May 5, 2022

Here we are at Khinnis, the Assyrian King Sennacherib’s canal construction celebration carvings.

Though badly damaged, this rock wall relief is the largest single Assyrian sculpture in existence.  Later groups of people cut holes into it and used it as a tomb.

The Great Relief shows 4 standing figures each about 20 feet tall.  Sennacherib is on the left and right with two deities facing each other standing on their sacred animals in the center.

This is an old rendering from an early archeologist of what the panel scene depicts.

On the top of the relief are the remains of two pairs of carved lions with post holes and a drainage channel which they say indicates there was a pavilion on top held up by columns.

Here I zoomed in as best I could on the left (right-facing) figure of Sennacherib.

There are 12 small niches to the left and right of the Great Relief which contained carved figures of Sennacherib facing right (the attitude of veneration) and holding the gods’ astral symbols.

Two of the niches with figures of Sennacherib.

This niche contains the inscription celebrating the canal’s construction and Sennacherib’s battle achievements.

Niche #11 celebrating Sennacherib.

One of the objects I really enjoyed is behind me across the canal and laying in the water.  They are broken pieces from a giant monolith that stood either in the canal or to the side marking the start of Sennacherib’s canal system.  It is the “lamassu” or winged Assyrian bull.

This is a computer graphic of what the monolith likely looked like adding together the pieces of the puzzle.

Here is a close up of the lamassu today, the Assyrian winged bull that is the protector of gates.

In this close up you can see 2 figures.  Sennacherib is to the left and the god Ashur to the right.

Barbara and Jim in front of the broken pieces of the monolith.

We found these old steps that likely allowed one to come up from the canal bed.  Today they are useless as they have slid under the overhang.

Here is a video of the expanse of the Khinnis canal area.

Somewhat upstream from the Khinnis canal head is this modern dam.

…. and driving back across the country we saw this ancient wheel that a farmer had unearthed and stood up near the road…

Our final picture is a view looking back out over Iraq.  The Khinnis reliefs would be at the bottom of the river on the right and those ancient stone steps are along that rounded cliff face at the middle left.  The view is toward the south.