Assyria (Nineveh) אשור — נינווה
The empire that exiled the ten tribes, and the city that repented at Yona's preaching.
Assyria was the first world empire to collide with Israel. Its capital Nineveh on the Tigris was a vast walled city with palaces and a library, and its army was the first to make mass deportation an instrument of policy: the transplanted lost land, memory and name.
So the ten tribes disappear. In 3205 Shalmaneser and Sargon take Shomron after a three-year siege and deport its people to «Halah and Habor, the river of Gozan and the cities of Media», settling foreigners in their place. The fate of those tribes remains one of tradition's enduring questions.
In 3213 Sennacherib reaches Jerusalem's walls and demands surrender — and his camp perishes in a single night. Earlier, Yona is sent to Nineveh, and the city repents, from the king to the cattle; the book is read on Yom Kippur afternoon.