Naqiʾa or Naqia[3][4][5] (Akkadian: Naqīʾa,[6] also known as Zakūtu (),[6][7] was a wife of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 705–681 BC) and the mother of his son and successor Esarhaddon (r. 681–669).

[8] She is one of the few ancient Assyrian women to be depicted in artwork, to commission her own building projects, and to be granted laudatory epithets in letters by courtiers.

During the reign of her son, Naqiʾa reached her most prominent position, bearing the title ummi šari (lit.

After her son's death, Naqiʾa wrote a treaty which forced the royal family, aristocracy and all of Assyria to swear loyalty to her grandson Ashurbanipal (r. 669–631).

[13] Naqiʾa is known to have had a sister, Abirami (Abi-rāmi[14] or Abi-rāmu),[15] attested as purchasing land in the city of Baruri in 674 BC.

[16] Naqiʾa was one of the consorts of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 705–681),[17] with the marriage taking place by the late 8th century due to the birth of their son in c.

[1] It is possible that Naqiʾa gained influence already in Sennacherib's reign; in 684 she may have been responsible for the king dismissing Arda-Mulissu as heir and instead proclaiming their son Esarhaddon as crown prince.

[17] The general assumption among researchers is that while kings could have multiple wives, only one of them was at any given time recognized as the queen since administrative documents always use the title without qualification (implying that there was no ambiguity).

[22][23] Naqiʾa is referred to as Sennacherib's queen (mí.é.gal) in multiple documents, but all of them, perhaps with a single exception, were written in Esarhaddon's reign,[1] meaning that she might have been bestowed the title retroactively by her son.

[24] Perhaps the promotion of Naqiʾa's son as crown prince means that she was queen around 684 and that Tašmētu-šarrat (otherwise attested only securely in c. 694)[17] was dead at that point in time.

[11] Naqiʾa's authority grew in the reign of her son; early on she built a palace for him in Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, and made an inscription commemorating the construction.

[8] In most sources from Esarhaddon's time,[18] Naqiʾa is referred simply to as the queen mother (ummi šari, lit.

[2] In terms of surviving sources she was by far the most prominent queen mother in Assyrian history; most known occurrences of the title are from her lifetime.

Naqiʾa is recorded to have made numerous donations to temples, to have provided the royal palace with horses from her estates and to have employed a large and extensive staff.

[13] Perhaps Naqiʾa's prominence resulted from Esarhaddon's own tumultuous accession, when he had to fight a civil war against his brother Arda-Mulissu.

[20] Though capable and energetic,[8] Esarhaddon was chronically ill for the duration of his reign and Naqiʾa might have been believed to have had some sort of magical influence, connected to the association between the Assyrian queen and the goddess Ishtar, that kept the empire victorious.

[20] The last evidence of Naqiʾa is from around the time of Ashurbanipal's accession, at the end of 669, when she forced the royal family, aristocracy and all of Assyria to swear loyalty to her grandson.

It is possible that the figure of Nitocris, said to have lived five generations after Semiramis and to have conducted building projects in Babylon, was based on Naqiʾa.

[13][5] The legend of building work in Babylon could relate to her lands in Babylonia, the possibility that she partook in Esarhaddon's projects in the city,[13] or perhaps to the palace she built for her son in Nineveh early in his reign.