‘I opened eight gates’

Novotny, Jamie (2022): ‘I opened eight gates’. Revisiting the Identification of Dūr-Šarrukīn’s City Gates. In: Nadali, Davide; Nigro, Lorenzo and Pinnock, Frances (eds.) : Moving on from Ebla, I Crossed the Euphrates: An Assyrian Day in Honour of Paolo Matthiae. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 105-118

Abstract

When the eighth-century-BC Assyrian king Sargon II (r. 721-705 BC) constructed his new administrative capital, Dūr-Šarrukīn (‘Fort Sargon’; modern Khorsabad), he modelled the city’s general plan on Babylon, which was rectangular in shape and had two gates on each stretch of wall. Seven of those entrances, as well as two entryways into the citadel, have been excavated. Because there is no one-to-one correlation between Sargon’s inscriptions and available archaeological evidence, scholars have forwarded several proposals about the identifications of the eight gates recorded in inscriptions with the excavated gates. This paper will examine and evaluate those suggestions.

• Item Type: Book Section
• Keywords: Assyria; Dūr-Šarrukīn; East; Khorsabad; Sargon II
• Faculties: History and Art History > Department of History > Ancient History
• Subjects: 400 Language > 490 Other languages; 900 History and geography > 930 History of ancient world (to ca. 499)
• ISBN: 978-1-80327-110-1
• Place of Publication: Oxford
• Language: English