Khinnis is an Assyrian archaeological site, also known as Bavian, its neighbouring village) in

Duhok Governorate Duhok Governorate (, , ) is a governorate in the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Its capital is the city of Duhok. It includes Zakho, near the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing with Şırnak Province, Turkey. It borders the Al-Hasakah Gove ...

in the

Kurdistan Region Kurdistan Region (KRI) is a semi-autonomous Federal regions of Iraq, federal region of the Iraq, Republic of Iraq. It comprises four Kurds, Kurdish-majority governorates of Arabs, Arab-majority Iraq: Erbil Governorate, Sulaymaniyah Governorate ...

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

. It is notable for its rock reliefs, built by king

Sennacherib Sennacherib ( or , meaning "Sin (mythology), Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705BC until his assassination in 681BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous A ...

around 690 BC. This was later repurposed as a hermitage used by monks of the

Church of the East The Church of the East ( ) or the East Syriac Church, also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church, the Chaldean Church or the Nestorian Church, is one of three major branches o ...

in ancient times. During the reign of Sennacherib (705–681 BC), Khinnis was built in order to "celebrate the construction of a complex system of canals whose aim was to supply the capital of the empire,

Nineveh Nineveh ( ; , ''URUNI.NU.A, Ninua''; , ''Nīnəwē''; , ''Nīnawā''; , ''Nīnwē''), was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul (itself built out of the Assyrian town of Mepsila) in northern ...

, and its hinterland with water", according to the

World Monuments Fund World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training ...

. The reliefs face the River Gomel River, and an inscription records the construction of a hydraulic system built by Sennacherib. The construction of the monument therefore had a propagandistic purpose for the Assyrian king.

Austin Henry Layard Sir Austen Henry Layard (; 5 March 18175 July 1894) was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in It ...

was the first Western scholar to describe the site in 1853. Layard stated that Khinnis had been discovered by Simon Rouet, the French consul in Mosul. The rock reliefs and tombs at Khinnis are noted by the Duhok Governorate's website to be "the finest ancient rock carvings in the Badinan Region". According to Langendorfer (2012), the site's Great Relief is "the largest single Assyrian sculpture in existence, which depicts a pair of gods attended by the duplicated figure of the Assyrian king". Langendorfer notes that in the site's inscriptions, "Sennacherib emphasizes his ingenious technical ability to manipulate water for the benefit of the Assyrian state, either through the creative irrigation of the Assyrian heartland and the new capital, or the destructive flooding and leveling of Babylon". The Directorate of Antiquities of Dohuk is in charge of the site, and the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project of the

University of Udine The University of Udine (Italian language, Italian ''Università degli Studi di Udine'') is a public university in the city of Udine, Italy. It was founded in 1978 as part of the reconstruction plan of Friuli after the 1976 Friuli earthquake, ear ...

has been recording the rock reliefs with a laser scanner. To help revive tourism and preserve heritage, workers cleared debris from the site, installed benches, cleaned the tunnel waterways and added solar-powered lights.

References

Archaeological sites in Iraq History of Dohuk Governorate {{NEast-archaeology-stub