KHINNIS
RELIEFS
![](khinnis.jpg)
Khinnis
(Iraqi Kurdistan)
![](Reliefs_of_Khinnis_(aka_Bavian),_photographed_in_2019.jpg)
Khinnis
Reliefs
Location
: Duhok Governorate, Iraq
Region
: Kurdistan Region
History
:
Builder
: Sennacherib
Founded
: Around 690 BCE
Cultures
:
Neo-Assyrian Empire
Management
: Directorate of Antiquities of Dohuk
Khinnis
is an Assyrian archaeological site (also known as Bavian, its neighbouring
village) in Duhok Governorate in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It
is notable for its rock reliefs, built by king Sennacherib around
690 BC.
![](566px-A_history_of_all_nations_from_the_earliest_times;_being_a_universal_historical_library_(1905)_(14779836604).jpg)
Reliefs
of Bavian (after Layard) as included in J.H.Wright's 1905 book of
universal history
During
the reign of Sennacherib (705–681 BC), Khinnis was built in
order to "celebrate the construction of a complex system of
canals whose aim was to supply the capital of the empire, Nineveh,
and its hinterland with water", according to the World Monuments
Fund. The reliefs face the River Gomel Su, and an inscription records
the construction of a hydraulic system built by Sennacherib. The
construction of the monument therefore had a propagandistic purpose
for the Assyrian king.
Austin
Henry Layard was the first Western scholar to describe the site
in 1853. Layard stated that Khinnis had been discovered by Simon
Rouet, the French consul in Mosul.
The
rock reliefs and tombs at Khinnis are noted by the Duhok Governorate's
website to be "the finest ancient rock carvings in the Badinan
Region". According to Langendorfer (2012), the site's Great
Relief is "the largest single Assyrian sculpture in existence,
which depicts a pair of gods attended by the duplicated figure of
the Assyrian king".
Langendorfer
notes that in the site's inscriptions, "Sennacherib emphasizes
his ingenious technical ability to manipulate water for the benefit
of the Assyrian state, either through the creative irrigation of
the Assyrian heartland and the new capital, or the destructive flooding
and leveling of Babylon".
The
Directorate of Antiquities of Dohuk is in charge of the site, and
the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project of the University of
Udine has been recording the rock reliefs with a laser scanner.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Khinnis_Reliefs