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Photo: The Walls of Nineveh
Photograph: by Randy Olson
Courtesy: National Geographic

National Geographic has compiled a list of twelve ancient landmarks that are on the verge of vanishing. Among them are the walls of the ancient city of Nineveh.

Below is how National Geographic describes the situation with the walls of ancient Nineveh:

The rebuilt gates and mud-brick walls around the ancient city of Nineveh, near modern-day Mosul, Iraq, are popular tourist attractions.

Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire from 705 to 612 B.C., but the city was reduced to rubble by attacks from Medes, Babylonians, and Susianians. Archaeologists found the “lost” city in the mid-19th century and began excavations and reconstructions.

Still—like many of the sites on the Global Heritage Fund list—Nineveh suffers from the pressures of modern society. “At site after site after site, you are losing half the site to new development, encroachment, [and] you’re getting looting of the site,” the group’s Morgan said. “We are not even talking about natural disasters.”

Read more about the twelve ancient landmarks on the verge of vanishing by visiting National Geographic online.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

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Tags: Archeology, Nineveh, Assyria