Kalhu

Kalhu¹, also called Calah or Kalakh, and whose remains are called Nimrud, was sometimes the capital of the Assur Lugalate during the first millenium BCE. In 800 BCE it was the fourth largest city in the world, with an estimated population of 50 thousand.² The city declined somewhat after the capital was moved, and was destroyed in the late 7th century. It was re-occupied during the Syrian Greek period but fell to ruins sometime thereafter.³

External References

palace of Ashurnarsipal II

Footnotes

1. In Akkadian, the city name was written in Cuneiform. This cannot be rendered in most browsers although unicode for it exists.
2. Tables of the World's Largest Cities, "800 B.C." table, in Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987). It was the largest city in what is now Iraq.
3. Ibid., pg. 416.