1.it

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Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10196-1
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

the glaze layer on the Assyrian bricks is in fact so friable (Assyrian bricks in museum collections are
characterized by weak colors and they must be handled with great care to preserve the few traces of
glaze) that it tends to pulverize readily (Reade, 1987, p. 32). For that reason, in old publications,
Assyrian glazed bricks were qualied as painted bricks. However, since glazed bricks were
supposed to decorate architectural elements of external faades, it is thus quite possible that the
glaze layer was originally adequately created and protected to endure. Indeed, improper restorations
made in the past, exposure to the air after excavation, and insufcient protection in museum display
surely contributed to the damage of the glaze layer with consequent negative judgments and
considerations of the knowledge of the glaze technology by the Assyrians (Reade, 1987, p. 32).
Modern analyses and researches on ancient glazed (painted) artifacts can in fact reveal the real
technological knowledge of the Assyrians by revealing the existence of ancient varnish to protect the
surface of the bas-reliefs, bricks, and tiles that were supposed to be placed on the outside (Verri,
Collins, Ambers, Sweek, & Simpson, 2009).
For the nature of the decoration, Assyrian bricks can thus be divided into two main types (Nadali,
2006, 2008): glazed tiles decorated with a complete larger scene on the main face and glazed bricks
decorated on either the larger face or the smaller sides with a detail of a scene or a gure (Fig. 1). In
this instance, bricks were then assembled and arranged as in a mosaic according to a precise order to
nally get the whole image Aramaic letters on the back of the bricks were used as symbols to guide
the correct arrangement (Russell, 1999).
A special category of bricks has been found at Nineveh as part of the original decoration of the
Temple of Ishtar on the main hill of Quyunjiq. The glazed tiles, probably dated to the reign of
Esarhaddon (681669 BC), are characterized by high-relief vegetal, animal, and human motifs
(Nadali, 2008). The single tiles were thus arranged with one next to/above/below the other
accordingly in forming the name of the king Esarhaddon written through the use of the Assyrian
system of hieroglyphic script. The same hieroglyphic writing had been used by Sargon II on the
faade of the Temple of Sin at Dur Sharrukin (Nunn, 1988, pp. 175182); as the bricks of Nineveh,

Fig. 1 Glazed tile of Esarhaddon from Nimrud (Photograph taken by the author; reproduced courtesy of the trustees of
the British Museum)

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Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10196-1
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Fig. 2 Glazed high-relief brick of Esarhaddon from Nineveh (Photograph taken by the author; reproduced courtesy of
the trustees of the British Museum)

the tiles of Sargon II had on their surface a detail of a larger gure, but the surface was at. In the
seventh century BC, a new shape was introduced: high-relief bricks probably conveyed the long-
lasting tradition of molded bricks of central and southern Mesopotamia since the second millennium
BC. Esarhaddons politics in the South, with special sets of building activities at Babylon, probably
inuenced the Assyrian way of making bricks, or, conversely, it might be inferred that Babylonian
craftsmen worked at Nineveh following their tradition in shaping bricks with high-relief pictures
(Nadali, 2008) (Fig. 2).
Mud bricks were the basic material for construction in Assyria, as generally in all regions of the
ancient Near East. The numbers of bricks, as referred to in the Assyrian royal accounts, indirectly
indicate the dimensions of the buildings, showing how the brick was a kind of standard unit for
measurement in building activities.
Glazed bricks and tiles were suitably used in particular context of the architecture to highlight
architectural elements and decorate external faades of both temples and palaces. The glaze layer
gave bricks and tiles a shining appearance, and this probably was the main aim in using these colored
and brilliant materials in the constructions. Faades of temples and palaces were immediately
recognizable even from a distance; the colors and light of the glazed bricks radiated the power
and melammu of the gods and kings of Assyria. Temples and palaces were built on high terraces. The
palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh stood on a terrace 180 brick-courses high; the Temple of Ishtar at
Nineveh was also built on the top of an articial terrace. Both buildings emerged from the line of the
city walls, and colored glazed bricks distinguished the seat of the goddess and the seat of the king
from the rest of the public buildings of Nineveh.

References
Grayson, A. K., & Novotny, J. (2012). The royal inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria
(704681 BC), Part 1. The royal inscriptions of the neo-Assyrian period 3/1. Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns.
Nadali, D. (2006). Esarhaddons glazed bricks from Nimrud: The Egyptian campaign depicted. Iraq,
68, 109119.

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Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10196-1
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Nadali, D. (2008). Assyrian high-relief bricks from Nineveh and the fragments of a royal name. Iraq,
70, 87104.
Nunn, A. (1988). Die Wandmalerei und der glasierte Wandschmuck im Alten Orient. Leiden: Brill.
Reade, J. (1987). Field observations of glass and glazed materials. In M. Bimson & I. C. Freestone
(Eds.), Early vitreous materials (Occasional paper No. 56, pp. 3138). London: British Museum.
Reade, J. (2000). Ninive (Nineveh). Reallexikon der Assyriologie, 9, 388433.
Russell, J. M. (1999). Some painted bricks from Nineveh. A preliminary report. Iranica Antiqua, 34,
84114.
Verri, G., Collins, P., Ambers, J., Sweek, T., & Simpson, S. J. (2009). Assyrian colours: Pigments on
a neo-Assyrian relief of a parade horse. The British Museum Technical Research Bulletin, 3,
5762.
Winter, I. J. (2008). Sennacheribs expert knowledge: Skill and mastery as components of royal
display. In R. B. Biggs, J. Myers, & M. T. Roth (Eds.), Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre
Assyriologique Internationale held at the oriental institute of the University of Chicago
July 1822, 2005 (Studies in ancient oriental civilizations, Vol. 62, pp. 333338). Chicago:
The University of Chicago.

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