Uncovering Nineveh

Nineveh and Its Remains: A Narrative of an Expedition to Assyria During the Years 1845, 1846, & 1847

Austen Henry Layard (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2001; this revised abridgment orig. published 1882) 384 pp., $16.95

“Wasted is Nineveh; who will bemoan her?”

With this prediction, the Old Testament prophet Nahum consigned the great Assyrian city of Nineveh to the dustbin of history—a prophecy fulfilled by the city’s destruction near the end of the seventh century B.C. and the gradual disappearance of its ruins under the debris of ensuing centuries. For almost two and a half millennia, Nineveh 026was little more than a name. No one even knew whether the great Assyrian capital ever really existed.