'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎162v] (329/862)

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HISTORY
the first millennium sun-dried brick was used for the inner courses
and kiln-burned for the outer casing. The general effect was of huge
cubes, sometimes redeemed from monotonous ugliness by facings
of brilliantly glazed bricks which bore representations of strange
beasts In Assyria and Elam more use was made of stone as a
facing’ but brick was still predominant. The halls of the palaces of
Nineveh and Dur Shurrukin (Khorsabad) were adorned with the
fine series of relief sculptures in which the Assyrian kings told the
story of their conquests; many of these are preserved in the British
Museum (photos, ioi—104, 106, 107).
The towns of the plains needed walls and towers for defence,
though often the real fortress was the palace of the king. It was the
Assyrians who developed this style of fortification. Their huge city
walls at Ashur, Nineveh, and Khorsabad were imitated by Nebuchad
nezzar II at Babylon. These brick towns were easily destroyed by fire
and floods, and were frequently rebuilt upon the same site after mis
adventure in the continual wars and rebellions. This is the origin
of the tels of the Mesopotamian plain, which are the ruin-mounds of
layer upon layer of ancient towns. When the population was dis
persed or removed to another site the tel would remain abandoned.
Thus the very position of Nineveh was almost forgotten within two
centuries of its destruction.
Persian Achaemenid Empire, 539-33 1 B - c -
The Medes after 612 were busy extending their power in Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey.
and Armenia north of the Taurus, where Cyaxares extinguished
Urartu and reached the Halys, the eastern boundary of the kingdom
of Lydia. The Medes could not overcome Lydia unaided, and in
585 a ‘Four-Power Pact’ stabilized the division of western Asia
between Media, Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt. But in 553 there was
a change of dynasty. Cyrus the Persian, whose predecessors had
ruled both in Persis and in Elam (p. 219), replaced the son of Cyaxares
and united Medes and Persians into a single Power. By 546, having
overthrown Lydia, he was ready to deal with Babylon. In 539 the
forces of Babylon under Belshazzar were defeated at Opis on the
Tigris (p. 45). The city of Babylon surrendered without fighting, but
the citadel was besieged and stormed (538). By Cyrus’ conquest 0
Babylon the Semitic empire of Mesopotamia and Syria was united
with the former Anatolian kingdoms and with the dominions ot t e
Persian plateau into a world-wide empire, to which Cambyses added