Archaeologists in northern Iraq have conducted an extensive magnetic survey using an exhaustive magnetic survey at Khorsabad, once the ancient Assyria

A new magnetic survey of the ancient Assyrian capital of Khorsabad has revealed a 127-room villa twice the size of the U.S. White House

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2024-12-26 00:30:07

Archaeologists in northern Iraq have conducted an extensive magnetic survey using an exhaustive magnetic survey at Khorsabad, once the ancient Assyrian capital, and with the help of this technology have found the remains of a huge villa (with 127 rooms), royal gardens, the city’s water gate and five large buildings that may have been used for various purposes.

The site, dating back 2,700 years, was originally established as Dur-Sharrukin, or “Fortress of Sargon,” by Neo-Assyrian Emperor Sargon II in 713 B.C.

The Neo-Assyrian emperor Sargon II began building a new capital city, named after himself, in the desert of what is now Iraq. For a long time, archaeologists believed that this ambitious project had only just begun when it was abandoned, leaving behind nothing but the remains of a building site. However, a recent survey of the site challenges that notion. The city did indeed flourish outside the palace, as evidenced by visualizations of data from a precision magnetometer that reveal hitherto undiscovered structures and infrastructure inside the city walls.

Sargon II died a few years after work began on Dur-Sharrukin (“Fortress of Sargon”), now called Khorsabad. His son quickly set up his own capital in the city of Nineveh, and for the next 2,500 years, Sargon II’s building project was largely forgotten. In the 1800s, French archaeologists rediscovered the site.

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