You are here: Home → Ancient Places → Mosul/‘Mespila’?

Mosul/‘Mespila’?

a Pleiades place resource

Creators: M. Roaf, T. Sinclair, S.E. Kroll, St J. Simpson

Contributors: Enes Yılandiloğlu, Sean Gillies, Jeffrey Becker, W. Röllig, Tom Elliott, H. Kopp, DARMC, R. Talbert, B. Siewert-Mayer, World Historical Gazetteer, Francis Deblauwe, Eric Kansa

Last modified Nov 02, 2025 09:00 PM — History

An ancient city located across the Tigris River from the site of Nineveh. Modern Mosul in Iraq.

Show place in Google Earth.

Show area in GeoNames, Google Maps, or OpenStreetMap.

Canonical URI for this page:
https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/874609

Representative Point (Latitude, Longitude):
36.335572, 43.13713

Locations:

Representative Locations:
- DARMC location 31475 (550 BC - AD 640) accuracy: +/- 10 meters.

Names:

Geographic Names:
- Less than certain: Μέσπιλα (Mespila: Ancient Greek, 550 BC - 330 BC)
- موصل (Mevṣil: Ottoman Turkish, AD 1300 - AD 1923)
- Mossul (German, AD 1300 - AD 2000)
- Mosul (German, AD 1683 - AD 1918)
- Mūṣul (AD 1453 - AD 1918)
- al-Mausil (AD 1918 - AD 2000)
- al-Mauşil (AD 1918 - AD 2000)
- al-Mauṣil (Modern Standard Arabic, 1600 BC - AD 2000)
- al-Mawşil (AD 850 - AD 1200)

Mosul/‘Mespila’? makes connections with:

Mosul/‘Mespila’? connection Tigris/Diglitus (river) (unspecified date range)

Mosul/‘Mespila’? receives connections from:

Arsham connection Mosul/‘Mespila’? (unspecified date range)
Tell Abu Dhahir located northwest of Mosul/‘Mespila’? (unspecified date range)

Place type:
settlement

References:

Evidence:

Xen. An. (Marchant; Perseus) 3.4.10

See Further:

See Also:

Related:

Initial Provenance:
Barrington Atlas: BAtlas 89 F4 Mosul/‘Mespila’?

Details:

The Barrington Atlas Directory notes: Mosul, IRQ

Alternate representations:
Atom, JSON, KML, RDF+XML, Turtle

Suggested citation:
M. Roaf, T. Sinclair, S.E. Kroll, St J. Simpson, Enes Yılandiloğlu, Sean Gillies, Jeffrey Becker, W. Röllig, Tom Elliott, H. Kopp, DARMC, R. Talbert, B. Siewert-Mayer, World Historical Gazetteer, Francis Deblauwe, and Eric Kansa, 'Mosul/‘Mespila’?: a Pleiades place resource', Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places, 2025 <https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/874609> [accessed: 06 December 2025]

Cite this resource in Wikipedia:

            {{cite web |url=https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/874609 |title=Places: 874609 (Mosul/‘Mespila’?) |author=Roaf, M., T. Sinclair, S. Kroll, St J. Simpson |accessdate=December 6, 2025 2:06 am |publisher=Pleiades}}

Personal tools

Mosul/‘Mespila’?