Halahhu Gate

The gate is mentioned in Akkadian inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib dating to 697-691 B.C. Most of Sennacherib’s inscriptions record that the Halahhu Gate was the eighth and last of the south- and east-facing gates. One inscription, however, states that it was the seventh and last of those gates.

The gate’s exact position is uncertain and cannot be confirmed from in-situ inscriptions. Most scholarly reconstructions place the Halahhu Gate about 250 m south of the northeast corner of Nineveh. As Julian Reade has already pointed out, no visible evidence for an ancient gate at those coordinates be substantiated from the archaeological record and, therefore, the gate might have been located a bit further south, about 900 m south of the northeast corner of the wall (estimated coordinates: 36.3718555, 43.1668081). Because it seems more likely that the Šibaniba Gate was built by Sennacherib at the latter spot, the former spot is tentatively suggested in this resource as the location of the Halahhu Gate.