Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:15:00.475Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Christians at Nineveh in Late Antiquity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

St J. Simpson
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The mound of Kuyunjik contains the longest known archaeological sequence of occupation in Mesopotamia, spanning all periods from the sixth millennium BC until at least the thirteenth century AD. The prehistoric periods have been comprehensively studied by Gut (1995, 2002) and the general sequence of excavation, occupation and principal architectural finds reviewed by Reade (2000), yet despite a few exceptions (Curtis 1976, 1995; Reade 1998, 1999, 2001; Simpson 1996), the pottery and other finds from the Seleucid period onwards have thus far attracted surprisingly little study. For these periods though, the material culture is characterised by a strong mixture of Classical and Oriental traditions; thus, first-century AD graves contained gold face-coverings and the remains of diadems, both hinting at the eastern extension of practices more commonly found in the eastern Roman provinces, but Western lamps, glassware, ceramics and even a Roman military badge also occur at the site. Some of these betray direct political and military control, whereas others reflect a mixture of imports and local imitations; an appreciation of this rich cultural mix is important for the clearer understanding of Nineveh in Late Antiquity.

Nineveh almost certainly held a Roman garrison at the extreme eastern limit of its empire but following the humiliation of the apostate Julian's Mesopotamian campaign of 363, it must have been ceded as part of the handover of five trans-Tigridian Roman provinces containing Nisibis, Singara, Castra Maurorum and fifteen unnamed forts to Shapur II (309–379). Thereafter the material culture from Nineveh finally acquires an Iranian character and, until its capture in 637/38 or 641/42 by an Arab army generally believed to have been commanded by ‘Utba bin Farqad, it flourished as a Sasanian town, bridgehead and fortress on the east bank of the Tigris (cf. Robinson 2000, 36–7). The datable finds of this period include four hoards of silver and bronze coins (Simpson 1996, 95–6); several personal seals, bullae and elaborate cutlery of Sasanian type (Simpson 1996, 97–8; 2003, 362–3, Fig. 3); a range of plain, mould-blown and cut glass (Simpson 2005); and four helmets, the latter hinting at the military component of the settlement referred to in the Arab sources (Simpson forthcoming, b).

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 67 , Issue 1: Nineveh. Papers of the XLIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part Two , Spring 2005 , pp. 285 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2005

References

Almagro Gorbea, M., 1964/1965. Un nuevo incensario de época visigoda halado en España, Ampurias 26/27, 181–201.Google Scholar
Bailey, D. M., 1996. A Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum. IV. Lamps of Metal and Stone, and Lampstands, London.Google Scholar
Bernard, P. and Salles, J.-F., 1991. Discovery of a Christian church at al-Qusur, Failaka (Kuwait), Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 21, 7–21.Google Scholar
Curtis, J. E., 1976. Parthian gold from Nineveh, The British Museum Yearbook 1. The Classical Tradition, 47–66, London.Google Scholar
Curtis, J. E., 1995. Gold face-masks in the Ancient Near East, The Archaeology of Death in the Ancient Near East (Campbell, S. and Green, A., eds), 226–31, Oxford.Google Scholar
De Morgan, J., Jéquier, G. and Lampre, G., 1900. Fouilles à Suse en 1897–1898 et 1898–1899, Mémoires de la Délégation archéologiques, tome I: Recherches archéologiques, première série, Paris: Ernest Leroux.Google Scholar
Fiey, J.-M., 1965/1968. Assyrie chrétienne, Beirut; 3 vols.Google Scholar
Fowden, E. K., 1999. The Barbarian Plain. Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London.Google Scholar
Gachet, J., 1998. ‘Akkaz (Kuwait), a site of the Partho-Sasanian period. A preliminary report on three campaigns of excavation (1993–1996), Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 28, 69–79.Google Scholar
Gut, R. V., 1995. Das prähistorische Ninive. Zur relativen Chronologie der frühen Perioden Nordmesopotamiens, Baghdader Forschungen 19, Mainz.Google Scholar
Gut, R. V., 2002. The significance of the Uruk sequence at Nineveh, Artefacts of Complexity. Tracking the Uruk in the Near East (Postgate, J. N., ed.), 17–48, Warminster.Google Scholar
Hauser, S. R., forthcoming. Christliche Archäologie im Sasanidenreich. Grundlagen der Interpretation und Bestandsaufnahme der Evidenz. Inkulturation des Christentums im Sasanidenreich; Proceedings of a conference at Leucorea, Wittenberg, May 1999 (Tübach, J. and Araba, S., eds), Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Lightfoot, C. S., 1989. A Catalogue of Glass Vessels in Afyon Museum/Afyon Miizesindeki Cam Eserler Kalalogu, Oxford.Google Scholar
Morony, M. G., 1982. Continuity and change in the administrative geography of Late Sasanian and Early Islamic al-'Iraq, Iran 20, 1–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morony, M. G., 1984. Iraq after the Muslim Conquest, Princeton.Google Scholar
Negro Ponzi, M. M., 1984. Glassware from Choche (Central Mesopotamia), Arabie Orientale, Mésopotamie et Iran méridional de l'age du fer au début de la période islamique (Boucharlat, R. and Salles, J.-F., eds), 33–40, Paris.Google Scholar
Okada, Y., 1990. Reconsideration of plaque-type crosses from Ain Sha'ia near Najaf, Al-Rafidan 11, 103–12.Google Scholar
Okada, Y., 1991. Early Christian architecture in the Iraqi south-western desert, Al-Rafidan 12, 71–83.Google Scholar
Okada, Y., 1992. Ain Sha'ia and the early Gulf churches: An architectural analogy, Al-Rafidan 13, 87–93.Google Scholar
Oppenheimer, A., 1983. Babylonian Judaica in the Talmudic Period, Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Oren, E. D., 1993. A Christian settlement at Ostrakine in north Sinai, Ancient Churches Revealed (Tsafrir, Y., ed.), 305–14, Jerusalem.Google Scholar
Reade, J. E., 1998. Greco-Parthian Nineveh, Iraq 60, 65–83.Google Scholar
Reade, J. E., 1999. An Eagle from the East, Britannia 30, 286–8, Pl. XXIIIa.Google Scholar
Reade, J. E., 2000. s.v. Ninive (Nineveh), Archäologie, Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 9/5–6, 388–433.Google Scholar
Reade, J. E., 2001. More about Adiabene, Iraq 63, 187–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, C. F., 2000. Empire and Elites after the Muslim Conquest. The Transformation of Northern Mesopotamia, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sachau, E., 1919. Zur Ausbreitung des Christentums in Asien, Berlin.Google Scholar
Scher, A., 1908/1919. Histoire nestorienne inédite, Chronique de Séert, Paris.Google Scholar
Simpson, St J., 1994. A note on Qasr Serij, Iraq 56, 149–51.Google Scholar
Simpson, St J., 1996. From Tekrit to the Jaghjagh: Sasanian sites, settlement patterns and material culture in northern Mesopotamia, Continuity and Change in Northern Mesopotamia from the Hellenistic to the Early Islamic Period (Bartl, K. and Hauser, S. R., eds), 87–126, Pls. 1–2, Berlin.Google Scholar
Simpson, St J., 2003. From Mesopotamia to Merv: Reconstructing patterns of consumption in Sasanian households, Culture through Objects. Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of P.R.S. Moorey (Potts, T., Roaf, M. and Stein, D., eds), 347–75, Oxford.Google Scholar
Simpson, St J., 2005. Sasanian glass from Nineveh, Annales du 16e Congrès de l'Association internationale pour l'histoire du verre (London, July 2003), 146–51.Google Scholar
Simpson, St J., forthcoming, a. First class stamps: Late Sasanian pots, potters and people in northern Mesopotamia, Baghdader Mitteilungen.Google Scholar
Simpson, St J., forthcoming, b. Sasanian helmets from Nineveh, Proceedings of the International Conference of Arms and Armament in Parthian and Sasanian Times (Mode, M. and Tübach, J., eds), Halle.Google Scholar
Talbot Rice, D., 1932 a. The Oxford Excavations at Hira, 1931, Antiquity 6, 276–91, Pls. 1 VIII.Google Scholar
Talbot Rice, D., 1932 b. Hira, Journal of the Royal Central Central Asia Society (04), 254–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talbot Rice, D., 1934. The Oxford Excavations at Hira, Ars Islamica 1/1, 51–73.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. C. and Hamilton, R. W., 1932. The British Museum excavations on the Temple of Ishtar at Nineveh, 1930–31, [Liverpool] Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 19, 55–116, Pls. XLVI–XCII.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. C. and Hutchinson, R. W., 1929. The Excavations on the Temple of Nabu at Nineveh, Archaeologia 79, 103–48, Pls. XLI–LXV.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. C. and Hutchinson, R. W., 1931. The Site of the Palace of Ashurnasirpal at Nineveh, excavated in 1929–30 on behalf of the British Museum, Archaeologia 79, 103–48, Pls. XLI–LXV.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. C. and Mallowan, M. E. L., 1933. The British Museum Excavations at Nineveh, 1931–32, [Liverpool] Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 20, 71–186, Pls. XXXV–CVI.Google Scholar
Waldbaum, J. C. et al., 1983. Metalwork from Sardis: The Finds through 1974, Cambridge [Mass.].Google Scholar
Weinberg, G. D., ed., 1988. Excavations at Jalame. Site of a Glass Factory in Late Roman Palestine, Columbia.Google Scholar