Meanwhile, the city of Nineveh, now marked by the mounds of Koyunjik and Nebi Yanus had been in existence as early as 1816 <small>B.C.</small> A palace was erected there by Shalmaneser I (1330 <small>B.C.</small>) and at some date unknown a temple to Ishtar. She was the goddess of Love and War and in her voluptuous aspect corresponds to Ashtoreth or Astarte of the Syro-Phœnicians. This cult characterised her shrine at Nineveh, while in her warlike aspect she was worshipped at Arbela. For a time the prestige of Nineveh waned, as Assurnazar-pal (885 <small>B.C.</small>) and Shalmaneser II erected palaces at Nimroud, the ancient Calah. The latter monarch was the first, so far as known, to come in conflict with Israel. He conquered Ahab and exacted tribute from Jehu. With Tiglath-Pileser III (also called Pul by the Hebrews) who carried a portion of Northern Israel into captivity (2 Kings xv), began the period of Assyria’s greatest glory. The last dynasty commences with Sargon (722-705 <small>B.C.</small>) who built himself the famous palace at Khorsabad. He conquered Samaria and carried the whole of northern Israel into captivity, replacing them with men “from Babylon and from Cuthah and from Ava and from Hamath and from Sepharvaim” (2 Kings, xvii, 24). This allusion to Babylon is significant. It points to Sargon’s policy of reducing the rival power of the city, which was destroyed by his son and successor, Sennacherib. It was the latter who “came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them,” afterward suffering the loss of his army in the siege of Jerusalem, as chronicled in 2 Kings, xviii, xix; though this disaster is not mentioned in the cuneiform records. He revived the grandeur of Nineveh, which was added to by his son Esarhaddon (680-668 <small>B.C.</small>). This monarch’s reign represented the high-water mark of Assyrian supremacy. Among his exploits was the conquest of Egypt, whereby he added to his titles that of “King of Kings of Lower and Upper Egypt and Ethiopia.” He was also a great builder, restoring Babylon and erecting for himself a superb palace at Nineveh, the materials for which were supplied by twenty-two subject kings. Under his son Asurbanipal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks (668-626 <small>B.C.</small>), the last of the Sargon Dynasty, Assyrian prosperity reached its culmination. Being, as he said, “endowed with attentive ears,” Asurbanipal was inclined to the study of “all inscribed tablets” and caused the collecting and re-editing of the whole cuneiform literature then in existence. A great part of his “library” has been recovered from the ruins of Koyunjik and is now in the British Museum. In the year following this monarch’s death Nabopolassar (625-604 <small>B.C.</small>) who seems to have been the Assyrian vice-roy of Babylonia, entered into alliance with the Medes and through their help destroyed the supremacy of the Assyrians and became the first king of the NEW BABYLONIAN EMPIRE.