Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 19'" CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 11
criminates between the statement of the Arabian geographer
Abulfeda, claiming the eastern bank of the Tigris for the
true site of Nineveh, and a tradition current among the
natives, 1 who identify Eski- Mosul, a ruin on the western
side and considerably higher up the river, with the ancient
city, himself favoring, however, the former view. For,
"opposite Mosul there is a place called Tell Et-tuba, i. e. y
1
Mound of Repentance,' where, they say, the Ninevites
put on sackcloth and ashes to turn away the wrath of God."
The old tradition which placed the ruin of Nineveh
opposite Mosul was vindicated anew by the Danish scholar
Carsten Niebuhr, who visited the place in 1766. Though
not attempting to give a detailed description of the ruins in
which we are chiefly interested, he states his own personal
conviction very decidedly, and adds some new and important
facts illustrated by the first sketch of the large southern
mound of Nebi Yunus. 2
Jewish and Christian inhabitants
alike declare that Nineveh stood on the left bank of the
river, and they differ only as to the original extent of the
city.
Two principal hills are to be distinguished, the former
crowned with the village of Nunia (/. e., Nineveh) and a
mosque said to contain the tomb of the prophet Jonah
(Nebi Yunus), the other known by the name of Qal'at
Nunia (" the castle of Nineveh "), and occupied by the village
of Qoyunjuk. While living in Mosul near the Tigris,
he was also shown the ancient walls of the city on the other
1
Also reported (and favored) by the Italian Academician and botanist
Sestini, who in 1781 travelled from Constantinople through Asia Minor to
Mosul and Basra, and in the following year from there via Mosul and Aleppo
to Alexandria. Comp. the French translation of his account, Voyage de Constantinople
a Bassora, etc., Paris, vi. (year of the Republic = 1798),
p. 152.
2
Comp. C. Niebuhrs Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden
Landern, Copenhagen, 1778, vol. ii., p. 353, and Plates xlvi. and
x'.vii., No. 2.