Dur Sharrukin - "Sargon's fortress" - was built by order of Sargon II of Assyria (721-705 BC). It was meant as a monument to his reign, but was abandoned after his death. Its discovery in 1843 revealed the magnitude of his endeavours.

During the Assyrian empire, the palace where the monarch resided, lay at the heart of power, a marriage of pomp and monumentality.

The objects and monuments of Khorsabad form a cornerstone of the collection of the Department of Near Eastern Antiquities at the Louvre Museum.