Palace of Sennacherib

Sennacherib's palace was built on the site of an existing Assyrian palace. That structure is described as being "360 cubits long, 80 cubits wide opposite the zamû-wall of the ziggurat, 134 cubits wide opposite the tower of the temple of the goddess Ištar, (and) 95 cubits wide opposite the tower of the Bit-Kidmuri."

The construction of Egalzagdinutuku was one of Sennacherib's most ambitious projects and its progress from beginning to end can be followed in Akkadian inscriptions composed between 702 and 691 B.C. The palace was sumptuously decorated with various types of wood, stone, and metal and its palatial halls were roofed with beams of cedar and cypress from Mounts Lebanon and Sirāra. Tall metal-banded door leaves were hung in the main gateways. Sennacherib also had numerous apotropaic colossi stationed in principal gateways and had the walls of many rooms and halls lined with sculpted limestone slabs, many of which were unearthed in the mid-nineteenth century.

This Assyrian palace is also referred to as the South-West Palace because it is located on the southwest part of the citadel mound of Nineveh (Kuyunjik). Sîn-šarra-iškun, Sennacherib's fourth successor, also referred to this building as "the palace of alabaster," presumably because its inner rooms were decorated with "two miles of bas-relief."