It is the fourth Assyrian capital built by King Sargon II (721-705 BC). It is square in shape, its wall is built with bricks, and has seven gates. Excavators uncovered the king’s palace decorated with alabaster and bronze panels, and most of them were transferred to the Louvre Museum in Paris. The winged bulls that adorned the entrances to the doors were also distributed to the world’s various museums, and two of them are now in the Iraqi Museum in Baghdad. This palace is still waiting for excavation and maintenance work to restore it as a tourist site.
The strange thing in this capital is that it was abandoned, and nobody live in it ever since the death of its king, who was assassinated a year after the transfer of the center of government to it. However, his son King Sennacherib transferred some of its sculptures to Nineveh and decorated his palace with them.
