Historical place profile
Ashur/‘Lamban’?/‘Liba(nai)’?
Aššur, modern Qal'at Sherqat, is an Assyrian city on the western bank of the Tigris River. Named after its enigmatic tutelary deity, it was the original capital, ancestral home, and burial place of the Assyrian royal family. From the late third millennium B.C. until 614 B.C., when the city was captured and destroyed by the Medes, Aššur was Assyria's most important religious center. It was also Assyria's principal administrative center until the beginning of the ninth century, when Ashurnasirpal II (883-859) moved the capital to the newly constructed Calah.
Record details
- Research ID
- catholon:place:pleiades:893945
- Catalogue ID
- pleiades:893945
- Place type
- archaeological-site, settlement
- Coordinates
- 35.455573, 43.261301
- Precision
- precise
- Locator semantics
- representative_point_not_boundary
Historical description
Aššur, modern Qal'at Sherqat, is an Assyrian city on the western bank of the Tigris River. Named after its enigmatic tutelary deity, it was the original capital, ancestral home, and burial place of the Assyrian royal family. From the late third millennium B.C. until 614 B.C., when the city was captured and destroyed by the Medes, Aššur was Assyria's most important religious center. It was also Assyria's principal administrative center until the beginning of the ninth century, when Ashurnasirpal II (883-859) moved the capital to the newly constructed Calah.
Geographic evidence
The coordinates are a representative_point_not_boundary. They identify a research anchor and do not by themselves assert an ancient administrative boundary or the full extent of the settlement.
Provenance: Barrington Atlas: BAtlas 91 E2 Ashur/‘Lamban’?/‘Liba(nai)’?
Source and reuse
This profile derives from the Pleiades current GIS record, licensed CC BY 3.0. Pleiades place record The profile preserves the source name, point, type, description, precision and provenance without silently adding a boundary reconstruction.
Research path
Compare this place with the chronological map at the relevant year, nearby political units, routes, institutions and the period portals. Where the source record is silent about jurisdiction, population or ecclesiastical rank, this profile makes no such claim.