Ep 144 – The Call of Calhu

That ending was a bit of a downer for sure, but important to note, I think. Slightly longer video of the destruction of Kalhu can be found here, and a similar video about the destruction at Mosul can be found here. They are not fun to watch, but they don’t have any gore or dead people in the videos themselves, just property destruction.

Anyway, for ancient Assyria, Kalhu is one of the great treasures. Capital of the empire for 150 years, then a major city afterwards, it will be destroyed around 610, and then for whatever reason never really re-inhabited, meaning that the site was fantastic for archeology – and as much as the destruction 10 years ago set things back, there are still many unexcavated areas of the city which can now be focused on, giving a different set of perspectives. The big hope is that we will find document caches pertaining to private citizens in the lower classes, but that will take years of digging and investigating.

I am a little sad that I went past Tushha and Dur-Assur so quickly, but I haven’t been able to get my hands on the main archeological reports and I don’t see so much about them in the written sources. They will continue to be relevant for decades at least, so hopefully there will be more chance to look at these frontier fortress cities. Certainly by the time of Sargon I know there are some neat things happening, but I want to cover as much of the empire as possible before getting to the great campaigns of Sargon to ensure that they are properly contextualized.

Some city maps for old Kalhu:

And the current world map: