The Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East

["w,,,&low The ,ite of A,hur temple~ ofSin Jnd Shamash and Belov: View of Ashur from the ALLIES ANP ENEMIE~ northwest. On the right can be excavated by ,, Gt\u2022rm.in of Anu and AdJd. and the Bottom Five royJI tombs were ,ccn the ruins of the 1.ig_~urat. discovered beneath the palace at expedition before World War I. ziggurat, a, well a, the palact-:. of which ~till dominates the A,hur. Thev included tho,,\u00b7 of By digging long trcnche,. acros, skyline In the ~enter a Ashur- bel kals (1074 1057 KC}, the Assyrian kings. To the north I9th-<entury police-post mark, seen in thc cent<Cr of the picture the site they e~tabllshed that the the site of the Temple of A,hur. with thc ,tonc -..,r~ophJgu, ,till rnJjor buildings lay in the and cast the site was protected The Tigris river is vb1blc in the in 11. Ashurn,1sirpal II (1183 northern part of the town. These 859 oc) Jnd ShJm~hi-AdJd V included the temples of Ashur. by steep cliff,. In the early 2nd background. (823 81 1 uc). Ishtar and Nabu, the double millennium the city was fortified and was extended to the south in the Middle A.syrian period. Alol\\\\Jleml)le Te~OIA$1\\\\ur ~ ,~~ t) Zrgovra1 ~ ll0USt \/ ~ -;J;kl ~'10u5eS - royaltombS PaLiceolM.ld nira111 gate ,'\u00a71 ~ _ ~ ~masn Temple of lSlltir Temple ot NaDu INNER CITY l'IOu!t 01tilt oncan1.11,on Dl'iest 100 200 JOOm royal stelae Soolh Gain 500 1000\\\" stNae 01 0n,c,a1s \u2022 Olo Assynan ana earhef 1oe101e 1600 oc1 M\u2022Odie Assyroan 11600-1000 1 NEW CI T Y L..1e Assyroan 11000-912 ,1 his la rge realm, Shutruk- Nahhunte restored the 13C), a member of the Second Dynasty of l sin, which temple at Liyan, on t he Gulf coast near Bus hire, had seized p owe r when t he last Kassite king. Enlil- and controlled Anshan in Fars. nadin-ahi (11 56- 1154 nc) was captured. Nebuchad- nezzar's first a ttempts to invade Elam were un suc- Whe n Kutir- Nahhunte. his son, became king, he invaded Babylonia and put an end to the Kassite cessful. but by a forced marc h a t the heig ht or dynasty, taking the statue of the god Marduk from Babylon, and that of the goddess Tnanna su mmer he arrived unexpectedly in the vici nity of from Uruk, back to Elam. His brother Sh ilhak- Susa and defeated the Elamite army. The Baby lo- Ins hushinak, who succeeded him, campaigned nians looted Su sa and took back the statue of the along the foothills of the Zagros, rea c hing as far to god Marduk. The subsequent history o f Diam is the northwest as Arrapha and Nuzi, and including uncertain, as it was not mentioned in the sources Halman, Me-Turnat, Epih (Hamrin hills) an for the next three centuries. encroachment on territory that had been part of Assyria. Shilhak-Inshu shinak married his brother's Nebuchadnezza r's successes to the cast were not wife and completed the restoration work begun on repeated in the north, w here he encountered the t he Temple of lnshushinak at Susa. He also built at Assyrians. first under Ashur-resh-ishi 1 ( 11 32- 111 5 Liyan and Tulaspid, and at about twenty other nc) and then under Tiglath- pileser I (11 14 1076 sites. Among the finds belonging Lo the reign oC BC). Tiglath-pilcscr I was a vigorous military cam- Shilhak-Inshushinak was an unusual bronze o f a paigner. In the upper Tigris valley he d efeated a n army of 20.000 Mushki warriors (the same people relig ious scene called sunrise (sit shamshi). who are be lieved to have brought an end to the Hittite kingdom). He attacked Nairi, in the area Shilhak-Inshushinak was succeeded by his that was later known as Urartu, and carved a cele- nephew Huteludush-Inshushinak, fol lowing the bratory rock relief to the northwest of Lake Va n. In traditional Elamitc pattern of succession through the west he fought against the Ahlamu- Aramaeans, the fraternal line. Huteludush-Inshushinak restored crossing the Euphrates no less than 28 times. In one the temp les of Susa and built at Anshan, where 250 of these campaigns he reached the Mediterra nean administrative texts written in Elamite that at Arvad, where according to Assyrian accounts he probably belonged to his reign have been found in took a boat and hunted a beast ca lled a \\\"sea- a public building. Huteludush-Inshushinak came horse\\\", but which was probably a narwhal or a into conflict with Nebu chadn ezzar I (1125 1104 dolphin. Tiglath- pilcser's co nquests, however. did 149","EMPIRES cen-w \u2022 \u2022not survive his death and in the following f l tingturies Assyrian power was confined to little more than the Assyrian triangle from Ashur to Nineveh to Arbil. However, Tiglath- pilescr's campaigns had enabled Assyria to survive the onslaughts of the Mushki a nd the Aramaeans so t hat two centuries later Assyria arose to d ominate the Near East. Science and techno logy Below The proto-Canaanite The cuneiform script was invented in the fourth Despite t he endless conflicts of the second half of alphabet found at ~ites such as millennium BC in southern Mesopotamia. As there the second millennium it was a time of great prosperity and progress. Trade and industry flour- Serabit al-Khadlm in Sinai w.is were hundreds of different signs for syllables and ished to provide the luxury goods for the royal adapted to fonn the basis of the for words, scribes took many years to learn to co urts, each of w hic h attem pted to o utd o the other alphabet for writing other write. The p honetic alphabet, w h ich had fewer in their splendor. Semitic languages includi'tlg than thirty letters was invented by the Canaanites Phoenician, Aramaic and, later, before 1600 BC and effectively replaced the cunei- Colored stones have always been valued for jew- Hebrew and Arabic. It was also form script in the following millennium. The elry, and from very ear ly on attempts were mad e to taken up by the Cr,-ck) and was shapes of the letters in t he earliest alphabet were manufacture artificial stones. One of the materials based on Egyptian hieroglyphs but the sounds used was faience, made by mixing ground-up used for European languages. In were those of the initial consonant of the corre- q uartz pebbles with ashes and copper ore and then fact, all the alphabets in use in sponding Canaanite word. Thus, a picture of a heating t he mixtu re to prod u ce objects with a house stood for the sound \\\"b\\\", the first letter of bright- blue glazed surface. Exa mples of this tech - the world today derive from the nique have been dated to as far back as th e Ubaid one invented in the Near East. bet, the Canaanite word for h ouse. The early alpha- period, but by the end of the third millennium it was commo nly used in t he making of beads, bets used 27 or 28 letters, but this number was am ulets, seals an d inlay. A few vessels also were mad e of faien ce at that time a nd faicncc bowls PROTO- EARLY LETTER NAMES EARLY EARLY MODERN became more common in t he second mil len ni um. GREEK At Susa, in the Middle Elamite period, g lazed C A N A A N IT E ANO MEANINGS PHOENICIAN MONUMENTAL ENGLISH molded faience bricks were used to decorate the A. temple ofinshushinak. LATIN CAPITALS s The manufacture of glass in the midd le o f t he Cr alp ox.hc,d ~ \\\"' A second millennium was a techno logical break- ~ 1 through. A few ea rl y examples of glass might ha ve Cl \\\"' house BB been produced accidenta lly in t he course of L '\\\\ \/),. ma king faience, but there is no e vide nce for w ide- gamt throwstlck <C sp read g lass-making and certainl y not for glass t><:> <\\\\ ,~ vesse ls. T he fi rst exa mples of glass vesse ls, found d1gg fish DD in sites in northern Mesopotamia, date to the I 5th ~'t: ~ I (\\\" E century BC. These had been formed ro und a core, h6(?) m.mcalhog 'f or made ou t of s hort secti ons of glass rods, to r w6 8 ~F produce a mosaic. Glass was also used for cylinder {wow) m,ce I seals, pendan ts a nd p laques. Glazed potte ry vessels :m: zi(n) ? \u00ae HH (covered by a thin laye r of glass) from this period ~ have also been fo un d a nd g lazed bricks adorned R bi(l} fence? < II the p alaces of t he Middle Assyr ia n k ings. !l(t) spindle? \u00ae KK \\\\!!.!I z_ )\\\\ l, L Some iro n objects have been found dating back yad \u2022rm to the fourth m illennium, but they were rare. By ,-!) )I,\\\" 1 wM t he early second mille nn ium iron was me ntioned in kopp p:,lm 4 tex ts conce rned with th e Old Assyrian trade w ith ~ l NN Anato lia, a nd iro n o bjects have been found from \/omd ox-goad ~ several centuries later, including a dagger in the ..,__, mt'm water '1 00 tomb of T uta nkhamun. In some of their texts the 0 Hittites referred to iron weapons, iron writing a> no\/JS snake j (' p ta ble ts a nd iron statues. A letter from the Hittite 'l king Hattusilis III recorded that he had made a g ift lk c&i eye 0 M 0,.. Q of an iron dagger to the king of Assyria. At that p,\u00b7, corner? time iron was more va luable t ha n gold . However, -r- sa(d) plant ? er RR its va lue lay principall y in its sca rcity, and it was 5 qu(p) 7 not u ntil the discovery that iron cou ld be turned r- 1 >, s into steel by the add it io n of carbon that it rivaled Q ra'I h~d orrn:in f f the usefu lness of bronze. The great upheavals of tann composite bow TT the J2th century BC have normally been regarded w w\u00b0' X as marking t he end of th e Bro nze Age and the t6 owner's beginning of the Iron Age. However, although by X+ {tow) mark 'I- this lime iron cou ld be smelted, th e practi ce was little understood . Not u ntil the 9th century did steel become common enough to be used for t he manufacture of tools and weapons. I SO","ALLIES AND hNl,MII.:~ reduced to 22 in the 13th century BC. When the .. . \u00b7. uf1 Cuneiform sign, were made Greeks adopted the alphabet early in the first mil- . \u2022 ..v by imprc,sing a recd stylu; onto lennium BC, they used some of the letters to dJy, leaving a mJrk ;hJpcd like represent vowel sounds instead of consonants. ~ J wedge, from which cuneiform takes it> name. The cuneiform script was adapted for writing Li\\\\}f.>\u00b7~\u00b7-:~.:::\u2022 many languages, but other scripts were also used in Far Ifft An I8th-century BC the ancient Near East such as Hittite hierogly phic school exercise tablet from and Linear Elamitc. At Ugarit and other sites in the Sippar. The education of a Levant, the Canaanite alphabet was converted into cuneiform scribe was a loni: cuneiform signs and texts in the local Semitic process. The scribes learned 10 write on round tablet, that could language called Ugaritic were written in this script. be reused . The Old Persian script, invented for writing the royal inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings, was also essentially an alphabet written with cuneiform letters. Above Assyrian scribes Above A list of synonym, from recording the loot from J Ashurbanipal's library at victorious campaign in l\\\\ineveh. Lists formed the basis Babylonia on a relief from the of the Mesopotamian scribal Southwest Palace a1 Nincwh tradition. These were often (c. 630 620 sc). One scribe h bilingual, most commonly in writing in Akkadian cuneiform Sumerian and Akkadian. on a hinged tablet and 1he mher is writing in Aramaic on a Below Drawing of a folded-up papyrus or leather scroll. By the writing bvard, from a well in the 7th century the Aramaic script Northwest Palace at Kalhu. The and language were widely u,ed boards were covered with in 1he Assyrian empire, but few colored wax, on which the text document~ have survived was written. An example from because papyrus and parchment the 11th century was found in a decay (unlike tlay tablets). shipwreck offsouthern Turkey. left To ensure that no one Cuneiform, the most widely tampered with a text. tablets preserved script of the ancient were inserted inside clav Near East, was impressed on envelopes that'had the same text clay. scratched on metal or wri11cn on the outside\u2022~ on the (above left) carved in stone. In tablet. This example comes from the 1st millennium BC alphabetic Alalah in the 18th century BC. ;cript; became wide;prcad. The>c were written in ink with a brush on p\u2022pyru, Qr parchment or occasionally on broken piece, of pollery (above right). A pictorial hieroglyphic script wa, used by the Hittites and their successors in the Levant and Anatolia for monumental royal inscriptions (cent(r nght). l'>J","The Discovery of Mesopotatnia The later empires of Assyria, Baby lonia an d Persia R1.~h1 w,,x pt1rir.ii1 of were remembered in the Bible and by Greek MJjor-Gcncr.il Sir llenry authors, but nothing was preserved of the earlier Crc,\\\\\\\\\u00b7icke R,l\\\\>\\\\11in~on, ,,\u00b7ho ,u,\u00b7c,\u00b7e,kd in copying the history of Mesopotamia. In the 17th and 18th 1rilinguJI in,cripti<>n of D,,nu, Jt centuries AD European travelers described the Bbutun and thereby wa, Jblc to remains at Persepolis, the citadel built by the Per- decipher both the Old Pen,i,1n Jnd the..\u00b7 R,1bylnni.1n n111c1form sian king Darius r (52 l-\\\"186 BC), and made copies of ,cript>. the cuneiform inscriptions that they found there. A Fur nght Hormu,d RJssam German scholar, Georg Grotefcnd (1175 1853), (1826 1910), J Chri,tiJn from succeeded in 1802 in deciphering pan of the Old Mo,ul. wa, wyard'<chief Persian script. Between 1835 and 1837 Henry Raw- Jssb1a111 a1 Nimrud and Nineveh linson (1810 1895) copied the long Old Persian (,c:c oppo,itc:) and continuc:d digging Jfter LJy.,rd', return to inscription of Darius r o n the rock of Bisutun and l,ns:land. In 1877 Ra;SJm wJ; gr.11ned ,1 permtt to cxc,1vJ1e ,111 managed to complete the decipherment . Ten years the ,itc, from the Gulf tv the later, with the help of a Kurdish boy, Rawlinson Ar1.1toliJn pl,11c,1u. Among ht; mJny dbcov,:ric, wcr,\u2022 1he Nor1h copied the Babylonian version and in 1850 pub- i>,,JJ(e of A,hurb,inipal JI lished his decoding of the cuneiform script. Nint.\u00b7vt:h ~,1ui thl' B.1IJ\\\\,1at G.ltc,. Meanwhile, Mesopotamian sites were yielding R1Nlt1 Sir LeonJrd Woolley their secrets to archeologists. Claudius James Rich (1880 I960) ,hared ,omc of the (1787- 1820), the Resident of the British East India virtues of the be,t 19th-century Company in Baghdad, made the first detailed study CXCJV'-1\\\\or,;;, H e \\\\V,1~ J of the site of Babylon, which was publis hed in 1815. In the 1840s the principal palaces of the con,cientiou, re.:order of what Assyrian kings were discovered and in the he d1'Covcrcd, and h,1d J )?ifl for following decades sites thro ughout the Near East puhlit;ity ,1nd popul,1riz,Hion. were dug into in the search for objects to display or Hb cxc,1vauon) Jt Ur between study in muse ums. The 19th-century scramble for 1922 and 1934 rcvcJled the antiquities ended with the meticulous excavations hi,tOf\\\\' of the cit\\\\' from the Ubaict'to the Per;iJn period, ,rnd of Robert Koldewcy (1855 1925) at Babylon were published in exemplary between 1895 and 1917. dctJil. The excavation of the Roy.11 Cemetery brought ()ut his remarkable technit:al ,kill, when. u,inii plaMer of pari, ,ind rnc:lt<:d pJrJffin w,1x. he was able to lift Jnd ,ave nuny J)ricelc\\\" object>. Bl'low and h'fi Two of the lyre, di,cowrcd bv Woolkv in the tomb of Quc~n Pu.ib1.-All the wooden clcmcnh h.,d dc,\u00b7.,vcd wa,,ind the mo,,11c inlay wa, l1x.i,e in the ,oil. Woollcv abc 10 lif1 lhc object, .ind ihey were rc,wrcd 10 their original wndition in 1he labora1ory. 152","Bduu\u00b7 The colorl ul Jcrnu111 of November 1845, where he After writing ,1 dctJilcd rt\u00b7pc>rt tht.\u00b7 tr,1vc..\u00b7l, ~u1d di,rovl'ril''> of Sir d\\\"i:overcd the pJl.1cc of on hi, excavations, he g,l\\\\'C up A,hurn.1\\\"rpJI II In 1846 Layard ,1rchcology for politic, .111d Austen llcnrv LJvJrd nHl\\\\'Cd Im Jttention, to :-:ineveh, cventu.,llv bcc,,mc ,111 (1817 1894) CJpturcd the wher<' he dbrnvcred the p.1lace imagin.1tion of VktoriJn England of Se,1n.1d1eri b, He t'Jkulawd J1nba~s.1d'or in Turke,\u00b7. rt11, Jnd ,till mJke riveting re.1d1ng th,ll in this burldinj! alone he todav, After five ve,1rs of tr,1vcl had unearthed wmc 3 km of p.1inting ,how, Lay,1rd in th\u00b7e NeM l:J,t, LayJrd, aged ,culpturt\u00b7d ,tone reliefs, In 1851 invc~tigating J chJmbc..\u00b7r l'ul HHu h<\u00b7 left Nimrud for 1hc IJst tinw. a rock relief ol Sennacherib Jt 28, ::,.t~irtcd cxCdvJti01\\\\'\\\\ at thl' :i-.itc of Tell N,mrud (Jncicnt K.1lhu) in Bavian, nt\u2022ar the head of the canal ,ystcm built for :-:ine\\\\'l'h, I -- Abor\u2022c L.1yard in Pa;,ian dress. Abuw Paul i'mik- Bolld In his carlv wars in the li.l;,t (l li02 1870) wa, a medical 1..,yard tr.i'vclcd widely, doctor and explorer of Arabia including journey, through and !he Yemen. In lli40 he wa, Luristdn, which at that time was .ipr,oinlcd ~rcnch consul in ,1 very dangerou~ place, Layard', Mo~ul. In December 1842 Botta underst,111ding of ,md ,ympathy started to dig on Tell Kuyunjik, with the local people cn,i blcd the dt.1del mound of Jncicnt him to cope with many difficult Nineveh, but with little rc:ward. ~ituJtion~. In the following M,1rch he lrJrn,fcrrcd hi~ cxr.1v,1tion~ to Khor.ab,1d and uncovered the magnificc111 remain, of Dur-Sharrukin, the capit.rf ci1y of Sargon II of A\\\"yria. Tc>p Thi\\\\ cJrly photograph, taken in Ili52 l, ,how, one of the gate, into the city of Dur-Sharrukin cxc,1vated by Victor Place (1818 1875) after Botta had relurnt-d Ill Fr,inc<'. ~ a \u2022- ,~'71~ r -:4 .~ . \u00b7...:.., ~ ~\\\".I; :- , ~- 151","The Royal Art of Hunting Below A ,hrine at the Neolithic SIIC of ChataI Huyuk (c. 6500 BC) in Anatolia was dccorntcd with wall painting, depicting hunting. ln thi, color reconstruction a wild bull ,omc 2 m in length domin,11cs a horde of ,mall hunter, dressed in leopard-skin loincloths and armed with bow&, After the Neolithic revolution hunting was no rrt\u00b0,t l'rtrl ,t longer necessary for the provision of food, but wild animals remained as potent symbols, playing an r t a~ important part in the religious iconography of pre- historical times. With the development of kingship ~~t the cultural significance of these animals was used by rulers to legitimize their power: the image of the victorious hunter associated the king both with divine favor and with success in this world. The royal concern for the killing of fierce beasts, often on a massive scale, is also described in the texts. For example, the Middle Assyrian king Tiglath-pilcser I claimed on one occasion to have killed 4 wild bulls, 10 elephants and 920 lions- 800 from his chariot and 120 on foot. The hunts were carefully managed. The Mari letters (c. 1800 BC) record the capture of wild lions to be released for the king to kill them, and similar scenes arc shown in the Assyrian reliefs. This tradition continued under the Persians. Indeed, the English word \\\"paradise\\\" is derived from a Persian word for the king's game park. Below One of the earliest below he shoot. an arrow JI Above Cylinder ,cal imprc,sion depictions of an ancient ruler i& inscribed with the name of the this ba,alt , 1cle from Uruk in another lion. In the field arc two Pcr~ian king Dariu, I (521 more lions. presumably already 486 ec). The king hunts ,1 lion southern Iraq (late 4th slain. Thi, figure ha, been from his chariot, a scene copied millennium oc). On it a figure from the art of previous with a headband and wearing a identified with the en or dynasties. Height 3.7 cm. kilt b ,hown twice: above he pric~t-king of the city. Height 78 cm. Right Detail from a copy of a kills a lion with a ,pear, and wall painting in the Late \/\\\\ssyrian provincial p~lace at Ti! 8arslp ,howing a lion hunt. Below A,hurna,irpal II (883 859 ec) decorated the wall, of hi, throne room in his palace at Kalhu with scenes of religious ritual, warforc and hunting. Here he aims his bow and arrow at a lion from his chariot and, in the normal artistic convention, a second lion lie, dead beneath the feet of the horses, 154","ufr A gold plate of the 14th century BC found at Ug\u2022rit on !he Mediterranean coa,1 show; a charioteer. perhap, the ruler of the city, accompanied by a dog, in pur;uit of a goat and a herd of wild cattle. Diameter 18.5 cm. R1gh1 and below The moM vivid scenes of hunting in the .indent Near East wen, carved on the walls of the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (668 c. 627 BC) in Nineveh. Th<' motif of the king stabbing a lion standing on its hind legs was adopted as the royal seal of the Assyrian kings and is also found carved on the doorways of the Persian palace; at Pcrscpolb. Although the slaughter of lions and other animals was 10 some extent a royal and religious duty, its frequent appearance both in the texts and on reliefs shows that the king also took great pleasure in the sport. 155","Ivory Carving Since Paleolithic times, ivory has been a favored there arc detailed descriptions of ivory acquired by lklo\u00ab\u00b7 The two womcn Jrt\u00b7 luxury material. Co~bining strength with Oexi- the Assyrian kings and ivory objects have been ,hnwn hJck to bMk, nJkcc.l bility, it is both beautiful and practical. Ivory ca n fou nd on many sites. In particular, thousands of ,\u00b7x,cpt for their h,i:h crnwn,, be ca rved like a hardwood and larger o bjects ca n ivories were discovered in the Assyrian capital ne,klJcc, Jnd long r,ni:lel\\\\ be made up of a number of pieces fitted together. Kalhu (modern Nimrud). Thev formed Ihe hJnd k uf ,1 l.ln In antiquity ivory was usually colored, being over- or n\u00b7y-whi,k, .1n obJ':n rei:ulJrl~ laid with gold foil, stained with dyes or inlaid with Man y of the ci ties in the Levant had their own shown on A,,yriJn rdiefs. semiprecious stones or glass. In the second and first schools of ivory carving and examples of the CJrvcd 111 the \\\\yriJn , 1vk, this millennia there were elephants living in Syria, but different styles can be seen among the ivories from picn\u00b7 \\\"\u2022\\\" found on the\u00b7 dtJdd ol most ivory was imported from Egypt or India. Nimrud . They range from those closely related to Kalhu. Hc:1i:h1 13.2 ,m the art of Egypt, known as Phoenician ivories, to Despite the frequent referen ces to ivory in the powerful images like those carved on stone monu- 14th century BC Amarna letters, relatively few ments in the Aramacan and Nco-Hittitc kingdoms, ivory o bjects from the second millennium BC have called Syrian ivories, as well as the distinctive been fou nd. In the Late Assyrian period , however, Assyrian style. \u00b7r.,p l'ound ,n the IJst decJde 1n J Al>,w,\u00b7 Thi, openwork ,ph,nx well In the North we>l P.1J,1c,\u00b7 ,II ,hJre, mJnv fcJt crc, with the dJborJtelv'cJrvcd co,mc1ic KJlhu. th\\\" unique and pJkllc Jnd wJ, found dt the cxtrJord1nJrv ilcm \\\\\\\\'J\\\\ c\\\\1rved bonom of the ,.1me well in the from J ,inglc\\\" ma\\\"ive piece of Northwest PJl,,cc. This is the ivorv. I t 1, JecortttCd on c:vcrv only knmvn cxJmplc of J ,ph,n, Jvaibblc ,urfa,\u00b7c. In the center of :,hown cntirclv from the fron t. the top is J ,mall bowl. The fJ,\u00b7c i, c,prc\\\\\\\\ionle\\\" while pre,umJbly for co;mc11c,, ,,,th the dJws grJ,p ,1 goJI, Hscll IW() JdjJ,Clll ,101,. perhJp, for bcing c:Jt,\u00b7n b\\\\' vultur.\u00b7,. bru,hc,. Lcng1h 24 i cm. w1d1h Hc1gh1 CJ 9 cm. w,dth 14 (, cm. 12.2 cm, hci)!ht q 1 cm","1.,11 Thi, op,\u00b7nwork pand, Bela\\\"' h1t A l1<>n<'\\\" k,llin!l \u00b7' Nubian .l!(Jin,1 J h,1ckgrnund of cJrvc:<l on both ,idc,, \\\\\\\\\\\".1' om.\u00b7 of lilic, and papyru, !lower,: on,\u00b7 of .1 pair of id,\u00b7nt icaf plaque, in J ,ct or four th.,t probably the l..'1~1-,,ic Phocnid.111 ,tvh: d,\u00b7coratcd .1 ,\u00b7h,1ir or b,\u00b7d It found in the Northwc:\\\"t f1Jl~1cc Jt beloni:, to a l,1rge group th,H h united by ,tylt- and tedrnit1u,\u00b7. K,1lhu, The theme h l-j!ypt1.ir1 in ron,i,tin~ of both ,nMII pic.:rc.:, ori!l\\\"'\u00b7 reprc,cnt ing I he ph.irJoh triuniphJnt over hi, ,:nc.:mi<.\u00b7,. and furrrnurc panel,. It n1av have been carved At Guz.lnJ (Tell lnl,1ys of lap,, l.11uh and Hal.,f). on the riwr H.ibur. carnelian were ,ct within )!Olden Hcii:ht c. 14 cm. wall,. .111d gold highlighted th,\u00b7 h,1ir ,1nd ,~irt of thl\u00b7 Nubi,1n. Height I0 . 3 cm. w idth 9.8 cm. Bdvl<' One of,, ,ct of six openwork Oiiures carved in the round. Thc:v wcr\\\\.' found .1t Fort ShJlmJliC~t;\\\"r .11 KJlhu Jnd ,how ,1 proce\\\"ion of tribute be,ircrs e,Kh lcadinii ,in .mimal. Their p!Jcc of origin i, uncertain, but wa, probably l\u00b7gypt or PhocniciJ. llci!!h\u2022 14.4 cm. width 7.7 cm. Bottom n\u00b7111tT Stylized fi~un: of ,1 woman. ,1djustcd to the form of the tu,k. from the Northwe,t PJIJcc. The bJ,c wa, do,cd by .1 di,k. Height JO cm. \u2022 L..ft One of the ivory ch,1irbacks Abot\u2022e The \\\" l,1dy at the found st,1cked ,n a storage room window\\\" was a favorite motifof in Fort Shalmanc,er. The the ancient ivory workers and dccoratiw pands ,how men. or was carwd in a variety of styles. occasionally women. grasping This paniculu example is one of the ,talk, ofa oinuou, plant. ,1 set of similar panels found by Austen Henry Layard on the They were probably nude In NorthweM Palace. north Syria, Height 67 cm, width 76 cm. Height 10.8 cm, 157","ASSYRIA AND ITS RIVALS (1000-1s0Bc) The end ofthe Dark Age David and Solomon was the dominant power in Israel and .l ud,1 h Be tween 1200 and 900 13c a Dark Age covered the Pa lestine. Very probably, this account is based on Near East, Egypt and Greece. The region did not histo ri cal trut h even t hough excava tions and th e P,,ll';,tinc I, one of 1h1: best become deserted but there may have been a move- examina tion of the t housand s of texts from Egypt known rcglm,~ ol' the Ne,11\u00b7 E.1>t ment from settled farmers to nomadic herders in a nd the Near East have failed to provide indepen- ,1s,1 resul1 of1wocemuricsorrhc marginal areas. The major c1t1cs, howeve r, d ent confirmation . In a period when the neighbor- remai ned occupi ed. Later accounts have shown ing sta tes were in d ecline an e nergetic leader such lnvesrigation into lliblicJl that in cities such as Carchemish, Malatya, Asbur, as David mi ght indeed have carved out a small Mchcology. The m.ijorily of Baby lon and Susa, the maj or institutions we re empire. cities mentioned in the Bible ~.,n maintained even though few contemporary record s be idenlined wil h some have been found. Ncvcrtheles:;, there can be little Again, according to the Bible, after the con- cenainty. Some ,chol,,rs ~re doubt that the Near East was in recession and no q u ests of J oshua, the Jews were divided into 12 longer possessed the wealth from rich harvests to tribes who were in connict with the Philistines unwilling 10 .,~ccp1 , 11 1he evenLs support the lu xurious life-st yle of the royal courts, occupyi ng southwest Palestine. These tribes, in th e which had previously bee n the source of so much face of Philistine attacks, united und er the leader- in the 13iblc as historlcJI fo et information about the past. Perhaps this decline ship of Saul. Saul quarreled with David, his son-in- unless they arc supponed by was due to a change in the climate, which reduced law, who fl ed a nd , a fter a period as an outlaw, agricultural yields, and t he res ultan t political insta - allied himself wi th th e Philistines. W h en Saul was indepcndc,H wlrnesscs. The bility encouraged t he growth of' nomadic killed during a battle against t he Philisti nes, David pastora lism. became king of the J ews. Da v id consolidated his kingdom of tl,e Jews w,1s kingd om a nd estab lish ed J eru salem as the capiial. established by Saul and O,,vid, The main contempora ry sources from t h e Near He won victories o ver the Aramacans of Damascus, who selected Jerusalem a, the East in the early part of the first millennium BC the Moabites and the Edomites. caplt,11, ,rnd ii rCJChed its highest were the copious inscriptio ns left by the Assyrian kings, recording, in partic ular, the ir military suc- In rea lit y, how far Dav i<l 's kingdom extend ed is point under Solomon, who built cesses over their n eighbors. The d emise of t he Hit- un certain. Solomon, his son , is said to have had tite kingdom, the disruptio n in Assyria fo llowing dominion over a ll the kings west of t he Euphrates the temple in Jersualem. After the murder of Tukulti- Ninurta I in 1207, a nd the and to have built a fleet or shi ps that traded down Solomon's death Inc. 928 nc, the collapse of the 20th Dy nasty in Egypt in 1070 left the Red Sea to the land of the Queen of Sheba. This kingdorn wa, divided into two: no strong external powers to do minate Pa lestin e claim was proba bl y exaggerated . Solomon may, Israel to the north and Judah to and the Levant. Apart from texts concerning the however, have ruled a k ingdom whose wea lth was the south. Jerusalem remained ca mpaig n of Tiglath- pilcscr I in about 1100, Assyr- based o n trad e. He ca rried ou t major building the capital ofJ udah but the ian sources arc si le nt 0 11 the subject or the west projec ts at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezcr, an d at J eru - capital of' l;,racl mowd severa l until the re ign of Ash urnasirpal II (883 859 BC), by salem, where he built th e city walls, his palace a nd times before the site of Samaria which time the region had been di v ided up into th e Temple of J eh ova h . Su bstantial remains from small city states. Israe l a nd Judah dominated Pales- this period that have been fo und in these cities was selected . In 924 nc the tine, with the minor states Edom and Moab and have been attrib uted to the build ing work of Solo- Ammon to the cast, while Carther n orth, along the mon, in particu lar , the triple-c hambe red city gates Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq coast, the cities were Phoeni cian . Inland s tates found at I-iazor, Mcgiddo a nd Gezer. However, invaded Israel and Judah, but were ruled by Aramacans and stretched from si milar ga tes have also been found a l Ashdod a nd despite hi, claims to have Damascus to Amid (Diyarbakir), a nd Neo- Hi ttitc Lachish, w hi ch belonged to a later period than Lhc kingd oms lay al ong th e 'Ta uru s moun ta ins. reign of Solomon. conquered many cities, bnth Israel and Judah survived until The Neo-HiU itc ru lers, the heirs o f the Hittite After Solomon's death his kingdom was divided kings, used the hierogly phic script, w hi ch the Hit- between the north ern kingdom of' Israe l a nd the they were f\\\\na lly absorbed by tites had also used fo r mon um e ntal inscripti ons southern k ingdom of Judah. Five years la te r, t he instead of the cuneiform script . More than a Egyptian p ha raoh Shos henq l (94 5 924 uc), the rhc Assyrlanb In the 8th and 7th hundred Hittite hieroglyphi c inscription s da ting first rul er or th e 22nd Dy nasty, invaded Palestine. from between 1000 and 700 BC ha ve been fo und . In his inscription at Karnak, he listed l 'iO con- centuries 11c. The Aramacans and Phoenicians used the Aramaic quered places, and fragments of a stcle of his were alphabet. At I<aratepe, in Cilicia (a ncient Azatiwan- fou nd r1t Megiddo. According to th e Bible, he was das), t he discovery of' a long biling ual Phoenician the same Egyptian p haraoh called Shish ak who and Hittite hi eroglyphic inscription has assisted in a ttacked Jerusalem and looted t he treasures of t he deciphering the hieroglyphi c script. Most of' the palace and th e temple. ins~riptions in t he hieroglyphic and Ara ma ic scripts were short, w ith little more information In t he 9th century, after a civil war, Omri (c. than the name and titles of the person who erected 882- 87 l nc) became king of Israel and moved t he t h e monument. Onl y with the later Assyrian con- ca pital to Samaria. His so n Ahab married .Jeze bel, quests did more details of t he period emerge. the daughter of t he king of Tyre, and joined an a llia nce of' local rulers und er Hadad-czcr (called Israel and Judah Ben-Hadad in the Bible), the king of Damascus. Together, they d efeated the Assyrian armies al the According to th e Bible, from about 1000 to 930 BC battle o[ Qarqar on the Orantes in 853 1K. From the united mo narchy of Israel and Judah under t he n o n, the histories of Israel, J ud ah and Assyria were a ll closely interwoven .","ASS YHI\/\\\\ AND ITS RI VALS . loyal Cl1'f 01 SClomon 35\u00b7 36' T he resu rge nce of Assyria J!PS\/don Assyria, tho ugh weake ned , survi ve d the turb ulent \u2022 eapi1al ol 1$1ael,,-0, dilo oamucus\\\" events of the end o f the second millennium and the ~ TYRE line of' Assy rian rulers was u nbroken . The pattern cllylsledas~ed ARAM establish ed in the Middle Assy ria n period, of b)'Shosheoqe. \u2022BC ...... strong wa rrior k ings fo llowed by wea k kings, was re peated in the Late Assy ria n period . The Assyria n scale 1 1720000 40km ....._'-+:,.- kings composed d etai led a nnals of t heir ca m paig ns. These were incl uded , toget her w ith details of the 0 t itl es of t he kings and lists of their building work, in commemorative inscriptions on stclac or rock 0 30.. \\\"Tyre \\\"oan reliefs or were sometimes de posited as fo undation inscriptions. Not surprisin gly, t hese accounts arc r Hazor,. 0Kamalm one-sided an d often unre lia ble. Only Assy rian v ic- \\\"As!IWO!h tories we re record ed whi le Assyrian defeats were .,Acco \\\\; either ignored or claimed as victori es. Other $E,o Of' I sources, such as th e Bi ble and Baby lonian chron- i'\\\\ CMI.ILEE icles, ha ve provid ed alternati ve versio ns of t he I sam e events, an d letters to Assy rian kings, w ritte n MEDITERRANEAN SEA from a more pra ctical, less biased viewpoint, have \\\"Ramoth-Gtead he lped to prov ide more ba la nced accounts. Samaria. Des pite the inc ursio ns by the Aramacans a ll cl7t-~ec around, the Assyrian h ea rtl a nd had survived more or less intact. Assyrian fortun es began to recover at Be1hel a2enwawn AMMON 32\\\" the end of the !0tl, cent ury, when Adad-nirari II 0 31\u2022 (9 11 - 89 1 BC) reestablished stro ng control of th ei r kingd om . He fi rst d e fea ted Ba by lonia in th e sou th Gl!!e< \u2022 8eth\u00b7Hor0f1 Jericho\\\" and then , in a series of campaig ns, conquered Kad- mu h, Nisibin a nd Han iga lbat a nd seized control of \u2022 llulath ~,.-,\u2022.'.\\\".\\\".\\\" GibeKolrniagth-Jearim\\\"Ml!peh the Habur region. His victories brought him huge quantities of trib ute and booty- gold, sil ver, pre- 0 cious ston es, chariots and horses, ma le and fe male priso ne rs, cattle, sheep a nd corn. Adad- nirari Beth-Shemesh boasted of his h unting ex ploits, clai ming to ha ve ki lled six elephants and capt u red fou r more, 0 Ashdod .,Gath Q which , following a c ustom of t he Middle Assy rian kings, he put in a zoo th at already held lions, wild \\\"'Ashkelon bul ls, deer, ibex, w ild asses and ostri ches. He also claimed to have plowed more land and piled u p PHILISTIA 0Hebr\u00b0\\\" DEAD .,= more gra in t ha n any one before him. T he agri cul- 0 Gua tura l prosperity of' th e Assy ria n homeland und er- JUDAH SY, MOAB pinned its milita ry s uccess a nd a wise king looked \/ \\\"ShaMe<1. after the fi e lds as well as th e armi es. , A.I \\\\ His so n Tukulti- Ninurta II (890- 88'1 BC) consoli- Tel1 Farah South\\\" 8ee<\u00b7slleba0 0G1ea1At1d l<ll\u00b7Moab dated his father's successes, la unching military \\\"Ate,J ot 8olh\u00b7Ye<oham campaigns to the cast and north west. Tn 885 he \\\" made a lo ng march sou t h th roug h Baby lonian terri- tory (probably w ith the conse nt of the Ba byloni a n .. king, as Assyria did not receive tribute from the T\\\\l\\\"W cities under Ba by lonian control) and the n up th e EDOM Eup hrates a nd Ha bur r ive rs a nd back to Assyri a. He le ft a detailed account of this j ourney, listing Late Assyrian Kings I A0A0-NIRARI II the places where he stopped overnight and the tribute that he received from the local rulers. 911 -891 The reign of Ashurnasirpal 11 I Ashurnasirpal TT (883- 859 BC) continued in t he TUKULTl\u2022NINURTA II foo tsteps of h is fa ther, Tuk.ul t i-Ninurta II, a nd grandfat her. In th e early years of his re ign he 890-884 - - - - Blood relationship uncertain ca rri ed out ca mpaigns to the north , cast and sou th but, a bo ve all, t o the west, in Syria and the Levant, I where th e small city states under the control or a ASHURNASIRPAL II series of' local ru lcn; proved no matc h for t he Assyrian s. in 877 uc Ashurnasirpa l reached MoL1nt 883-859 Le banon and the Medite rranea n, w hi ch he called the Great Sea of the la nd Am urru. He wrote: I \\\" I washed my weapo ns in the Great Sea an d SHALMANESER Ill made sacrifices to the god s. I received tribute from the kings of the sea coast, from the lands 858-824 I II Ashur\u2022danin-apla SHAMSHl\u00b7ADAD Vm. Sammuramat 823-811 I ADAD\u00b7NIRARI Ill 81 0-783 1, - - - - - - - - . -,-- - - - , _'_-,,\u00b7------ -------~ SHALMANESER IV ASHUR\u00b7DAN Ill ASHUR-NIRARI V TILGATH-PILESER Ill 782- 773 772- 755 754-745 744- 727","EMPIRES 38' 42\\\" \u2022 eohcha \u2022 \u2022AoB\u2022AL 1 ! IL-GARI~ Shlnuhtue , Topada \u2022\u2022\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\u2022\u2022 \u2022\u2022 \u2022\u2022 \u2022\u2022 - : 0 Goiludag BIT\u00b7BAHIANI \u2022 \u2022 c Kemerh1sar Harrtin 0o G_uza_na Q Hublshna TUWANA \u2022\u2022 0 HILAKKU .-~\u2022\u2022azue \u2022 \u2022ulua \u2022 Al8ppo BIT\u2022 \u2022 Phoentcllln city I ., oking<lom h;!Ying rulor with I I NOO-HllilO nnmc O Arama&an name O both l:!!m! cap11aJ(whero ~wn) --------- ~I - - - Hm,10 hlerogl\\\\jlhiclnsc11p11011 find on MEDITERRANEAN SEA I \u2022 rock \u2022 slot\\\\i monument ARAM '.,,, , - I\/ \u2022 p0<1able Ol)jOCI (seal, bowl load suip. shoU) aO ,, \u2713 -f DamaS<:US \/ 'I.I ...,._ __I I I \/\/ ........ D ASsy11an heaWand,c.I 000 6C ARABIA \/ ., -\u00a3_::::,,. \/) rI .,,- ,-_..r,-'4\\\\ - r - J ,\/ I .,.s-7,\/ ~ ,\\\\ --- I settle 1'7000000 150km I ,,.,-1--\\\\ '--f-\/ 0 100ml .... ___,,,,_,J AMMON ,, or the men of Tyre, Sidon, Byb los, Mahalia ta, his capital from Ashur to the city of Ka lhu (modern The t\\\\ ramoean ond Maiza, Kaiza, Amurru, a nd Arva d which is in Tell Nimrud), near the junction of the Tigris and Neo-H ittite kingdoms the sea: go ld, s il ver, tin, bronze, a bronze the Greater Zab. By 878 nc work had begu n on th e During the three centuries after ca uldron, line n ga rments with multicolored city walls, a canal and the palace, but it took about trimmings, a large female ape a nd a sma ll fifteen years before the grand o pening ceremony the collapse of the Iliulte empire female ape, ebony, boxwood , ivory, and for th e palace could be pe rfo rmed . 1he cities of the Lev,1111 formed sea-c reatures . \\\" independent city states. Some of Tn fact, this was not a true conquest b ut was a Ashurnasirpa l II transformed Kalhu Crom a small these were ruled by descendants sign of where the Assyrian sphere of influence of the Hlllites, others by ex tended. Assyria's conquest of its neighbors in administrative cen ter to the ca pital ofan e mpire. (It Aramaean tribes which had the ensu ing ce n t uries fo llowed a fixed pattern. First, the Assyrians received gifts from indepen- remained so for 150 years untiJ Sargon Ir decided to Invaded the region. Some ruling de nt rulers, w ho then ass umed cl ie nt status as vas- build himself an e ntirely new roya l res idence to dynasties had both Hittite ~nd sals of the Assy ria ns. Later, failu re to provide the no rth of Nineveh.) The city walls stretched A.ramaean \\\"\\\"mes. The suitable tribute was regarded as re bellion, provok- Neo-Hittitc kings left ing the mobilizatio n of Assyrian military might and almost 8 kilometers and contained about 70 million inscriptions in Hiuite almost certain defeat. After conquest, either a local bricks, each 40 centimeters square. T he wa lls r uler was appointed as a vassal of Assy ria or the enclosed an area of 360 hecta res including, in the hieroglyphic script, which had country was a nn exed unde r a provincial govern or sou thwest corner, the remains of the old city, been used under the Hittite appointed by the king. empir\u00b7e for display Inscriptions When Ashurnasirpal attempted to subdue Suhu, which Ashurnasirpal conve rted into an acropolis and seal legends, bm written in th e region along the Euphrates w ith its capi tal at the Luwian rather than the Ana, even though he claimed a victory he seems to with tem ples an d palaces. llittite language. Until the rcig,, have suffered a defeat. Suhu rema ined indepen- As hurnasirpal's main building, the Northwest of Tiglath\u2022pileser Ill (741 727 uc) dent until the midd le of t he 8th cen tu ry BC, but its the Assyrians did not display rulers still thoug ht it prud en t to present g ifts to the Palace, followed the sta ndard Assyrian palace p lan. territorial ambitions beyond the Assyrian kings. Euph rates though they did camp~ign further west. I<alhu, Ashurnasirpal's new ca pital Early in his reign Ash urnasirpal II decided to move An oute r courtyard for pu blic affairs was separated by a large throne room from an inner complex w ith rooms grouped round courtyards. Entry to the great courtyard had proba bly been through a gate in the cast wa ll, though all tra ces have now been erod ed away. The sout h wall h ad a ca rved stone facade, which was pie rced by three doorways, flanked by enormo us stone, human-headed lio ns, leading into the main t hrone room. In an alcove to the left of the throne room stood a rectangu lar block of sandstone, 1.3 meters hig h. lt contained a 160","i\\\\SSYRIA \/\\\\ND ITS RIV\/\\\\ LS l<ight Detail from a relief showing a tributary from the west with a pair of apes, which was part ofa composition carved in the main courtyard on the outer facade of t he throne room of Ashurnasirpill's palace in Kalhu. The complete scene showed the king JCcompanied by the members of his court receiving the mbt1te of the subjects of his empire an illustration of the authority of the Assyrian king. The tribute given by the cities on the Mediterra nean lo Ashurn,1~irpi1l ll when he invaded Phoenicia included two female apes. one large and one srna ll (though the ape, or monkey, shown here is clearly male). carved picture of the king and a long inscription Ashurnasirpal.'s sculptures recording the completion of the Northwest Palace, The walls of the palace courtyard and of th<.: vast the rebu ilding of Kalhu and t he great feast g iven throne room behind it, which measured 47 by 10 by Ashurnasirpal to commemorate this event. meters, were decorated with carved stone panels. This type of decoration probably originated in the The inscription began with Ashurnasi rpal's west under the Hittites, as in the gates of Ha tt usas. titles and his ancestry and continued w ith descrip- The tradition was continued in the Neo-Hittitc tions of his conquests and buildings. He con- states: buildings at Carchemish, Guzana and Ain structed a terrace of bricks 120 courses high o n top Dara were decorated with carved stone panels. of which he built a pa lace with eight w ings, each Adopting this technique a nd using the soft local fitted with a different kind of timber. The doors gyps um stone, Ashurnasirpal covered the walls of had bronze bands and bolts, a nd the walls were room after room with carved figures. The themes of decorated w ith paintings and blue glazed bricks. the illustrations were either religious or showed Ashurnasirpal built the temples of Kalhu, his new t he king in the trad itiona l roles of Mesopotamian capital, a nd according to the inscriptions, restored monarchs- of high priest, warrior and hunter. derelict cities and palaces throughout Assyria. A canal was dug to bring water to the new capita l, ln Assyrian sculpture, statues in the round were and trees and plants gathered o n Ashurnasirpal's rare. Almost all of the carvings were essentially military campaigns were brought back to Kalhu; pai ntings in ston <.:- two-dimensional drawings ca ptives from the north, east and west were also translated into low relief. T he freestanding figures settled there. tended to be sq uare rather than rounded . The reliefs had originally been colored in black, white, The king also record ed his prowess in the ch ase, red and blue, wHh brightly painted murals set claiming to have killed 450 lions and 390 wild bulls above the stone panels. Glazed bricks had added from his c hariot, as well as trapping elephants, further color to the buildings. The dull appearance lions, bulls and ostriches. Finally, the text of Assyrian monuments today gives a false described a feast lasting 10 days to which a total of impression of how they once looked. 69,574 ma le and female guests were \\\"summoned from all the districts of the land\\\" including 16,000 tn Ashurnasirpal's palace the central of three citizens of Kalhu to celebnitc the inauguration of doorways to the throne room was the main the palace; and how, on that occasion, 14,000 sheep en trance. Walking betw<.:c.:n the huge stone lions, and 10,000 skins of wine were consumed. visitors would have seen ahead of them a stone 161","EMPll\\\\f\u00b7S Kalhu \\\\. 't Kalhu {Nimnid) Right A wingcJ, eagle-headed In November 1845 Austen Henry Layard began being from the Temple of excavations at the site of Tell Nimrud. Although Ninuna holds a co ne-shaped Layard thought that he had found the remains of object and a bucket, which were Nineveh, the decipherment of the Babylonian pro bJbly u:.cd ,n a puroncation script showed that he had discovered the city of ritual. Kalhu (known in the Bible as Calah). Kalhu had been a provincial capital in the Middle Assyrian &\/ou\u2022The best-preserved and period but was chosen by the Assyrian king most ,mponJnt building erected Ashurnasirpal II (883- 859 BC) as his capital. \u00b7by Ashurnasirpal on the cuadcl It remained Assyria's capital for over 150 years. .it Kalhu was the Northwest Palace. The o riginal entrance, Ashurnasirpal dug a canal from the Upper Zab to which was probably at the irrigate the region and provide water for the nonheast. led into J large outer inhabitants, and built massive city walls some 8 courtyard flanked by kilometers long. At the southwest corner of the administrJtivc offices The ma,n city was the citadel, with the temples and palaces throne room, decorated with of the king situated on the city's ancient mound. carved stone reliefs, was situated To the northwest stood the ziggurat and the on the south side of thos temples of Ninurta, [shtar and Kidmuru. South of courtyard, beyond which were the ziggurat was the magnificent Northwest Palace. other rooms. These were Its doorways were protected by huge stone lions or probably used for offic ial bulls and the palace walls were lined with stone functions as they contained blocks carved with scenes of the king's military carved relief, that were mostly and hunting successes and divine beings. Farther of a religious character. In the south were palaces built by Shalmaneser Ill (858- southern pan of the palJcc there 824 BC), Tiglath-pileser III (744 727 BC) and Esar- were smaller rooms that had haddon (680-699 BC). In the southeast of the citadel probably hou\\\\cd the kitchen, were the Temple of Nabu and various smaller and service q uarters. It wJs in palaces used by court officials. A large arsenal built this Jrea that the queens of by Shalmancser Ill lay in the southeast corner of Assyria were buried. Two of the city. Dubbed Fort Shalmaneser by the British their tombs were recently found excavators, it had housed booty accumulated by Intact and contained the most the Assyrians, including carved ivories from the fabulous collection ofjewelry western provinces of the Assyrian empire. Kalhu and other precious objects. was destroyed when Assyria was invaded in 612 BC, though a village survived on the citadel until about the middle of the 2nd century BC. ~ OUICI courtyard ~( lb2","ASSYRII\\\\ \/\\\\ND ITS RIV\/\\\\LS Lefc The principal scene in the throne room of the Northwest Palace was repeated: once opposite the middle entrance from the 01.1ter courtyard and once behind the throne a1 the east end of the room. Ashurnasirpal II is shown twice, on either side of a sacred tree. The god in a winged disk above the tree is possibly Shamash or Ashur. Height l.78 m. R,ght Limestone statue of Ashurnasirpal from the Tempi,: of Ninurta. Despite the quantity of relief carving found in Assyria statues in the round are rare. The shawl worn by the king signmes that he is acting in his role as priest. Height 1.06 m. Below Detail of a wall decoration from an inner room of the Northwest Palace. The scenes of divine beings or of the king and his attendants are far from the decadent luxury that might have been expected in the harem ofan oriental despot. On this relief the black color of the beard and hair is well-preserved. Bottom Ashurnasirpal n holds a bowl while sitting on a throne. He is flanked by attendant eunuchs. Righc Colossal human-headed winged bull from the south side ofthe inner courtyard of the Northwest Palace. Five legs were shown so that it could be viewed either from the front or from the side. Height 3.28 m. Below A painting of the throne room of the Northwest Palace by A.H. Layard. Although some details are incorrect tbe atmosphere it conveys is accurate. 163","EMPIHE~ MI Mul \u00b7\u2022\u2022\\\"TU111han URARTU CA$PIAN Mat1110 0 SEA II Ma,qu, KUIIIIUH \u2022 a.a,O 38\\\" Ni5ibr>o \u2022 \u2022 0 O~ 7 G<Jur.ao l(W1 Pa,lfChil(O MEDIA \u2022\\\"\\\" K\\\"'k llogatJ ' 0~ \\\\a.Tl 8 n p ....., HABRIURt ~ \\\" ~o o lan'.ollt \u2022\u2022 o N. ~- \u2022 \u2022 ... Ql(ahi ZAIIUA Cyprua MEDITERRANEAN SEA ISRAEL ~IION Assyrial1 emc,;,a 0EAD$EA C J undO< Ashur\u2022dall i t9S4-912 8CI KIii 1 8 000 000 200km D e , - unel<lr Sllalmaneser I r 0 150mi 1 - routoolTukuru-N<1urtt ll, 885 BC I Tllo Gull c:::, rMx.,,.._.,, extent of Shalmlne1et ll'S Ci11'4>1Jgn1 ,I ~ ma,orblnlt !ocabon of sleto or roci< rftel \u2022 tllld \u2022 recorded 1n text 1111tortoel<rtloef attrlb<rttd10 \u2022 TukullJ.tMurta n(890-884 BC) \u2022 Aa\/lurnas,,paf n(883-859 8C) e Shalrnlne90< m(85&-82\u2022 8C) Oll1efking (823--HS BC) \u2022 - - - ancientcoastine - - IIJICle<\\\\t OOU!!8 0t rNff re lief of the king on either side of a stylized tree less and belonged to another group, known as sha The revival of Assyria and protected by a pai r of guardian genies. To th e reshe or those \\\"of the head\\\". The sha reshe did not The Assy rian kingdom suffered left was the king' s throne and on the wall behind it f'rom Aramaean Incursion, ,o a similar scene was repeated, Oanked by a pair of have children and were probably eunuchs, as \\\"sha winged figures wearing the horned cap of the gods. reshe\\\" is th e origin of the Aramaic and Hebrew that in the 10th cent ury IK it had The long side wa lls were decorated with scenes in contracted to a point where it two registers. The upper registers show the king in words for eunuch. was little large, th,in It had been b,lltle or in the hunt. Below the battle sce ne 1he In the inner part of the palace most of the rel iefs king is seen receiving cap ti ves and spoils of wa r . In 400 y ears earlier. Under the lower register of t he hunt scene the king is showed a combi natio n of the king, his court, \/\\\\dad -nlrari II (9 11 891 ttc) and depic1ed pouring a Ii bation over t he bodies of dead winged gods and stylized trees. These rooms were h i, succe~sors Assy ria ex panded, animals. The reliefs emphasized the role o[the king therefore probably not private quarters where t he presented in the inscriptions: as the representative king sought solace in his harem but were used by l,irgely toward the we, t, of the gods, as a great warrior ,rnd as a great re,1ching the Euphrates in the reign orsh,1lm,111cser Ill. The hunter. T he reliefs decorating the wa ll outside the civil war JI the end of Shalmanc,cr\\\\ reign weakened throne room were v is ible to people w ho were on their way to an audience w ith the king. They him fo r ofncial business. Assyria which still mainta ined s howed him v ictori ous, h olding his bow and arrow Ashurnasirpal and other Assyrian kings were nominal control over the most of and receiving a procession of foreigners. Their fists the tcrrirnry gained by the were raised in g reeti ng and they carried tribute buried in the palace at Ashur, but their graves earlier rulers. T he annal, of the including jewelry, metal vessels and textiles. One were looted. In the southern part of the Northwest \/\\\\,~y rian kingsMe inv,1lu,1bie fur figure was leading a pair of apes, perhaps the sa me Pa lace at Kalhu three intact graves, one perhaps of ones mentioned in Ashurnasirpal's description of a man and the others of royal queens, have been u11derst,1nd ing the historical t he tribute he received in Phoenicia. T he tribu- discovered recently. Both the amount and wealth geography. Oc~asion,1ily they taries were being introduced to the king by two of the jewelry fou nd there, whi c h included 57 kilo- record itiner,mes in grca1 detail, male Assyrian officials in t heir distin ctive long gra ms of gold, was remarkable, though not alto- as in the c,i,e of Tukulti N inurt,1 robes, partly covered by a woollen shawl wound gether unexpected, as the texts and reliefs of the over the left sho ulder and around the waist. T he time recorded the enormous qua ntities of precious II in 885 BC w hose ann,1b lead ing official was bearded, and belonged to the metals and jewelry brought to Assyria. The reliefs recorded the name o f e,1ch place have also provided a va luable record of the c hang- where he ,iaycd the night sha ziqni group of officials at the Assyrian cou rt, or during hi, campaign,. The stclc, ing styles of dress, jewelry, tools and weapons used ,ind rock relicb m,1<.lc to the t hose \\\"of the beard\\\". The second man was beard- command of the kin~ ,1ho ind icate the r,m gc of A, , yri.,n military might and o f'ten mark the farthest limits of \/\\\\s,yrlan co nq uests. in Assyria and in the provinces from the 9th to the 7th ce nturies !JC. Shalmaneser's western campaigns To th e north a nd cast of Assyria, steep, sparsely populated mountain ranges formed an effective barrier to Assyrian conq uest of 1he highland va lleys of Iran and eastern Anatolia. Assyrian IM","Abow I\\\\ gold wrist let inl.1id wii11 \/\\\\SSYRIA AND ITS HI V \/\\\\LS stones, part uf the immense quantity of precious objects a rm ies did follow the few diffi cult routes across buried in the tombs ofqueen, these mountains on expeditions to punish and recently discovered at Kalhu. plunde r their e nemies, but on ce the mountain- Similar w ri,tlets were clepiclccl dwellers had bee n ta ught a lesso n, and a pro- on the relief's and were worn by Assyrian ruler installed, the Assyrian a rm ies the member, of the \/\\\\s,yri,111 ret urned ho me . Assyria's mai n t erritorial ambition court and by divine being,. was to control t he Certile p lains to the west a nd south. Right The front of the throne base in the main throne room In As hurnas irpa l's practice of leading annual Fort Shalrnanc,cr al Kalhu. I n the campa igns, w h ich featured so prominently in his center Shalm~1nc!lcr Ill, who i!i. on inscriptions, was re peated in the reign of his son, the right. ,ind M,irduk-7akir- Shalma nesc r lII (858 824 BC). As usual, the kin g shuml. the ll,1byloni,111 king, always claimed to be victorious, but re peated on the left look a, if they ca mpaigns against t he sa me reg io n s uggest other- are ,haking hand, though this wise. The main events of Shalmancser 's re ign were may not be the rnrrcct outlined in terms of militar y successes, particularly interpretation of the gesture. to the west. The campaigns during the first four This reprcsenration or a foreign years of his reign were directed against Ahuni, the monarch a, the equal of' the ruler of the Aramaean state o f Bit Adini . ln Sha lma- neser's third ycar Ahuni abandoned his capital Assyrian king is uniguc, city, Til Barsip, on the cast bank of' thc Eup hrates, which the Assyria ns quickly occupied a nd suggc>1i11g a spedal relationship renamed Kar-S halmaneser. In the follow ing year, Ahuni w ith his gods, chariots, horses, sons, between Assyria\\\"''\\\" ll,1bylnni.1 daugh te rs and arm ies was ca ptured a nd taken back to thc city of Ashur. at this time. lleight c. 21 cm. However, this victory brought Shalmaneser only a brief res pite, for in 853 BC he led his a rmi es against a coalitio n of' kings, headed by Hadad-ezer, king or Da masc us, and including Irhu!cn i, k ing or Hamath, and Ahab, king or Israe l, as well as Cil i- cian s, Egyptians a nd Arabs, and o th er Levantinc principa li1ies. The forces met at Qa rqar o n the Orontes river . Sha lmaneser boasted of' compl ete victor y, claiming to have ki lled 14,000 (or 20,500 in a later account) of' thc ene my, who a lleged ly numbered more tha n 60,000. Yet, six yea rs later, H.adad-ezer was st ill leadin g an all ia nce against Shalm a neser, who, as latc as 838 BC, was s till fi gh t- in g against the rule rs o r Damascus. Ry tlwt time, however, most o f the states in the region had decided to pay tribute to the Assyrians rather than ri sk being attacked by the Assyrian army. After 20 l h 'i","The Balawat Gates In 1876 some fragme nts of bronze reliefs were Rrsht D,tJil lrom the bron,c offered for sale in Lond on a nd Paris. These came bJnd, ol the llJIJW.ll GJtc,. Jn from panels belong ing to huge doo rs that had bee n d ecora ted to the order of Shalmaneser III (858 824 A\\\\,p1Jn \\\"\\\"!!\\\" cn!!in<' ,lllJ,\u00b7krng J BC). In the fo llowing y ear Hormuzd Rassa m, w ho had bt:l:n A. H . Lavard's assistant and wa\\\\ then in ,11y in northern Syrr,1 Sil\u00b7gt\u00b7 charge of the British Museum's excavations in the w\u2022.lflJrc w,\\\" ,1 vc.\u00b7ry 1mportJnt that they had come from the brJn1:h of the A,wrrJn mill!Jn Nea r East, discovered ometers north- ,tr,11t\u00b7g1\u00b7 The d1Jnge ,n dc\\\"l,!ri ol s ite of Bala\\\\\\\\'at (Jmgu r-I:nlil), 16 kil th....,c: m.Khin-..\u00b7, w.1-. rcl'ordc:d 111 east of Kalhu. Rassa m's excavat ions at the site were 1h, \/\\\\,wriJn rd,.-f, hampered by the presence of a n Is lamic graveyard, but he did find th e rest of the bronze ba nds of Bd,,w h1t F.1,h )?Jto: hJJ eight Shalma nescr's gate a nd cl second set of bronze bronlc h,rnd, nJileJ to the Joor ba nds belo nging to cl gate erected by Shalmancser 's lcJW~. The bJnth were father, Ashu rnasirpal II (883 859 sc). He also dewr.11eJ 1n rdicl bv uncovered the re ma ins ofa tem ple w ith stone fo un- hJmmering. lrom behind, w11h da tion ta blets o f Ashurnas irpal IL the dtt,111, JddeJ from the front. Subseque ntly, dou bt was cast on Rassam's The be,1 prcsc\u00b7rvcd ,ct wJ, thJt accou nt of h is discoveries, but he was co mpletely of Sh,1lmJne\\\"'r Ill L.1ch ,trip \/Jdm,\u00b7 lhJrio1, on c,rmpJign in R1sht Lo,al rulers from the v ind icated w he n a t hird set of bronze strips ll.1t,1'luniJ, JS indl(Jtcd t,\\\\ th< upp<'r rcJchc, of the Tij.!ris Jr.- belo nging to a d oor (agJin, fro m the reig n o f w,1, Jhm,1 r , m hi)!h JnJ h.,J p.1lm trn-.,. Th,\u00b7ro: were norm,11ly introdu,cd into the pr,\\\"\\\\cnce <>I Ashurnasi rpa l II) was found at Ba lawat in 1956 three mcmb..-rs uf ,1 ,h,1riot ,n\u2022w. two r,\u00b7!!\\\"lcrs whkh ,h11wcd '>halmJnc,cr bv J heJrdk\\\" 1n<1de111, rrom h\\\" ,JmpJi)!ll' the drrn\u00b7r. the WJrriur .mJ ,1 offidJI {pcrha1i,,) eunuch). Th..-, rhr: duor,\u00b7 kJvc, w1.:rc.\u00b7 nut ,h,ddmJn Chuiot, in the 9th pro,tr,11,\u00b7 tlwmsclvcs before th, hinged but JltJ,hcJ 10 ~tronj.! king The king\\\" d,\u00b7p,,1,\u00b7d J, J wru,,1I po,is th.JI turned un n\u00b7nturv h,1d wheel, with & p1vo1 ,tone, ,uni- bcn,\u00b7.11h the wJrrlM holding a bow Jnd \\\" OtKir The po,Hion~ of the ,pok,< ,n th,\u00b7 8th and ith ,1<,umpJn1cd b) J !>CrvJnt anJ bron,e ,trip, wulJ be ro:.;on,tru,tnl frnm the ,cnturic, they were IJrgcr JnJ hi\\\\ weapon,-bcMer. curv,11urc of the end, ol the hJd !l\u2022,ptikcd \\\"hcd,. (\\\"<\\\"''\u2022 whi.:h tJp.-rc:d 1ow,1rJ the top. The )l,llc, were prnb~t,11' Jbout b m hi)!h Jnd 2 l m wide. -I \u2022-~::;..:;;\u00b0 . \u00b7~ ...... ~ \\\\ ..,_, :::~\u00b7 166","Below S.-.crifice tn the mount.1in s ASSYRIA A ND ITS RIVA i.$ 10 the northwe,t of A ssyria. The Assyr ian king~ were regarded a~ years on the thron e Sh almaneser turned his atten- the earthly representatives of the tions to the la nd of Que (classical Cilic ia) and t he god Ashur. Im port.Int dc:c1>ions neighboring states in t he Ta urus, against whom he were m,,de with the assbrance o f ca mpa igned for the next decad e. the d ivination priest,. \\\\vho accompan,cd t he army and Shalmancscr's reasons for these milita ry ven- , tudied the entrails of sacrificed tures are not en t ire ly c lear. Apparently , he did not try to impose direct Assyrian rule beyond the ani mals for ,igns of the future. Euphrates, and even cities to the cas t of the Euph- rates such as Guzana retained their independence. T ribute might ha ve bee n important, a nd con trol of the trad e routes and of resources could a lso ha ve played their part. Shalmaneser recorded how, o n several occasions, he had cut cedar in the Amanus mountains. He also re ferred to a n ex pedition he had led to Moun t Tunni, the si lver mounta in, and Mo unt Muli, the marble mountain, both in the Taurus range. Conscripting la bo r to wo rk the land or to build palaces mig ht also have provid ed a motive . According to the Assyria n a nnals, bet wee n 88 1 and 81 5 BC, l 93,000 people were dep orted to Assyria, 139,000 of whom were Ararna ca ns . A bove In his first foll y ear of Assyria's relations with Babylon reign (858 Be) Shalmanes1:r The kings of Assyria and Ba by lon had been allies campaigned in 1he wes1 and s ince Adad-nirari Il (911- 89 1 BC) h ad exchanged received 1he tribute of the: men daughters in marriage with Nabu-shuma-u kin I, of Tyre and Sidon. As Ty re was after a battle that Adad- nirari claimed to ha ve won. an island. the tribute wa~ At that time Assyria a nd Ba by lonia agreed on the brOUS?ht Ill boats to the frontier line between them and later Shalmen ese r mainfand. The Phoenician navv made a treaty w ith Na bu-ap la-iddina, Nabu- was u~ d by both llS As,yrian \u2022 shuma- ukin's son . When Marduk-zakir-shumi, so n and later 1t.s Persian overlords. of Nabu-apla -iddina, became king of Baby lo n in 851, his younger broth er Marduk- bel- usa te, '-tft T he chariotry was the elite rebelled , promp ting Marduk-zakir-s humi lo call on force o f the A,syrian army in the Sh a lman eser for assistan ce. Sha lma neser ca ptured time of Shalmam:scr. Ch<1riots Me-Turnat on the Diy al a River but fa iled to take were also used for hunting and the Baby lonian re bel captive. Marduk- bcl- usatc for ceremonial processio n,. In took refuge in Alma n (modern Sar-i Pol- i Zo ha b) in the late Srh century mo unted the mountains to the east, but Sha lma neser and cavalry b ecame more important, Marduk-zakir-s humi together stormed the city a nd es pecially for fighring in the killed him. mo untains. A fterwa rd, Shalman eser visited the importa nt religious centers of' Ba bylonia- the te mpl e of Ner- ga l in Kutha, Marduk's tem ple in Ba bylo n, and the temple of Nabu in Borsippa. There he mad e sacri- fices an d prese nted gifts. He a lso he ld a banquet for the citizens of Ba bylon and Bo rsippa. In his account o f these ev ents Shalma neser d id not mention the Baby loni an king, a nd so whether Shal- manescr was acting as the overlord of the Baby- lonian ruler or whether e very thing was, in fact, arranged by Marduk-zakir-shumi is unclea r. Inter- es tingly, in a carv ing o n a th ro ne base at Ka lhu from a few years la ter, Shalmancscr III a nd Marduk-zakir-shum i we re shown as equals shak- ing or slapping hands- a rarity in Assyrian art , w here the Assy rian king was normally de picted as superio r to everyone else. In the southeast Shalman eser en countered th ree powerfu l Chald ea n tribes. He d efeated one of the m, the Bit-Dakkuri, an d recei ved tribute from the other two, the Bit-Amuka n i a nd the BiL- Yakin. The Chaldeans, like the Aramaeans, who had occupied parts of southern Mesopotamia as ea rly as the 11th century BC, were W est Semitic people, whose presen ce was first noted in the 9th century, a bout thirty years be fore Shalmaneser's campaign. How exactly the Chaldeans and the Aramaean s were related is not known. The Chaldeans might ha ve","","","ASSYRIA AND ITS RIVALS Urartian Metalwork 8,:\/uu\u00b7 Solid bronze figurine of d Between the 9th and the 7th centuries BC the winged bull centaur. Orii:inJlly ancient kingdom of Urartu spanned the borders of its face, divine horns Jnd wings what are today Turkey, Iran, Iraq and the Soviet ,vcrc inlaid, and it wa, covered Union. Investigation of the Urartian citadels and tombs in this mountainous area has shown that the with gold leaf, of which some Urartians were prolific metalworkers, particularly in decorated bronze. When the Assyrian king Sar- traces still remain. It may have gon IT (721 705 sc) captured the Urartian city of been part of ,1 magnific,nt Musasir in 714, he brought back quantities of inscribed gilded throne th,11 w,1, precious stones, ivory, timber, gold, silver and bronze. From the Temple of Haldi he took 3,600 reported to have been found ,n talents (about 108 tonnes) of rough copper, 25,212 the 1870s in Ru,ahinili bronze shields, 1,514 bronze lances, 305,412 (Toprakkale), near Van. where bronze daggers, 607 bronze basins as well as other bron,c furniture lining, bronze statues of the kings of Urartu and other objects in bronze and more precious materials. In \\\\\\\\'Crt\u2022 di')covcrcd in cxcavJtion~ addition, personal jewelry, furniture fittings, armor and horse and chariot trappings have been 20 years later. This piece was found in excavations in Urartu. bought for the Brimh Mu,eum by A. H. 1~1yJrd who wa, then Although Urartian decorative bronze-work Rriti,h amba\\\".,dor in ht.lnhul. owed much to Assyrian art, it has its own style, as is shown in the details of the motifs and icono- Height 20. 3 cm. width 16.4 cm. graphy. Some pieces arc inscribed with the names of Urartian kings and others attributcd to the Urar- tians because of their style. Many Urartian sites have been looted and much Urartian-stylc metal- work- which may not all be genuine-has been sold on the antiquities market. Top Bronic circul,,r ~heet Right This bronze statuette with decorated with an Urartian god a face of white stone was pan of (po,slbly Teisheba) standing on a a larger construction. as is bull. The two concentric bands shown by the hole; in the side of show various mythological beasts. Although some of these the figure. The eyes and arc known from Mesopotamian eyebrows were inlaid a, were art, others arc dbtinctivcly the necklace and the end of the Urartian. The object's purpv,c and where it was found are not ribbon that come, over the known. but the holes round the shoulder and is held by the left edge :.u~gl'~t it \\\"''d~ ..,cNn onto hand. There are also trace, of either cloth or leather. gold leaf. The f1gurc was m,,dc Diameter 25.5 cm. using the lo,t-wax process and has been identified as a priest Above Model of a fortified (though it could be a ~ervant). It building made out of bron~c. said to come from Rusahinili was sold in the 19th century by (Toprakkale). Buttressed facades were typical of Urartian military a dealer who cla imed that the architecture and similar buildings were shown on the bronze statuette and the face A,syrian reliefs. The end; of the pairs of beams supporting the were found together in parapet arc visible. Rusahinili. Height 36 cm. Hdght 28 cm. width )6 cm. 170","ASSYRIA AND ITS RIVALS been a branch o f t he Aramaea ns, but the a ncie nt sources do consisten tly distinguish bet ween them . Aboue At Teishebaini (Karmir Shalmaneser's palace Blur) Soviet archeologisb found Early in his reign, Shalmanescr III started to build a 20 pointed bronze helmets like pa lace in t he southeast corne r of th e outer town of Ka lhu, a nd by 846 BC, his 13th year, the building those worn by Assyrian and was complete. Called Fort Shalmaneser by its exca- Urartian soldi~rs. Some were vators, it had served as a royal residence, t reasu ry inscribed with the name, oflhc and fort ress. rn th e 7th century BC it was d escribed as an ekal m asha rt i, a display palace, intended \\\"for trrartian kings Argishti 1and t he ordinance o [ the ca mp, the main tenan ce of th e Sarduri II and decorated with stalli ons, cha riots. weapon s, equipment of wa r, an d relief , cene, and curved bands the spoil of the foe of e ve ry kind\\\". Ind eed , ending in animal head,. The wea pons, armor and other military equipme n t as w ell as large quan tities of booty taken from th e helmet shown here, decorated en emy have been discovered the re. with a scene of hunting from chariots, is of unknown Fort Sha lma nescr w as buil t wi t hin a wa lled provenance. Trace, of gold leaf enclosure of abo ut 7.5 hectares. ll measu red 350 by are vbible. Height 27.5 cm, 250 meters and was di vided int o two areas: rou r large courtyards to th e north a nd the pa lace and d ,amc:tcr 18 23 cm. residential areas to the south. T he o uter courtyards contained w orkshops fo r the re pair and mai n ten- ance of military equipm en t, reside ntia l suites for vari ous officials and magazines for storing, among other things, booty . The south side o [ the sou t heast courtyard was take n up by the massive rooms of th e royal reside nce, of wh ic h the largest was Lhe great throne room . The enormous throne dais was discovered still in its p lace, set into a n iche on the cast wa ll. The da is was mad e ou t of two slabs of yellow ish limestone. T hree sets of symmetri cally placed circ ular indentations showed t he positions of th ree successivc thrones, each w ith its footstool. (Whe n a thron e was re placed , the holes in w hi ch it ha<l stood were fil led w ith bitume n .) M ost of the upper su rface of the dai s had been d ecora ted with a geometri c fl ora l pa ttern , originally picked out in w hite. T he ed ges and two panels at th e back bore a long inscription of Sha l- mancscr III recounting selec ted even ts of his re ign d own to his 13th year (w hen p resumably t he dais had bee n erected). A note o n th e da is recorded that it bad been put up by the govcnor of Kalhu, Sha- mash- bcl-usur, for his lord . The sides o [ t he dais were d ecorated wi t h sc ulptured friezes, inset in pa nels vary ing in heights from 2 1 to 29 centi- meters. The reliefs on the n orth and south sides of the dais d epicted t he receipt of t he t ri bute fro m Syrian a nd Chaldean rulers that had been men- tio ned in th e texts on the to p. Sha lmancsc r recorded his victory ov er a coalition led by th e king o f Damascus and d escribed wit h satisfaction the rei nstateme nt o f his a lly Ma rduk-za kir-shumi on the th rone of Ba by lon . On the fro nt of the t hrone d ais Shalmaneser and Mard uk-zaki r-sh um i w ere shown greeting each other. Aboue A similar t ripod with The Balawat Ga tes bull's feet and a large cauld ron Un like his fath er. Sha lma ncser did not d ecorate h is palace wi t h sto ne re lief sc ul ptures. He did , decorated with four bull's heads howeve r, commissio n a pa ir of massive bro nze-clad with birds' wings and tail was gates, whi c h were e rected in Imgu r- En lil (mode rn found in an Urartian tomb at 13a lawa t), 16 kil ometers north of J<a lhu . Dach leaf was about 2 meters wide and about 4 meters hig h, Altintepe near En.incan in and was fastened to a verti ca l tree trunk. w hi c h Turkey. This tripod and turned in a stone socket su nk in to the ground . Six- cauldron (with only three bulls' teen embossed bronze bands, nai led to th e d oor heads) have been restored. They lea ves, de picted sce nes from Sha lmancser's arc said to have come from eastern Turkey. but their original findspot and even their authenticity are uncertain. Total height 94 cm. 17 1","ca mpa ig ns and expeditions, w hi ch were ide nt ined Ura rtian inscrip tions and the Assyr ia n texts, b u t by s hort c u neifor m labels. Most o r these we re the order o[ th c last fo ur members of t he d y nasty is accounts of Shalmaneser's conquests a nd the unclear . tribu te received f'ro m his weste rn campai gns, but An idea o r how much terr itory the Urartia n his v icto ry over the Cha ldean s a nd various no rth- kings controlled can be ga ined fro m th e dist r i- ern ca m pa ig ns were also record ed. In the n orth he butio n o r their inscripti on s. S ha lmancscr III cla imed to have d estroyed the roya l Urar t ia n c it ies had vi sited t he so u rce o f t he T igris, w hcrc he lc:ft a of Sug unia and A rzas hkun belo ng ing to Ara mu rock ca r ving a nd an inscrip tio n a nd fo ug ht agai nst the Urartian s. He reached as Jar as t he Sea o r Nai r i king o f Ura rtu, but t he locat io n or these cities and (Loke Va n) and th ere he washed his weapons in th e Ara mu's re latio ns hip to later kings of' Ur art u a rc w aters a nd mad e sacri fices to t he gnds. Altogether, uncerta in. Sa rduri l, w ho was king of Urart u in 832 Shalmaneser und ertoo k fi ve scp::m1te ca mpaig ns BC according to a n inscr iptio n of Sha lmaneser Ill, against Urartu. w a s t he first Urarlian ki ng to comm ission inscrip- The kingd o m of' Urartu t\u00b7ions. Th ese were a ll fo und a t hi s capita l Tus hpa Sin ce th e 13th cc:ntury BC Middl e Assyri a n ki ngs (Va n Kale, nea r th e m o d ern city of Van), w hich bad fought aga ins t Nai r i, as the regio n of Ura rtu may have become the cap ita l after th e othe r centers was t he n ca lle d . At th at time the regio n w as had been destroyed by the Assyria ns. Sarduri 's so n lshpuin i left some inscri ptio ns to di v id ed a mo ng numero us rulers but in the 9th the n o rth a nd cas t o r Lake Van and others, in ce ntury it w as united und er a si ngle ru ler . The assoc iation with his son Mc nua, 200 kilome ters unifi ca tio n mig ht ha ve been lhc result o[ ;i d evel- north o f Tus hpa a nd 250 kilo meters to th e south- o ping threat rrnm th e Assy riiln em pire . The hea rt- eas t at Kdis hin as we ll as at Qalatga h lo t he sou th- la nd o f Urartu w as a ro und La ke Van , and mu c h o f' west of Lake Urmia in Iran. M enua's inscr ip tions t he la nd la y hig h in the s tee p mo untnins and was have a lso bee n fou nd 300 kilo mete rs west of buried dee p und er meters or snow for mo nths in T us hpa, in th e u pper reaches or the Euphrates w inter. T he mo un ta ins bet ween La ke Va n a nd r iv er, t o the no rth , o n t he Araxes, a nd sou th of Assyri a proved an obs tacle Lo Assyri a n co nq uest Lake Urmia. In the m iddl e o[ t he 8 th ce ntury, and the Urartia n kingdom s u rv ived and prospe red . Arg is ht i I extend ed Urar tia n contro l as far as La ke Elve n when Assyrian a rmi es su cceed ed in reac hing Scva n Lo the no rth . This pe ri od of ex pansio n coin- orth e Urartia n c ities in the hig hla nds, they were c ided w ith a perio d Assyri an weakn ess. una ble or un w illing Lo occupy them . Altho ug h t he terri tories gained by the Urar t ians Mu c h of t he hi story o f t he Urartia ns comes from had never been pa rt o f' th e Assyria n empi re, th e Assyria n sources, b ut rrnm the 9th centu ry there a bsence o f the t hrea t o f in vas ion from the so u th were inscri ption s of Urartia n kings. T he earliest or certainly contributed to the Urartia ns' success. these were written in the Assyrian language and the ti t les o f'th c k ings wer e bo rrowed rrom Assy ria Urarth-rn culture and ech oed th e litles of Ashurn asirpa l n. La ter Th e Urar l ians owed muc h to the Assyrians, b ut Urarti a n kings used th e Assy rian scrip t b ut w rote th eir cul t u re was di s tinct. T he most commo n s ur- in th e ir ow n language, w hich was re la ted to Hu r- vi ving Ura rti a n sites were placed o n the top o[ ria n . In Ura rtian , the land (J[' Urartu was ca lled Biai- steep roc ky r id ges, and were heav il y fort ified by nili, rrom w hic h th e na me Lake Va n w as p robab ly stone wa lls w ith b utt resses a nd towers. T he c hi ef deri ved. The n ames an d order o f the first e ig ht god was Haldi, p robably a god o r wa r, w hose m a in Urartian kings, ea ch o r w hom succeeded his fa ther templ e was a t Musasir (called by the Urar t ians on the th rone, ha v e been recons t r ucted from t he Ardini), between Assy ria an d La ke Urmia. T he Urar tian god T eis hc ba was related to t he H urrian Kings or Urartu Dates are those when the Uraruan king wea ther god Teshup a nd had his temple at Pa:,i<', 168 9 A de1ail from the was mentioned 1n Assynan records. Qumc nu, w hi c h has no t bee n loca ted with bronze relief~ from Ihe Cate~ cif SARDURII The order of the last four rulers 1s certainty. T he city god or T ush pa was the sun god Shalmancscr Ill found ,11 832 uncertain Shiw inc. Ura rtian texts mentioned a num ber or lmgur-r.nlil (Balaw,n). tn the I re lig io us st ru ctu res. m ost of them d edi cated to th e or ERiMENA upper rcgisicr, the Assyrl.w ISHPUINI god Ha ldi . They we re called susi (\\\" tem ples\\\" or d1~riot~ arc moving .1g:iin~t :1 c.818 I I RUSAIII \\\"gates\\\") an d were ofte n la be led \\\"gales of Ha ldi\\\". orcity In the region ll,1111,1 on the MENUA T he sta ndard form of temple fou nd on a number of I I exca vated Ur a rtia n sites had a square p la n w ith Orantes. In the lower register, SARDURI 111 very thi ck WJ lls. Its inner cham ber was a bou t 5 ShJlm.inc, cr on his throne ARGISHTI I meters by 5 and the w ho le a lm ost 15 meters square. I I These tern p ies had pla ns like those o f the ta ll tower receive~ the bootj.' after the b uildings constru cted by the Persia n k ings a t th e SARDURI II $AROURI IV end of the 6th century BC a nd t hemse lves m ay have battle of Qarqar. 743 orig in a lly bee n tall towers. I T he Ura rtia n ki ngdom was esta bl is hed by RUSA I Menua, a nd m o re tha n seven ty o f his i nsc riptions 719--713 have been fo und referr ing lo a lmost as man y differe n t build ing proj ect s incl ud ing palaces, I c iti es, irri gati o n ca na ls, store ho uses and tem ples. ARGISHTI II Urartu 's wea lth was la rgely agri cul tura l, based o n cultivating gra in , orcha rds a nd v ineyards a nd 708 kee ping li vestock a nd ho rses. The Ura rlia ns were I also specialists in bronze- a nd iron-working. RUSAII 673 I SARDURI Ill I SARDURI IV ERIMENA I RUSAIII 172","\/\\\\SSYRI\/\\\\ \/\\\\ND ITS RIV\/\\\\I ~ The kingdom of Ur.Htu The destruction of Hasanlu covered al H<1sanlu illustr,ited many as pects of' the The UrJrtiJns lived in the life of th e town and t he palace at this time. rugged mountJin, th,11 lie at rn the course of Menua's expansio n to the south- Weapons, armor, horse trappings, jewelry, bronze what I< lC>dJy the junction of east, the Urartian armies probably reached the site and silver vesse ls, have all been found in the ruins of I Iasa nlu, w hich was destroyed in a huge f'irc ,1 t together with the bodies of those who were k illed Turkey, lr.,q, lr.111 .ind the Soviet about the end of the 9th century. Between about w hen the city wa, sacked. Union . Intensive survcf work 1500 and 1000 BC Hasan lu had bee n settled by Altho ug h thi s was prob,1bly the wor k of' th e has revealed many wcl fortined people w ho used a distinc tive burnished gray or Ura rtians led by Menua, in the absence of inscrip- Urartlan site, on rocky outcrops. black pottery. rn the first mille nnium their build- tions it is impos~ible to be certain. Some experts Urartu w,1' the c hief riv,11of ings co nsisted of a w ide portico, w ith the lintel ha ve suggest ed that th e Assyrians, a bout a cent ury supported on columns, leading through an ante- later, were responsi ble. After a period of aban don- Assyria and its southern border, chamber into a recta ngular h a ll wi th two rows of' ment a massive fortif'ica tio n wa ll o( Urartia n-stylc lay close to the ,'\\\\ssyrian mason ry wa s built on the ruins, w h ich mig ht give heartland . The Ur.irti,rns used wooden columns. A spiral stairway or ram p led off further support to t he theo ry thil t it was the Urar- the cuneiform script, first in from the antechamber. Four such buildings that tia ns w ho capt ured the city. Assyrian and lacer in their own language, but very few were exca va ted in the southwest part o f th e tow n \/\\\\ncicnt civilizations of Western Iran had probably been palaces buil t by successive llasa nlu w as in a region tha t, acco rding to the documents have been found. rul ers. By the Lime of Hasan lu's destruc tion some Assyrians, was occupied by the Mannea ns, one of Most lnformatlnn about the were no longer being used as palaces but as store- t he man y peoples e ncount ered by Shal maneser Ill ho uses a nd, in o ne case, as a sta ble. Hasanlu was in his campaigns to the cast. Two othe r peoples in Urartians comes from the region have been iden tified w it h the Med es archeological investlg,11lon,, ca ptured in battle, with the bodies le ft w here they and the Persians, who la ter dominated the Near monumental rock tut fell, and the city was set o n fire before mu c h loot- East. In 811 1 nc Sha lmaneser march ed th rough t he ing could ta ke place. land o r Parsua, and in 835 received g ifts from 27 inscriptions of their kings Jnd kings of Parsua bcf'ore then continuing on to the The most remarkable find was a decorated gold land of the Mcd es. However, a lthoug h the na mes of Assyrian sources. In the 9th bowl, beside which were the s keletons of three Pars ua a nd Persia (called Parsa in the 6th ce ntury century nc Urartl,in rule seems to me n. They had pro bably been on the upper storey BC) arc similar, the land of Parsua me nti oned by have been confined to the region of the building w he n tht: n oor collapsed , killing Sha lmaneser was fa r fro m the later homeland of the of Lake V,111 and the caplt,il them and buryi ng the bowl. Whether the men had Persians, situated to the south east of Susa. An e;irly Tushpa, but by the middle of the theory proposed that t he Pe rsia ns migrated south next century it had extended to been guarding the vessel or were invad ers plun- between the 9t h and 6t h ce ntu ries, but it is more d ering the riches of the citadel is not known. The Lake Scvan, 1..1ke Unni,1 and the bowl itself probably belo nged to a pe ri od severa l Euphr,Hes river in the west. The hundred years before the destruction of Hasan lu, Urartl,1n civili~.,tion owed much as it showed scenes of god s, goddesses, a nimals a nd to the \/\\\\s,yrlan,, but they had ,1 cha riots that have been associated with the my ths distinctive cu lture, which Is ,cc11 of th e Hu rrians. The w ide var ie ty of objects d is- in their fortifications, temple,, palaces, tombs, pottery and art. BLACK SEA 44' 46' 48' TaShkopruO Q s0 0 0~ 0 TeiSMbalnn-i ----.__ o.L L Sevan Q oo'oo '--0 o..P_O ' \\\\ - Garnl ',f' Bayatel -4-0\u2022 0 'o J O0 0 \u20220 Ali,Sh~ _\/0\/ 0 e ealnbu~~~ DAxhlnlepo 0 Cholege~J ) 0 Aznavur 0 Kayal~\u2022~o x u v f \\\"\\\\<f\u2022ahan Bost0ankaya0 O I 0 0 0 <ti ~0 C) C, SeqlndGI \u2022 Q 0 r-,,,,1, So oMatazgt~ Pllul) II () Razl;q O O ~ O ~rzul Kales( 0 easiam A,\u00b7*\u2022 NaSh1eban 38' I KoShk e d'\u00b0'' 1\/ AdlleevazCI> ~u )\/ L Van ~ Anzai T C,() o ~O \\\"Kobanls!<Oy {I ~0 o e \u2022 .o 8 0 rcx;k or a1eIe lnscrlplfoll !Ind Pagan king menuoned In ln,cr,ptiOII 00 SarduriI c831 BC 0Oo O~ ~fve'111 \u2022 lshpulnlc 818 BC SardurMII \u2022\u2022 lshpulnl and Monua c.800BC O Xlt 0 Menua c.785 BC 0 0 Otlle<C7~-600 BC 0 X o, cava1od 1owor tompl-0 It temple menlloned In 10,1 \\\\ \\\\ Oala1g\u2022t\u2022 \\\".\\\\,.,, OTashtepe u 01her temple typo Topzawa . Ktlosllln \\\"\\\" 0 0 Musa~, scale I. B000 000 u 0 150km J- 100ml \\\\ 17 J","EMPIRES probable that there were two regions with similar names. \\\"Parsua\\\" meant borderland in Persian and so could have been given to a number of different regions. The name occurred again some three centuries later as the land of' Parthia in the north- east of Iran. How far Parsua and Media extended is a lso uncertain, though they must have been near the main rou te throu11h the mountains from Babylonia to the Iranian plateau, passi ng Hamadan, which was la ter the capital o f' t he Mcdcs. As no si tes from 1000 to 800 BC have been investigated, the on ly avai lab le info rmation is that contained in the cu ne ifo rm tex ts. These sug~est t hat at this time there were no kingdoms of Media or Parsua as such, but that they were both divided up into many small independent groups. Farther south the Assyrians encountered the kingdom of Ellipi, w hich was probably situated in the mountains or modern Luristan. In the first three cent uries of the first millennium BC Luristan was th e center of a skilled bronze manufacture. Some of the Luristan bro nzes were elaborately- wrought, symmetrical castings depicting fa ntastic beasts, which have been identified as standards. Others were horse trappi ngs or harness ornaments decorated w it h stylized animal and demon figures. Most of the Luristan bronzes that have survived were looted by tom b rob bers a nd sold on the anti- quities market, but a few belonging to this period have been fo und in the course of arc heological excavations. Sh a Ima neser's successors During the reigns of Ashurnasirpal IT and Shalma- neser III, Assyria had gradua ll y dominated the lowland areas of th e Near East. Its armies had march ed w ith comparative freedom in the high- la nd s to t h e north and cast, but la ter began to meet greater resistance. According to the annals inscribed on the Black Obelisk found at Kalhu , in 832 IJC the Assyrian arm ies were led by Dayyan- Ashur, Sha lmaneser's chief vizier, and fo r the following four years the k ing himself stayed in Kalhu . Perhaps, after 30 years on the throne, Shal- mancscr was exhausted by his annual campaigns and had chosen Dayyan-Ashur, his c hi ef' v izier for more than 20 yea rs, to lead them in his stead. Perhaps, too, Shalmancscr's e ldest son, Ashur- danin-apla, fe lt s lig hted when he was passed over for this honor. orAccording to the limmu list (the list Assyrian officials whose names were give n to each year), a revolt in 828 led by Ashur-danin-apla broke out, w hic h lasted until well after Shalmaneser 's d ea th in 824. Excep t for I<a lhu, all the major cities of Assyria including Img ur- Enlil, Nineveh, Ashur and Arbil join ed the rebels. However, it was not Ashur-dan in-apla who succeeded to the Assyrian throne but another son of Shalmancscr, w ho becam e Sh amshi-Adad V (823- 811 BC). The circu m- stances o f his victory arc not known, but possibly he was helped by Marduk-zakir-shumi, whom Shalmancscr m had assisted in establishing his claim to the throne of Babylon. I n fact, Sha msh i- Adad had made a t reaty w ith Marduk-za kir-shumi in which the Assyrian was forced to accept a subordinate role, perhaps because, at th e time, he was preoccupied by the struggle w ith his brother. 174","\/\\\\SSYRI\/\\\\ \/\\\\ND ITS RIV\/\\\\L~ t,fr Stele of Shamshi-\/\\\\dad V (823 81 1 BC) found at Kalhu and probably erected in the Temple of Nabu. The king i~ in his court robes with th(\u2022 1yplc,,I headdress .111d diadem of the Assyrian monarchy. He holds ,l scepter .ind points his right Index finger in 3 gesture of reverence. In rront of his face are symbols of the chief gods: the horned hcaddre~S prnh.1bly indicating Ashur. Ihc sun disk ofShamash, the crescent ,ind circle of Sin, the fork of lightning uf Adad ,,nd the star of lshtM. The inscription was written after hi~ 4 th campa ign and gives details of the insurrection throughout Assyria <1t the end of' the reign of his father Shalmaneser Il l. Height 1.98 m, width 0 .94 111. Righi A detail f'rom the Black Obelisk ofShalm,111cscr Ill (858 824 ec). The upper rcgbtcr is inscribed \\\" the tribute or Y,,ua, the son of Humrl\\\", who is shown groveling before Shalmancscr. Yau,1 is identil,cd with the Israelite king Jehu who usurped the throne and rut lo death the descendants o Omri. The lower register show~ the tribute of Musrl roosslblv Egypt). which curiously includes 2-humped camels of the variety more commonly found in lrJn . A few years later Shamshi-J\\\\d ad took his was t he g rand v1z1er Shams hi-il u. Ru ling t he reve nge for the h umiliating terms o [ the treaty. He western part of the Assy rian k ingdom from Ka r- captured Ma rduk-zakir-shum i's son, Ma rduk- Shalman eser (fo rmerly Ti l Bars ip) on t he Euph- balassu-iqbi, and took him bac k to Assy ria. ln a rates, he recorded his ca mpa igns in his ow n n ame su bseq u ent ca mpaign, Shamshi-Adad depo rted wit hout any mention of th e k ing. Ma rduk- balassu-iqbi's su ccessor and , like Shalma- ncse r and th e kings o[ Ba by lon, he worshiped at In th e mid dle of t he 9th century 13C, Su hu, w h ic h t he shrines o f Ba by lo n, Borsippa and Kutha. After was s ituated on th e Euph rates, nea r Ana, a nd had Sbamshi-Ad ad 's dea th, his q uee n, Sammu ra mat, successfully resisted Ashurnasirpal 's attacks, was became the ruler o[ Assyria fo r five years while her ruled by Shamash-rcsh-usur. He record ed his son Adad-nirari III was stil l a minor. Little is d eed s on a carved stele, fo und in Ba by lon, w he re it known about Sammuramat's deeds, bu t he r rep u- had pro ba bly been take n by a later ki ng. One of h is tation survived and s he entered Greek legend as proudest achievements was that he had introduced t he beautif'u l, but cru el, quee n Semira mis. bees for h on ey and wax into the lan d of Su hu. The d ecline o [ Assyria During th is period of Assyria n d ecline, plagues For th e next 60 years Assyria experien ced a phase and re bellions were recorded in the limmu list. o f relativ e weakness. The rule o[ th e mona rch was Against t he name of the limmu official Bur-sagalc, much reduced as provisional governors usu rped gov ernor of Guza na, t here were record s of a pow ers that p re v io usly h ad been t he king's. Palil- re bellion in the city of Ashur an d , in t he month or irish (wh ose name is sometim es read as Nc rgal- Simanu, an eclipse of the s un. T h is has been eresh), t he governor of Rasa p pa, e rected stelac and equa ted with t he almost total eclipse of t he sun fo u nded cities in his own name, as did the gove r- v isible to o bservers in Nineveh from 9.33 a. m. to nor Bel-Har ran- bcl-usu r wh o had his own image, 12. 19 p .m. on t he morning of the 15 J u ne 763 BC. rather tha n t he king's, carved on his monumen t. This id en tification provides the fi xed poin t on The most powerful of these governors, howe ver, whic h the chron ology of t he Assy rian and Ba by- lonian ki ngs is based, as far back as t he midd le of t h e second mille nnium BC. 175","ASSYRIA TRIUMPHANT (750-626 BC) X m,jOI banle, w,th date \u2022 town rOQlfdod u u~ n fflllcn,lli D area ol ~iclan senlemonl 1 D area ol Gteel< r e - :icale 1.17850000 j 0 4COkm The resurgence of Assyria ., i -------,_ The rapid expa nsion of' Assyria in the 9th century ' BC was followed by a period of stagnation in t he --J first half of the 8th century. The borders of Assyria :.!If rema ined a lmost the sa me but t he governors of the Gaaosc provinces act ed as if th ey were indep ende nt r ul ers. '~ Assyria's n e ighbors suc h as Urartu and Phoenic ia (Caf\/il) pursued policies that took no account of the .,. interests of the Assy rian kin g. T his pe riod of' wca k- iang,,,,c ness end ed w ith the accession of Tiglath- pilcser fil (\\\" i. ~U.Us (744- 727 BC). T he limmu list record ed a revolt in the city of Ka lhu in 746, sh ortly before Tiglath- .,;...v, pileser became k ing . Whethe r t hese eve nts were connected is not certain, but very possibly the new .~\u00b5I~ king was a u surper. Traditionally, Assyria n kings ~,.!\\\\'I1(\u00a7, justified the ir cla.im to the throne through the choice of the gods and through descent from a and Gaza, the in land states Ammon, Moab and previo us king. Tiglath- pilcscr, however, hardly Ed om as wel l as th e Arab tribes of the interior ever me ntio ned his pare ntage in a ny of his inscrip- including those of Taima and Sab'a (Sheba). In tions, pe rhaps beca use of his irreg ular accession. addi t ion to these conq uest s, the Assy ria ns were An inscribed b rick from the temple at As hur called often invited to inte rve ne in the affairs of smaller him t he son of Adad - nirari, who di ed al most 40 neighboring states whose rulers were their willing years before Tiglath-pilcser came to the throne. allies. Kilamuwa of Sa m'a l record ed that he \\\" hired \\\" t he king of Assy ria (perhaps Shamshi -Adad V, Tiglath- pilcser wasted n o time in esta blishing 823- 811 BC) to fight against t he nearby kin gdom of Assyria o nce again as t he d ominan t power of the Adana (Danuna). Abaz of Judah requested assist- Near East. Ea rl y in his reign he led his armi es to the an ce from Tiglath- pileser, and Bar-ra kib, a later south, de feating th e Aramacan t ribes who had r uler of Sam'al, recorded h ow his Cather had settled in northern and eastern Babylonia. He \\\"grasped the h em of Tiglath- pileser\\\" and how he reached Dur-Kuriga lz u a nd Sippar a nd received the and his fa the r \\\"ra n at t he c hariot wheel of the king rema ins of offerings from the temples of Baby lo n, of Assyria\\\" a nd as a res ult his king dom had Borsippa and Kutha, which normally were given prospered . o nly to t he k ings of Baby lon. He clairned to have conquered as far as the Uknu river (perhaps the T he P hoenicia ns Karkheh) on the Lo wer Sea (the Gul0, Reversing The Phoenicia ns w ho li ved in the cities on the the policy of earlier Assy rian kings, Tiglath- pilescr Med iterranea n coast in the first mi llenniu m BC a nnexed states on the fa r side of the Euphrates, were probably the descendants of tb c Canaa nite outside Assyria's traditional boundaries. He inhabitants of the Leva nt in t he l3ronze Age. The appointed a sha reshe (e unu ch) as governor o ver name Phoenic ia n was Greek and it was also applied the cities of Baby lonia a nd claimed the title King of to the purple dye obtained from the murex shell Sumer and Akkad, but allowed Nabu- nas ir, t he for w h ic h the Phoeni cians w ere fa mous. The king of Ba bylon (747- 734 oc) t o retain his throne. Phoenicians generally referred to themselves by In 743 BC Tiglath - pi lcser fa ced o ppositio n from a their c ity of orig in . Phoe nic ia ns were great sailors coalition of the ruler s of Urartu , Arpad , Ma la tya, and thei r prosperity ca me from trade that in cl ud ed Kummuh and Gurgum, led by Sard uri II, king of limber from the high ly valued cedar forests in the Ura rtu. Tiglath- pilcser defea ted his enemies in a mounta ins that lay behind the coastal cities. battle in Kumm u h (Co mm agene, in southern Turkey). Sarduri fl ed into the mountains but Tig- fn the last centuries of t he second mil lennium lath-pi leser pu rs ued him and reached th e Urartia n parts of Cyprus came under Phoenician influence ca pita l Tus hpa (on La ke Va n), where he e rected a a nd th e Phoenic ia ns later establis he d colo ni es on stclc but did not capture the c ity. the isla nd . The trad e in Cypriot copper, which in the Bro nze Age had passed through Ugarit, was For t he next 12 years T ig lath- pilcser ca mpaign ed now diverted to the Phoenicia n cit ies of Ty re, in th e west, first aga inst Arpad , which fe ll in 740, Sidon, Byblos and Arvad. According to classical then against Unqi (the Amuq plain) and Aram a uthors, the Phoenicians establ ished colonies (Damasc us). Some of th e conqu ered states were annexed to existing p rovinces or establis hed as new Assyrian p rov inces; oth ers were left with pro- Assyrian ru lers who d eli vered an annual tribute to the Assyria n king . l3y the end of Tiglath- pileser 's reign the list of tributary regions in cl ud ed the Ara- macan and Nee-Hittite states of Syria and t he Taurus, the P hoenic ian coastal cities, Israel, Judah l?r.","ASSYRIA 'rRIUMPII\/\\\\NT Cyprus ~ Salam,s~ ' Manon ldaion Go'90I \\\\ Ta,nassos \u2022 \u00b7Kllion mad\u00b7 Amr'~ (I.Mnaca) Sinurru ~ r- -- sea1o 1 4600 000 45\u2022 0 801<m ) 60ma ) 9-' ~ -J\/~ --- Corsica .J\/ ' '\u00b7 ~Alaloa ,,. 535BC Sardinia 3S' Crete 11anos ... MEDITERRANEAN SEA h; Lep11sMegna\u2022 5 30' l I' , -+- !' ) ''I I I I I I I I I I ,o\u00b7 20\\\" 30\u2022 Above leji Larger than life-size The world of the Phoenicians their navy was used by the through out the Mediterran ea n and found ed Cadiz Assyrians and the Pcr~ians. (Ga des) in 1110 BC, Utica in 1101, Lix us a little relief of the Assyrian king The Phoenician homeland l,1y on Phoenidan ships sailed for ea rlier, Sic il y in t he 8th ce ntury before the Greek Tlglat h- pl leser Ill found in the the eastern coast of the beyond the Mediterranean. coloni za tion, a nd Carthage in 81 4. However, these Central Palace at Ka lhu . Height Mediterranean Sea and the According to Herodotus, a dates have not yet been confirmed by archeological 1.08 m, width 1.07 m . principal cities were Tyre, Phoenician ship commissioncJ eviden ce. The earliest Phoeni cia n inscription from Sidon, Byblos and Arvad. Early Cyp r us has been da ted Lo abou t 850 llC a nd e lse- Left\/\\\\ coin from Byblos of\\\" 1ype in the 1st millennium KC by the Egypll,u1 pharaoh Nccho where evidence of Phoenician settlement seems to first struck in the early 4th Phoenicians and Greeks 11 circumnavigated Africa In 600 be later tha n 800. One of the reasons for establis h- century 11<.:, s howing,, established colo nies throughout ing colonies may have been the growing inOuenee Phoenicia n galley above a the Mci.litcrrancan, the nc. It took three years to sail of Assy ria, whi ch imposed tribute on th e Phoeni- fabu lous sea ~rcat ure. from the ReJ Sea to the Straits of cian cities. In the 7th cent ury t he Assyri ans con- Phoenician power was based on Phoenicians generally occupying qu ered Sidon and Tyre, and t he western colonies control of the sea throughout the the south and the Greeks the Gibraltar. The Carthaginians 11111 came under the control of Ca rthage. 1st millennium uc. north. The most important were great explorers, re,1chir1g Phoenician colony was C,1rthage, w hich came to dominale the the coasts of Britain In t he 5th western Mcditarranean until its century 11c. ambitions were curbed by the Romans. T he Phoe11lclans were a major maritime power and 177","EMPIRES Late Assyrian Kings 2 Assyrian- Babylonian re lations A0A0-NIRARI Ill \u2022kmgs of Babylon Na bu- nasir the k ing of Ba by lon d ied in 734 BC. Two yea rs later his son was overthrown and, 810-783 t possibly kings of Babylon shortly after, t he chief of the Bit- Amu ka ni, a Chal- dea n t ribe from the region south of N ip pur, seized : ----- Blood relaltonships uncertain t he throne of Ba by lo n . In response, T iglat h- pilescr m arc hed against the Cha ldea ns and, a fte r a I v ictorious ca mpaign , rece ived the su bmission s of Aramaea n a nd Ch a ldea n leaders. T hey incl uded TIGtATH-PILESER 111 \u2022 Mardu k-a pla-iddina, the c hief of the Bit-Ya kin tri be, w ho later confronted T iglath- pilcser 's suc- 744-727 Other kings cessors. ln 729 T iglath-pileser decided to take the t hro ne of Babylon himsel f rather tha n appoi nt a ~--------------- ,...-----I SIN\u2022SHUM-LISI-IRt vassa l or redu ce the holy and ve nerabl e city to lhe ?623 status of a province. At the New Year festi va ls of SHALMANESER v\u00b7 SARGON 11\u00b7 Sin\u2022ah\u00b7usur 728 a nd 727 he assumed t he role of the Baby lonia n king. The rela tio nship bet ween Baby lon a nd 726-722 721-705 ASHUR\u00b7UBALLIT 11 Assyria was one of great sig nifican ce. Baby lo n was an importa nt rel igio us and cu lt ural center w hich, I 611-609 despite its military weakness, affected Assyrian SENNACHERIB. p olicy. The Assy ri ans used a Ba by loni an dia lect in li terary w orks and even fo r royal inscriptions, 704-681 I w he reas letters a nd contracts were written in Assyrian . Assy rian rul ers tended to be e ithe r pro- I ESARHADDON\\\" or anti-Ba by lonian a nd over th e next century the ir I p olicy toward s Ba by lo nia shifted v io lently as they I 680- 669 Arda-MuhSSI Ashur-nad1n-shum1 \u2022 I I Shamash\u2022shum\u2022uk1n\u2022 ASHURBANIPAL. 668-?627 I I I ASHUR\u00b7ETELLI-ILANI t SIN\u00b7SHAR-ISHKUN t ?627 ?624 ?623--612 Left Stele found at S,1m'al showing Bar-rakib, the pro-Assyrian ruler of the city (Zinjirll), ~eated on a throne similar to that used by the Assyrian king. Before him stands a scribe w ith pe,1-case and writing board, probably used for writing in Aramaic, as in the inscription on the stelc. Some rulers of Sarn'al had Aramaic names; other~ had H i11itc or Luwian names. Bar-raklb came to the throne in about 732 oc artcr his fother had died fighting as an ally of the Assyrian king Tlglath-pilcser ITT. De~pite Its rulers' pro-Assyrian ~lance Sam'al wa~ reduced to provincial status within the Assyrian cmpl ,\u00b7e before 681 BC. Height 1.14 m. 178","ASSYRIA TRI UMl'HAN\\\"r SO' PHRYGIA 0 I CASPIAN SEA \u2022cTU$hpll Zll(IRT\\\\J 0 L Urrnla R m MEDITERRANEAN SEA 0 EGYPT EDOII - routeofSarp'se,ghlhcampalgll \u2022 fr,d .\/ !!\\\\!! Cl)l1'8spondenl with Sargon -. ieco(Old in text scale 1\u20228 000 000 200km ,- 0 - - pnnapal road stale o, rock relief enri>uled 10 I ,so.. e T\\\",glalh~ Ill (744-727 SC) I e Sargon II (721-705 SC) I - - _,COUISt- - -- ancient c:oaS1ln of flYt< The Assyrian empire in the tried to achie ve a lasting arrangeme nt for govern- names, which they changed to something more late 8th cen tury nc suitable on accession to the throne. Shalmancscr's Under Tlglath\u2022pileser Ill and ing the south. an nals have not survived but, accordi ng to the Sargon II, Assyr ian foreign Bible, he captured Samaria, the capita l of Israel, policy changed and large areas or Tiglath-pileser's reforms and deported the Israelites. the Near East beyond the earlier Tiglath- pileser's military and political successes borders of Assyria were brought rested on a fundamen tal reorganization of the The accession o(Sargon II within Assyrian provincial Assyrian state apparatus. He reformed the army, The circumstances in which Shalmaneser V was administration, Communication establishing a standing professional force of mer- repla ced as king of Assyria by Sargon in 722 arc over this vast a rea w as helped cenaries, particularly Aramacans, as foot soldiers. obscure. One of Sargon's inscriptions suggests that by a system of' regular staging he was aided by the citizens of Ashur, who posts set up on the main'roads. The mounted forccs- chariotry and cavalry were objected to paying taxes that Shalmancser had The em pire crea ted by imposed. In his inscriptions Sargon did not Tiglath-pllescr a 11d Sargo n largely Assyrian but also included some troops of mention his ancestry and avoided naming his survived for almost another foreign origin. The chariot forces were con trolled predecessor, whom he called \\\"the p rince w ho went century. The expansion was by the rab sha reshe, the chief e unuc h. Tig!a th- before me\\\". The name Sargon, meaning legitimate brought about by continual pilcscr used eunuchs lo curb the power of the king, suggests that he was not Shalmanescr's d esig- campaigns, which were recorded nobles of Assyria and appointed them provincial nated successor. in the royal annals, including ,1 governor s beca use, with no d escendants of\\\" their detailed dcscriptio 11 of Sargon's own, they were loyal to the king. As an instrument There are no records of Sargon's campaigns in eighth campai~n in 714 when of government, Tiglath-pilcscr pursued large-scale the first two years of his reign, perhaps beca use he Urartu was defeated. llowevcr, deportations and resettlements of peoples, record- was fu lly occ upied in establishing his position. the route of' this campaign. as ing 155,000 Chaldeans and 65,000 Medcs as depor- However, later versions of Sargon's annals bor- shown. has been the subject of tees. Many of these were taken to Assyria where rowed Shalmaneser's conquest of Samaria, placing deba te, some a uthorities they worked in the king's service or as farmers . it in the early part of Sargon's reign alongside some believing that the Assyrians Sometimes people were moved from one region to of Sargon's own later ca mpaigns. Tn the spring of went the whole way round Lake another to curb local or nationalistic tendencies. 720 Sargon march ed south, possibly with t he aim Urmia. of recovering Baby lonia, whi ch in the turmoil su r- Tiglath- pilcser IU's successor was his son Shal- rounding Sargon's accession had fallen under t he maneser V. During his sho rt reign (726 722 BC) he control of t he Chaldean Marduk-apla-iddina 11 continued the policies of his ra th er and was also (called Mcrod acb- baladan in the Bible) of t he Ilit- crowned king of Babylon as well as of Assyria . (n Yakin tribe. Having arrived in the neighborhood of t he Babylonian King List. Shalmanesc r an d his Der, the Assy rians fo ught against th e Elamites father were recorded as Ululayu and Pulu respec- tively and the same names are found in Biblical and Greek sources. These were probably their original 179","E.MPIRF.~ under thl!ir king Hum ban- nikash I (743 7 17 DC), but the Ba by lonia ns arrived o nly after th e battle was over. Sargo n claimed tot,11 victory w hereas a Baby lonian c hron icle reported that the Gl;imites had won. In fact, th e result seems lo have been a s talem ate, with th e Assyrians keeping cC1ntrol o f' the city of Der but avoiding any fu rthe r military involveme nt w ith Elam or Babylon ror the next 10 years. Sargon turned his attention to the west, where the rulers of I lama, Arpad, Si murru, Damascus a nd Samaria had opportun istica lly cast off their a llegi- ance to Assyria. They were besieged by Sargo n in Qarqar, where in 853 I1c a similar coalitio n had faced Shalma nese r . Whe n Gaza, acti ve ly s upported by th e Egyptians, rebe lle d, Sc1 rgon estab lished Assyr ia n control right up to the Egypt ia n border. The Assyria ns a lso a ttempted to control the lands to t he no rth and west of th e Euphra tes, but th ere they competed wi th the innue ncc of t wo major powers on the A natolian platea u, the M ushki to the nort hwest a nd the Urartian s to the northeast. Almost 400 years earlier T iglath- pilescr l (1114 1076 BC) had fought ,,gain st the Mus hki. There is no archeological evidence for the occupa- tion of s ites in centra l Anatolia between t he 12th a nd 8th centuries BC, but in the 8 th centu ry the Mus hki li ved in the regio n tha t the Greeks called Phrygia . According to Greek lege nds the Phrygians arrived in Anatolia from Europe at a bout the tim e of the Trojan War, at the end of th e Lale Bro nze Age. Some sc holars believe t hat they were respo n- siblc for the d estruction or Hatt usas and the end of the Hittite empire in abo ut 1200 I1c, butt-he re is no corro borati ve eviden ce for their presence in the regio n at such an ea rly date. Lt is possible that Phrygia and Mush ki were alte rnati ve names for the same people. In any case, by the 8th century they were ,ipparently united under one ruler. King Midas of Phrygia in a lio n 's head, similar to those depicted on the Abo,,e In this rclitr from his Sargon 's ri va l in the area, a ruler w ho m he called reliefs in Sargon H's palace. Oddly, t he tomb con- newly founded c~pital Mita of Mushki, was undoubtedly the same king Dur-Sharrukin (Khor,abad) Midas or Phry gia w ho in Greek lege nd had a go l- tained no weapons, no ite ms of pn.:c io us mate rials, Sargon II face,\\\" high ofnclal ul den to uch and grew ass's ears. Midas' capita l was s uch as gold, c lectrum or si lver, no ivory or glass or hb coun, probably the Gore.lion, named after Midas' fa t her Gord ias, w ho gemstones no r, apart from the fibulae, a ny jewelry. ,rown-prinn:, hi~ son and may have refound cd the city. From excava tio ns, Some of' the fibulae an d met,11 vessels were of brass wccessor. Scnn,1d1cri b. The kinit the buildings at Gord ion ty picall y consisted o r an (an a lloy of copper and zin c) a nd a mong the earliest wears the royal Assyrl.1n crown a ntechamber and a recta ngular ha ll (the S<J-c.illed examples of its use. Their bright yellow appearance and a it.irment decor,11cd with roseue,, po,,lbly of gold and mcgaron plan), with galleries along eac h side of the sewn onto the fabric. A slmil.u type of cluth w,1s found covering hall supported on wooden columns. Another has suggested that the discovery of how lo make two ,kdctons in a Mone objects o f brass rathe r than the usua l bron ze (an megaron had a mosa ic floor comprising geometric alloy of copper a nd tin) gave rise lo t he story a bou t sarcoph,1gus In ,l wmb nt Kalhu, where Yaba, the yuecn of patterns mad e out of colored pebbles. Seventy- fi ve or so burial mo unds surro und ed Midas' golden touch (tho ugh t here is some dis- Tiglath pileser 111, Baniii, agreeme nt over w heth er the occ upant of the tom b Sh;ilrn,1ncscr V'!t. queen 1tnd the ci tad e l of Gordion. the largest of w hic h still was Midas or his father). According to a la ter Atall,1, t he 9uccn of Sarg1,n IL stands more than 50 meters high and, according to tradition , Midas committed suicid e w he n his local traditio n, was the tomb o r Mid as. Beca use o f may have bc~n buried . its size the mo und had escaped the depreda tio ns o r Height 2.'JO m, width 2. JO m. tomb robbers and could be excavated o nl y by drilling from the top to loca te the to mb c hambe r kingdom was overru n in a bout 695 ilC after an and th e n tu nneling in from th e side. T he c ha mbe r invas io n by Cimmerians. a people who may have was made of large woode n timbe rs and co ntain ed come from Central Asia. The excavations s howed the body of a man about 60 yea rs old and 1. 59 that Gord ion was destroyed at about th is tim e. meters tall. Inside th e tomb were fin e inla id In the first part of Sargon's reign Midas was his wood en tables and sta nd s, th ree large bronze cau l- enemy. Fears of a cons piracy in volving the ruler of drons, more than a hundred bro nze fibula e (orna- Mushki or Urartu sufficed to provoke Assyria's mental safety pins) and more than one hundred anger, leading to the annexatio n of Carchcmis h in and fifty other metal vessels and ladles. One of th e 7 17 BC. When Ambaris ofTa bal sent messengers to bronze vessels e nded in a ra m 's head and another Rusa of Urartu a nd Midas of Phrygia, the Assyrians deposed him and in 7 J3 annexed his country. In 709, however, fo llowing attacks by the governor o f Que (Cilicia), Midas became an a lly o f Assyria. A 180","RiShl Rccon,1ructed he,id of' 1he \/ISSYHl\/1 TRIUMPII\/INT man buried in the Tomb of' Midas at Gordion. The technique copy of a letter from Sargon to Ashur-sharra-usur, used w,1:, the same a!'t that the Assyrian eu nuc h governor of' Que, ca rried employed tn rccorn,truct the news of the rapprochement between Midas and f'c,1111rcs of' uniJenti!icd victims Sargon and described the consequences for future of murder or f1r~. The layers of Assyrian policy. Squeezed between Assyria and mu,clc ,ind skin were h11ill up Phrygia, the rulers of' this region, it said, had no on a ca,1 oft he skull lo produce choice but to su bmit and \\\"polish the sandals or the a por11-,1i1 of 1he king. l\\\\ssyrian governor with their beards\\\". Below \/I rock relief ne,11\u00b7 ,1 ,p,\u00b7ing The Assyrian royal mail at I vri:t. ~how~ WJrpJIJw~1s, the Not su rpri singly, the vers ion or history presentl!d ruler vr \u00b7ruwana (cla,sical Ty,1na) in the Assyrian annals was biased, but sometimes in f'r()nt uf ,1 god, W,1rp,1 law,1, or the inscriptions of' Assyria's rivals and neighbors Urbal,1, a~ he wi1~ Ct1llcd in 1he: provide a corrective. The royal correspondence of' A\u00bbyrl,111 1ex1,, p.iicJ 1rlbu1c lt> the Assyrian court also gives a more objective Tiglath-pile,cr Ill and may have view. About 1,300 letters between Sargon and been allied to King MIJa, uf officia ls rrom all over his empire, and agents living Phrygi,1 . When Mid,1~made outside the borders of Assyria, have survived. pc,1cc with Sargon II of \/lssyri,1 Many of the letters arc fragmentary, imprecisely dated and, as much of the background information WJrpJIJwas returned 10 the was omitted because it was familiar to the corrc- spo11dents, arc often difTicult to interpret. Still, Assyri,111 fold. The semicircular they reveal the issues with which Assynan ornamc111a l s,1rc1y pin worn by domestic and foreign policy was concerned, which arc not evident in the official propaganda. The Wt.1rp.1 l.1 wa~ b slntil.1r 10 1ho~c royal inscriptions create an impression or inevi- table success, imply ing t hat there was no resistance used by the Phrygi,111s. uf' whkh to the will of the king, before whom, w ith the gods more than 100 were found in the on his side, all had to submit. The correspondence, Tomb of Micla, at Gord ion. Heigh1 of' god 4.ZO 111 . orin contrast, casts doubt on the outcome of some the policies, describing how omens and oracles were consulted before any action was taken and recordi ng fai lures as well as successes. One of the problems facing the Assyrians was the government of so large an empire. Loca l administration was under the control of the provincial governor who acted on the orders of' t he king and who sent reports back to him. Lengthy delays in comm uni ca ti on posed the dangers of gov- ernors acquiring too much independence or of v ital decisions being postponed. To overcome these problems the Assyrians created an efficient road and messenger system. Along the major routes, at regular intervals of about a day's march (10 kilo- meters), there were road stations w here the king's messengers could rest and obtain fresh teams o r mul es to pull t heir chariots. ln this way, it took only a few days for the king's word to reach the far- flung outposts of the empire. This system formed the basis of the much-admired system of communication used later in the Persian em pire. War with Urartu The Assyria n war machi ne needed supplies of men, animals and equipment. These were acquired through taxes, tribute and booty, and the ann ual campaigns led by the king or his h igh officials ensured that peoples who were subject or allied to Assyria did not default on their payments. To the north of Assyria the powerful kingdom of Urartu opposed Assyrian designs. \/\\\\s Assyria grew in strength and sought to exert its influence over regions closer to Urartu, conflict between the two became increasingly likely. On the map Assyria and Urartu have a common border, but in reality they were separated by almost impassable moun- tains, w hich made a direct military attack impos- sible. Even if the Assyrians had succeeded in crossing the mountains or in reaching Urartu by 181","EMPIRE~ .~ ) ~ the more easily negoti ab le passes to the cast or united. Only a few sites of the Medes have been Tepe N~sn-1Jan\u2022 ~~ west, the Urartians cou ld have retreated into their excavated and these seem to have been founded at Below The mud-brick buildings mo untain fortresses, leaving the harsh winter the end of the 8th cenlllry BC. One of them, Tepe at Tepe Nush-i Jan stood on top ofa natural rock outcrop in the conditions to force an Assyrian withdrawal. Annex- Nush-i Jan, contained the remains of an impressive middle of a Oat plain surrounded by mountains. In thb a ti on of Urartu was not one of Assyria's aims and religious sa n ctuary. Another was God in Tepe, photograph, taken at an early stage of the: excavation. the walls Sargon avoided direct confrontation w ith Urartu as where the remains of a fort ified palace with of the Fon ~re just visiblt, on the cop of the site. he did w ith Egypt and Mushki However, con\u00a3li ct columned halls may have once been the residence arose th rough t he ir vassa l or allied states. of' a local Medi an chieftain. A stcle erected by In 7 16 BC Rusa I, the ki ng or Urartu, overthrew Sargon that was found at Na_jaf'ehabad might have t he ruler of Mannca in western Iran, to the sou th of come from Godin Tepe, marking t he farthest exten t Lake Urmia, and installed Bagdatti as king in his o[ Assy rian penetration into the Zagros. place. To Sargon, who reckoned that Mannea was Having resolved his problems to the west, north with in the Assyrian sphere of innuenee, and to a nd east, in 7 10 BC Sargon foc used his gaze o n th e w hom Mannca was a v ita l source of h orses [or th e south , w here Marduk-apla-idd ina LI ru led over Assyrian army, Urartu's interference was a pro- Ba bylon . In the co urse of two campaigns Sargon vocative act. He in va ded Mannca, had Bagdatli ousted him, forcing him to take refuge in the fl ayed and appointed his brother Ullusunu king in mars hes in the south, and in 709 Sargo n proclaimed his p lace. In res ponse, Urartu seized 22 Mannean himself ruler of Ba bylon at the New Year festival. fortresses, but in the fo llowing year Sa rgon ca me to In 707 Sargon ca ptu red Dur-Yakin, the main city of the assista nce of Ullusunu a nd reca ptured them. In the Bit-Yakin tribe of which Marduk-a pla-iddina II 714 Sargon marc hed to Media and received tri bute was the chief, but fa iled to captu re Marduk-a pla- from the rulers of the cen tra l Zagros, before pro- iddina himself. Sa rgon brought Baby lonia into th e ceeding north in to Mannea w here Ullusunu per- Assyri a n empire, appointing a governor in Babylon s uaded him to march aga inst Rusa l. When the a nd another in Gambulu, on the border w ith Elam. Assyrian and Urartian armies met, somewhere near More than 108,000 Aramaeans and Chaldeans were the southwest corner of Lake Urmia, Sargon was deported from Baby lonia in an attem pt to pacify victoriou s. Hav ing dcf'eated Rusa, he marched into the coun try. Urart ia n terr itory, returning to Assyria by way of As befitted a ruler who denied his ancestry, Sar- Musasir, the c ity of the god Ha ldi where the Urar- gon d ecided to build a new capital ci ty. He c hose a tian kings were crowned. Sargon looted the ci ty com p letely new site and called it Dur-Sharrukin, or and brought back huge stores o[ booty. He fortress of Sargon. The foundations were laid as provided a d e tai led accou nt of his campaign in a early as 7 17, and in 707 t he gods of Du r-Sharru k in letter to the god Ashur, w hic h was probably read ente red their temples, a year before the city was out aloud at some v ictory celebration at the city of inaugu rated. In 705 Sargon led his arm ies to the Ashur. Sargon recorded eve ry step of the la nd of Tabal in the Taurus mo un tains, where he campaign, listing all the booty and tr ibute received met his death doing battl e aga inst a man ca lled and co ncl ud ing w ith the casua lty fig ures (w hich Gurdi (Gordias), a commo n name among the rul ers were as impla usible as those given out in milita ry of the An atolian principa li ties. Sargon had been at press briefings today): o nly one charioteer, one the height of his power and seemed invinci ble. He cava lryman and t hree foot soldiers in the Assyrian ruled the core of'thc Near East from the Gulf to the army were a lleged to have been killed. Taurus mo u ntains, from the Zagros mou ntain s to Sa rgon's victory over Urartu, however, was not Sinai. He had defeated Urartu and forced oth er as compl ete or as dec isive as his inscriptions s ug- rulers includi ng Midas, king of Phrygia, tbe phar- gested. Rusa reestab lishe d his influence over aoh of Egypt, Uperi, the king of DiImun, and seven Musasir a nd proba bl y did not, as stated in Sargon's kings of Yadnana (Cyprus) to pay tri bute. His death anna ls, commit sui cide by \\\"stabbing h imself w ith in battle and the loss of bis body, so that he could his own iron dagger like a pig\\\". An uneasy truce not be buried in his palace, was a great blow to was establish ed bet ween Assyria and Urartu. Assyrian morale. Assyrian spies re ported on condition s in Urartu and o n one occasio n sa id that th e Urartians had N ine veh, Assyria's natura l capita l been d e fea ted by a n in vas io n of Cimmerians. In W hen Sargon 's son and he ir Sennac herib became these circumstan ces it suited Urartu a nd Assyria to king in 704, he co nsulted th e oracles to find o ut remain a t peace with o ne another and for the next w hat had been his father's sins. To dissociate him- hundred years no furt her wars were record ed self from t he ill fa te of Sargon he o mitte d his between them. father's name from h is inscriptions and moved the ca pital from the new city of Dur-Sharruk in to the The end of Sargon's reign ancient city of Ni neveh. Nine veh was the natural South of Ura rtu , as tri de lhe main trade route fro m center of Assyria. 1.t lay in fe rtile gra in- prod uci ng Mesopota mia, were t he people known as t he lands, cont rolled an important c rossing of the Medes, d ivided into numerous triba l grou ps. In Tigris and contained the chief temple of the Assyr- Sargon 's inscriptions they were called Mig hty ia n cult of t h e goddess Is htar. Sennacherib rebuilt Mcd cs or Distan t Mcdes on the edge of Mount Nineve h, constructing a citadel w ith palaces and Bikni, w hi c h has been identified wit h Mou n t temples on the si te or the an cient city mou nd (Te ll Alva n d j ust sout h of the later Median ca pital a t Kuyunjik). H is princ ipal palace was decorated wit h Hamada n . According to the 5th century HC Greek carved stone reliefs, most of whi ch showed his historia n Herodotu s, the Medes were united under military victories, and , as at Ka lhu and Dur- Deioccs, wh o bui lt his capital city at Mamadan . Sharruk in, an arsenal palace was bui lt away from Assyrian accounts suggest that it was not unt il the the citadel (at Tell Nc bi. Yu nus, where accord ing to second ha lf of the 7th century that the Medes were Muslim t rad ition the prop het Jonah is bu ri ed). 182","Tepe Nush-iJan ASSYRI A TR I UM PHANT Although the Medes ruled an extensive empire Btlow The Central Temple and stretching from central Anatolia to Afghanistan, the Western Temple were the the archeology of the Medes is poorly known. In most important structures at the 1960s and 1970s Godin Tepe and Tepe Nush-i Tepe Nush-i Jan. Later the Fort, Jan, two sites not far from the Median capital a square fortified storehouse. Hamadan, were excavated and proved to be a large and Columned Hall were built. fortified residence occupied from the 8th to the 6th Columned halls were adopted by centuries BC and a religious center of the Medes, the Achaemenid Per~ians fvr respectively. their palaces. The Medes may have worshiped fire like later 10 20 30m Zoroastrians. The Central Temple at Tepe Nush-i 25 50 75 ft Jan, probably built in the 8th century BC, had an unusual stepped plan and contained an altar on which a fire was lit. In about 600 BC the whole building had been carefully filled up with stones, which preserved the walls to a height of some 8 meters, probably as part of a project to renovate the site. However, this was never completed and the monumental buildings were later occupied by villagers squatting in their ruins. Above The building~ at Tepe: Abovt center 321 silver objects in Nush-i Jan were exceptionally a bronze bowl were buried in well preserved with doorways and vaults still surviving. This the Fort in about 600 BC, They doorway in the Western Temple was partly blocked when the included spiral beads and building was abandoned. The pendants. which date to about ancient wooden lintel has been 2000 e<:, rings. jewelry and silver replaced with a modern timber beam. bars, which may have been an early form of currency. Length of bar in top row, 5.35 cm. 18)","EMPIRES Dur-Sharrukin ~cf\\\\)_1 \u2022 0ut-Sharrukln \\\\(Khor18bad) ~' In 717 BC Sargon the usurper, who proclaimed him- Left Wall decoration from self king of Assyria, king of the world, founded a Residence K of the p~lace (see \u2022 ,.,.,-;--M,,,.-19-;-..;.. new capital city. The site that he chose, which lay site plan). There were no stone ~o;';~ to the north of the ancient capital Nineveh, he reLiefs in this hall, which was called Dur-Sharrukin, meaning Sargon's Fortress. decorated with a magnHicent \\\"~ ........~.-....-' The gods of Dur-Sharrukin were brought into the painting. The much-restored drawing shows the king, new capital's temples in 707, when Sargon with perhaps followed by the crown \\\"the princes of all countries, the provincial gover- prince. before a god who holds the rod and ring of divine nors, the overseers and supervisors, nobles and authority. The whole panel is eunuchs and the elders of Assyria took up resi- framed by divine beings with dence in the palace and held a feast\\\". Two years buckets and cones, and below later, however, Sargon was killed in battle and the are rows of kneeling winged court moved to Nineveh. gods and bulls. Height c. 13 m. Approximately rectangular in plan, the city Right A painted. sun-dried clay walls at Dur-Sharrukin enclosed an area measuring figure found at Dur-Sharrukin. about 1,600 by 1,750 meters. Seven gates gave Often wrongly identified a~ the access to the city. The great palace of Sargon and hero Gilgamesh it is, in fact, the the temple area were built on a terrace straddling god Lahmu (the hairy one). the northwest wall of the city while the arsenal lay Figurines like trus were buried in the southern corner. in the foundations of the b1Jilding as protection against The site, which is now called Khorsabad, was evil. excavated by Paul Botta and Victor Place in the 19th century. They discovered a wealth of carved Below A 4-winged god with stone reliefs lining the palace walls, but many of bucket and cone carved on one these were lost when their boat was sunk. of the gates at Dur-Sharrukin. Height c. 3.65 m. 100 200m ~~f\u2022jHI at 200 400 600h -i1 - = '1 \\\"1 Above The higher part of the citadel consisted of the king's palace and a religious precinct that included a ziggurat. Below were the Temple of Nabu, which cou Id be rcach<.-d by a bridge, and the residences of the nigh officials including Sargon's brother Sin-ah-usur, who was the turtanu, or chief vizier. Right This 9-sided baked barrel cylinder from Dur-Sharrukin records the words of Sargon, \\\"Day and night I planned the building of that city.\\\" 184","'Sr - 4 - ... 30km \/\\\\SSYRI\/\\\\ TRI UMPII\/\\\\N'I Mount Nol 20rr, ,cale 1 1 400 000 Lions w ith the south dominated Assy rian foreign 0 policy fo r most of Sennacherib's reign. tn 703, the persistent Marduk-ap la-iddina II rebelled and ~\u00b7~~ seized the throne of Babylon fo r the seco nd Li me. Sennacherib marched south to defeat an alliance of \u00b7 'M-lllru. Movnt Tas Babylonians, Chaldeans, Aramaeans, Ela mites a nd ~ \u2022Sllru MaJik1ha Hunusa. Arabs, nea r Kutha. He recaptured Baby lon a nd seized members of Marduk-apla-iddina's family aa1a11\u00b0l 0Talmusa and court, t hough the Chaldea n leader himself' once more esca ped LO the mars hes. Senna cherib G<nnul~ l'Olmmagiia HABAIURt a ppointed a Babylonian, Bel- ibni, king of Babylon and pursued t he campaign into Chaldean country, \u2022I i21 :t \\\"w returning to Assyria with 208,000 ca ptives. T he Chald eans con tinu ed t o make troubl e, and in 700 ~ Our\u00b7Sharrvkl\\\\ \u2022 Assyl<al'Cllptlal Sennacherib returned to Baby lonia to depose Bcl- w,th datt ibni and appoint his eldest son, Ashur-nadin- J..,o,,, Shollolot- \u2022 ilOM OUCI ~ . . . . . 01 s humi, king of Babylon in his stead. ~canal ~ 0,. . . . . . . . . . ..... ~ dam The destr uction of Babylon In 69'1 Sennacherib mounted another expedition ~\\\\ _:~~v1\/bosu OHalaN)u D , ,~ .:::. aqueduct against the Chaldeans and their Elamilc a llies. T h is Shlbal'lllll time he la unched his alla ck from boats, built by Ajlloh nm- #($ \u2022 rOCkrtloelMG Phoenicians, afte r floa ting down the Tigris an d Euphrates a nd across the marshes into Elam ite N,ne,et, \u25a1 1anc1\u2022 - soom territory. The Assyrians claimed a great victory, but short ly afterwa rd the Elamitcs counterattacked (70Ml29CI against northern Babylonia, capturing Sippar and carry ing off Ashur- nadin-shumi. (Balaw11),, The events or the next three years were con- Dllll<tu fused. The Assyria ns took t he Ela mitc appointee to \/\\\\ssyria n cap i1a ls and A strong wa ll more than 12 kilometers long s ur- irrigation systems rounded the cit y, whic h occupied more than 7 Ashurn,1:,lrpal II moved hb square kilometers. capital from the city of \/\\\\shur 10 Kalhu In about 864 BC. Sargon Senna cherib unde rtoo k vast irrigatio n works to ll 's new capital city provide water for his greatly enlarged city, as well Dur-Sharrukin was harcly as for t he orchards a nd fields around Ni neve h and completed before Sargon was a roya l park, w here he cu ltivated plants from killed in battle in 705 oc <111d his Chaldea and the Amanus mountains. One exotic superslitious son Sennachcri b species was a \\\"wool- bea ring tree\\\", which has been moved the capital to Nineveh. ide ntified as coLLon, a p la nt that had been cu lti- The Assyrl,111 king, used cxbting vated since t he third millen nium uc in India. water course~ and constructed ca nals to provide water for their Sennac herib's su ccesses a n d fa ilu res cities. Scnuac hcrlb's scheme, In his inscriptions and on reliefs Sennache rib gave were the most ambitious. The the impression of a successful, in vi n ci ble monarch. canal leadIng to \/\\\\rbil ran partly In reality, his reign was marked by a se ries of underground, th,11 from ll unu,a uprisings and defeats. In 701 uc Sennacherib (Bavian) crossed the valley at marc hed to t he Levant and Pa lestine to put d ow n a Glrmua (Jerwan) on \u2022n rebellion, and engaged the Egyptia n army, which aqueduct, and the one bringing had come to the aid of the rebels, near Eltckch on water trom the northwest 10 the coastal plain of Philistia . Sennacherib's a nnals Nineveh was lined with c,1rvcd claimed t hat the Assyrians won the battle. However, they did not continue south to the panels of the gud~. borders of Egypt, but turned inland to besiege Lachis h, in a campaign vivid ly depi cted on re liefs 11whc Judcan cap1lvc~ being in Sennac heri b's palace. They th en attac ked Jeru- Impa led Oil .take, outside the salem, the scat of Heze kia h the king of Judah, but walls ol' L,1eh i:,h. \/\\\\!though the failed to capture the city. Both the Bible and the siege of 1~1chi,h w.1, 1101 Greek historia n Herodotus recorded that the mentioned In Sennacherib', Assyrians were defeated by the Egyptia ns, (though ,111r1,1ls 11 wa, recorded Oil Ihe some historia ns believe the d efeat was in a later relief, In his p,1lacc at Nineveh. campa ig n that received no mentio n in Senna- Excavations at Lachish (Tell cherib's a nnals). al-Duweir) in Israel h.1 ve connrmcd the accur,1cy of' the Unlike his father, Sennacherib in his 24-year Assyrian depiction . The city was reign did not em bark on terr itoria l co nquests bu t captured by build Ing ,1 siege was content to ma intain the borders that Sargon r.imp, which togcth~r wilh ,1 had establis hed . Sargon's annexation of Babylonia counter ramp built inside by the proved an intractable problem, however, and rela- defenders, was discovered in the excavat Ions.","EMPIRES Nineveh The citadel mound of Nineveh, now known as Tell reliefs. As at Kalhu and Dur-Sharrukin, an arsenal Kuyunjik, was occupied since the Hassuna period was also built, which was situated at Tell Ncbi (seventh millennium sc) and three-quarters of the Yunus and which later legend claimed as the tomb mound is made up of prehistoric remains. During of the prophet Jonah. the Uruk period (c. 4000-3000 ac) Nineveh was closely related to the developments in southern Sennacherib's grandson Ashurbanipal (669- Mesopotamia. In the second millennium Nineveh, c. 627 BC) built a second palace on Tell Kuyunjik, though not the capital of Assyria, was an important the North Palace, which contained the famous lion- city w ith a prestigious temple of the goddess Ish- hunt reliefs. In the summer of 612 BC Nineveh fell tar. Sennacherib (704- 681 BC) chose it as his capital to the Medes and Babylonians, who looted and at the end of the 8th century BC and built the destroyed the Assyrian palaces a nd temples. The Southwest Palace there, which he called the Palace city of Nineveh, however, survived for 1,000 Without a Riva l, decorating it with carved stone years, before it was eclipsed by the city of Mosul, on the other side of the Tigris. soo ~ ~~ ~ Gato 1CXXlm \u00b7\u2022 . _.,.\\\\ ~~:.OI----r1CXXl___._2CXXl.---3CXXlr'y Ashllrban.pat Mos\/lla.tu Gate \\\\ (N Palace) >Gat Nabu Teml)IO \\\\ ~ Watering~\\\\ ,. Quay Gate S.t hiarb \\\\ . oSbmallif <> __, Desert Gate ~0 Hermes rempie Shamasll Gale \\\\ ,--\\\\ Abv,\u00b7c Part of a relief from th~ Right Scnnach<\u00b7rib constructed Arsenat Gale ;; Alscnal 01 Esarnaddoo Sou1hwe,1 Palace at Nineveh, the w,1ils of Nineveh and named showing an As,yriln king in his the 15gatesofthccity, which t110SQUe ~ can be identiOcd with mounds chariot and under a parJsol with \\\"tJebo Yunus his driver and eunuch at1cndan1 on the dtr wJII. Much of the area within the wails wa, also '\\\\ \\\\ HalliGate ~ ~ with a Oy-whisk. The rclkf occupied by building,, but the '\\\\, Hanoon Gate records a campa ign in B,1bylonia city's most importJrll build ings and the king i< perhJp~ were on Tell Kuyunjik and Tell SuHhar-i~hkun. one of the last Ncbi Yun us, The tarthworks 011 kings of A,syria. the cJst are the spoil banks of a canal. not. a, WJ> tmce believed, Belou\u2022 l'tght Thi, relief from the a further fortification or siel!e ~ te ,vall built bv the Medts and North Palace JI Nineveh wa, 8Jbylonldn;. car ved ia about 645 ec and nMv , how the facade of the - Southwc,t PJlacc, which wa, built about 50 wars earlier. In hi~ inscription; Senn,1cherib boasted that he hJd built a portico with columns of bronze resting on column bases in the form of ,ohd <\\\"ast bronze lion, and bull,, each weighing ,ome 43 tonne,. 186","Abo,\u00b7e Looking wc~t along the ASSYRIA TRIUMl'llANT rc\u2022torcd northern outer wall of Nineveh toward the Nergal Gate Al><Ke Relief carving on in the distance. rhc outer part of Sennacherib\\\\ canal. An the wall was stone, defended by elaborate wMem of c,rnal, a crenellated parapet and brought wJtcr to the city of interval towers. Behind th1> was Nineveh ,rnd to the king\\\\ nature another. much higher wall made re,erve and !lame park The of mud-bricks. The circuit of the water flowed either 1n can.ii, or walb of Nineveh 1, about 12 km. along natural watercour,e, Thc W\\\\tcm ,tarted in the hill, to the cnnacherib called it \\\"the wall north and an aqueduct wa, that tcrrifi~-s the enemy\\\" and con~tructcd ,It Jcrwan which constructed in front of it a deep crossed a valley. Along the Jcbcl moat. which is now filled up. F,1ideh. 45 km north ol Nineveh. thc linc of thc canal h clearlv Right A view of a dam on the vi,iblc on the ,lope of the hill. It Kho,r river at Shallalat. about \\\"JUSt over 3 m wide and has 13 km upstreilm from 'inevch. panel, carved with figures of This was probably part of god, ,paced at intervals. Thc,.: Sennacherib'\u2022 canal system. It arc much eroded and p,,rtly was re~tor~d bv the local buried under the ground but can population in i970 and still ,till be rccognm:d. function, a, a weir. 187","F.MPIRES f the Baby loni an th rone captive but a Chaldean I seizt:d power in Babylonia. Tht: king of Elam was himself deposed in a revolt, as was his successor in I the following year. Despite these uph1.:avals, Assyria fa iled to regain contro l of Babylon and in I 69 1 a southern coalition marched up the Tigris to attack Assyria. The two armies met at Hal ule >-\\\"' ~--.;;......--;____::;.:.._:.....:.:,.~~~.,__,- (perhaps near Samarra) a nd the Assyrians claimed victory, though t he more reliable Babylonian Chronicle recorded that the Assyrians had had to retreat. In the next year, however, they regained the initiative a nd besieged Baby lon, which held out for 15 mont hs before it finall y surrendered in November 689. Sennacherib's revenge was harsh, though not unexpected. He ca rri ed off the wea lth of the city, smashed the statues of the gods, destroyed the city's houses, temples and palaces and d ug canals to flood the site. Some of the earth from the ruins was dumped into the Euphrates, which carried it dow nstream as far as Dilmun, somt: was sen t to th e most distant parts of the Assyrian empire and some was placed in the temples at Ash ur, which Senn a- cherib re built in a n attempt to replace the religious center of Babylon with that of Ashur. Although for the rest of Sennacherib's reign Assyria was apparently at peace, he himself' met a violent death. He was assassinated by his son Arda-Mulissi in February 680. To the Jews it was just retributio n for his attack o n J erusalem; to the Babylonians it represe nted punishment for his sac- rilege against Baby lon. Indeed, there migh t have been some Baby lonia n in volvement in the plot, but it was probably the result of a dynastic quarrel. The struggle for succession As Sennacherib's eldest son Ashur- nadin-s hu mi had disappeared after being carrit:d off to .Elam fo llowing the Elamite invasion of Baby lonia in 694 uc, Arda-Mulissi, who was probably the second eldest son, had doubtless hoped to have bee n Sen- nacherib's appointed heir. Howeve r, Sennac her ib's wife Zakutu (known in Aramaic as Naqia) favored her son Esarhaddon and he was made crown prince in preferen ce to his brothers. From t he tim e of Sargon ll it had been the custom for the king to choose one of his sons (not necessarily the eldest) as his su ccessor. The gods Shamash and Adad w ere then consulted by oracle and if the response was favorable the crown prince entered into the bit reduti (the house of succession or government) to be prepared fo r kingship. Al that stage the heir could decide to take a new name, and in Esa rhad don 's case h e chose Ashur-etclli- ilani-mukin-apla (though he apparently used this name only occasiona lly). The method of selec tion was designed to ensure that the most competent of the king's sons became king, that he had been well sch ooled in the n ecessary skills a nd that t here should be no d isp ute a bo ut his s uccession. However, in Esarhadd on's case things did not work out that way. The slanders and intrigues of his brothers had ousted him from his father's affec- tions, forcing h im to flee, or be exiled from the court, in t he spring of 68 1 BC. After th e murder of h is father, Esarh addon marched back to Nineveh to defeat his brothers' a rmy, ma ny of whom went over to Esarhaddon 's side. Arda-Mulissi and his associates fled. 188","ASSYRIA TRIUMPIII\\\\NT Abuw 'l'hb black stone l,1ble1 Esarhaddon 's superstitions his fa th er's policy towa rds Baby lon a n d o rdered Esarhaddon (680- 669 uc) was not a well man and the re building of Ba by lon and its te mples. wa~ inscribed with an Jl'Cou nt of often co ns ulted his advi se rs abo ut his pe riodi c ill- nesses. His symptoms, as he described them, Eclipses o f the s un a nd moon we re <:0nsidered to Es,1rhadu()11 ', rcslorntion of included fever, w eakness, loss of a ppetit e, stiffness be times of p artic ular da nger fo r a k ing a nd ofte n BJbylon. The ,ymbob, including of the j oints, eye infectio ns, ea rach e, c hil.ls a nd p redi cted his death . The science of astrology was .i fine repre,c111,1tio11 of' ,1 plow skin compla ints. Differen t treatme nts- lotions, we ll de veloped and t he pred ictions of its practi- with ,1 .,ccd-u rill, shown 011 this ointmen ts. rest. c ha nge of diet, as we ll as re ligio us tion e rs were based on a ccurate ast ronomi ca l obser- s tone 111,,y be .1 w.1y \\\\11\\\" wrh ing ritua ls- failed to cure him, whi c h no doubt also va tio n . lf Jup iter was visible t he king was safe; if Esarhaddon's n,1mc. wi1 h c,,ch made him subject to bouts of d epression . Diseases, the upper part of the moon were eclipsed then the symbol connected with 011c 111' it was be lieved , were th e res ult of' the actions of th e king of Amurru or of the west wo uld di e; if a lower the n1ncifor111 signs u,ccJ i11 1hc god s, and so Esa rhaddo n was a nxio us to di sco ver quad ra nt was obscured the kin g of Assyria's fate w hat th e god s wante d fro m him . Before he beca me was scaled. However, the king could take evasive 11,.llllC , king, the court astrologers had sent re ports about a ction by enthroning a surrogate, w ho took the ill om ens given by the stars. A conjun ctio n or Mer- ome ns o n himsel f' a nd w as ki lled wi t hin 100 days Left A >tclc erected by cury (t he star of the crown prince) a nd of Saturn o f the e~lips~ a nd b uried wi th full roya l honor~. lls,,rhaddnn .1 1'tcr 67 1 nc ,i nd (the star of the king) on 18 May 68 1 BC was inter- The ea rliest 111stan cc of a su bsti t ute king was th e preted as predi cting 1he murder o f the king and t he accession of Enlil- bani as king of Tsin in 1861 BC, round in , I ~ -I ll; d1t1 rl'lhc;r of .in restoration of the temples of the great gods by his t h oug h t his was recorded only in a ch ro nicle successor . As a result of t his and othe r astronomi- copied in the Neo-Baby lonian p eri od . T he Hitti tes outer 1owcr .11S.1m',il (Zlnjlrli). cal events, Esarhaddon early in his reign, reversed had a similar ritu al, whi c h was ce rtainly borrowed The Assyrian king wearing his from M esop otami a. Before th e re ig n of Esarhadd on, rcllgiou, ctistume st,rnds in a however, th e re was onl y one we ll-docum ented position of reverence. In front nl case: that of a substitute kin g, ment ione d in texts the king's head are the symbols from Kalhu , wh o, in a bo ut 782 l!C, was iss ued of the gods. He holds le,1shes rations. There were six recorded cases of su bstitutc at1,1chcd lo the lips of two k ings in the reign of [lsa rhad don a nd at least two in Ucfc,11cd cncmic!i. Orn: of whom t he reig n of his so n As hu rba nipa l. has negroid frat urcs. They have been idcnt i11cd ,,s 1\u00b7,1h.1rq,1. the Soon afte r th e death of his wife, usarh addon king \\\\11' Egyp1 ,111d Nu hid (or chose his sons Ash urbanipal a nd Sha mas h-s hum- possibly his s1111 Ush.111J h11r u uk in to succeed him: Ashu rban ipa l as k ing of who wa, c,1pturcd ,rnd taken to Assyria a nd Shamash-shum- ukin as k ing o f B.:iby- Assyri,1). ,m tl either Abdimilqu1, lon . In th e spring of 672 Esarhad don, worried by king of Sidon, 0 1\u00b7 13.i'lu, king of th e problems w ith his ow n accession a nd his Tyre, On the sides of t he Mcie un certai n health, summoned the officials and vas- were smaller figures of sa ls of' Assyria to Ka lh u where he mad e th em swear EsarhaJdon', heir,: a loy alty oa th agreei ng to thi s inherita nce. Ashurbttnipal dn:s~c:cl ~1s crown The Egyptia n campaigns prince of A~~yri,1, tllld During Esa rhaddon 's reign , in vad ing Scythian s a nd Cimmcrian s cu r bed t he power of Assyria' s ShamJsh-,h um-ukln '\\\" king of ne ig h bors to t he cast a nd no rth . They even threat- IJ,1bylun. Height 1.18 m. ened Assyria itse lr. prom p ting Dsa rhaddo n to o bey wiu th I . Vi 111. the orack of Sha mash by giving his da ug h te r tl>the Scythia n chicf Ba rtatua (called Proto th yes by Hero- RJ.~'11 The expert astrologer, d ot us) in pursuit of peace. Wh ether this gestu re attached 111 t he A;syrian court ac hieved the desired resu lt is not known . Esarhad- consulted tablets like this one d on clai med to have defea ted the Cim mcria ns a nd from Ihe royal libr,1ry .11 Scythia ns to th e north a nd cast o f Assy ria, but his Ni 1wvch, co111aining greatest success was in the west. astronomlc,11 obscrvat inns and prcdielions, In 679 he ca ptured Arza, o n th e bord er of Egypt, but received a set back in 674 w he n, according to the flaby lonian Chro ni cle, a n Assyrian army in Dgy p t was defeated . In 672 Esa r haddon fell ill bu t recove red to lead a n invasion of Egypt in the fo llowing year, t h is time d e fea tin g I.he Egy ptian pha raoh Taharqa (690- 664 BC). Ta ha rqa be longed to th e 25 th d yn asty, w hi ch ca me from Na pata in Nu bia (called Kush by th e Egyptian s a nd Mc luhha by the Assy rians). A total eclipse of the moon on 2 J uly 67 1 predicted t he death o r t he kin g of Assyria (w hich was averted by t he e nth ronement of a su b- stitute king) a nd d efea t for the king of Egy pt . Af'tcr th ree battles the Assyrians captured Taharqa's capita l city, Mem phis, o n I I J ul y bu t Taharqa fled to t he south, leavi ng be hind h is so n. h is hare m and his treasu ry. Esarhad don used the booty from Egypt to finance th e reb uildin g of Ba by lo n. The Assyri a ns a p pointed new r ulers, governors and officials a nd imposed taxes on the Egy ptians. Ill')","EMPIRliS By now Ilsarhaddon 's ill health was taking its toll <1nd he faced trouble at home and abroad. In the spring or 670 he uncovered a plot to overthrow him and executed t he conspirators. The next month Ilsar haddon was again ill but recovered. In the followi ng year, he set out to reconquer a rebel- lious Egypt, which once again was under the con trol or Ta ha rqa, but died on l November 669 and the expedition was abandoned. The conquest of Egypt ' Following the death or Esarhaddon, his mother Zakutu made her grandsons swear an oath or loyalty to Ash urbanipa l, Esarhadd on's appointed heir. His access ion presented no problems and he assumed the throne of Assyria before the end of 669. The installation or his brother Shamash-shum- uki n as king of Babylon, however, was de layed until after the Babylonian New Year (in the spring of 668), so that t he years of Shamash-s hum- ukin's reign in Babylon were one year behind t hose of his brother in Assyria. Tn 667 BC Ashurba nipal e mbarked on the reco n- q uest of Egypt begun by his father. He defeated King Ta harqa ou tsid e Memphis, causing him to Oee south to Thebes. Ashurbanipal himself had remained in Nineveh but through the efficient messenger service commanded his army to march aga inst T<1harqa. Before the comman d could be obeyed, however, the vassal rulers of Egypt who had been appointed by Esarhaddon rebelled and the Assyrian army first had to put down t he revolt. T he leaders of t he conspiracy were taken prisoner and sent to Nineveh, but one of them, Necho T(the ruler of Sais), succeeded in convincing Ashurbani- pa l of h is loyalty and was confirmed in his kingship and sent back to Egypt. When Taharqa died in 664, his nephew Tanta- mani (664 657 BC) became king an d in vaded Egypt. He made Thebes his capital a nd marched aga inst the Assyrian garrison in Memphis. T here he 190","98\\\" 50' ASSYRI\/\\\\ TRI UMP!IAN'I l CASPIAN During his reign he collected a large library of MEDITERRANEAN SEA c uneiform texts of all sorts and dispatched agents to search out tablets in t he archi ves an d schools of SEA N ....,._.- :...v, ar oHafflldln the temples of Baby lonia and to b ring back copies to Nineve h, Ash urbanipal's library included the Tepe ~ o MEDl' reference works and standard lists used by Meso- .; ~ potamian scribes a nd sc holars, bilingu al vocabu- laries, wordlists and lists of signs and synon yms, lists of medical di agnoses, co mpendia of omens, rit uals and incantations, and works of literature such as th e Epic of Creation and t he Epic of Gilga- mesh. Indeed, t he texts from \u00b7 As hurbanipal's library arc t he basis of modern knowledge of the scr ibal traditions of Mesopotamia. \u2022 provinellleapnal Civil war and the destruction of Susa For 16 years Esarhaddon's solu tion for dealing w ith , - - , max,mumextent ol Assynan conuol Baby lon had worked well. Shamasb-shum- ukin accepted his role as a subordinate monarch despite L.__J under E s a r - . . , . i ~ Ashurbanipal's p ersistent interference in Ba by - lonian internal affairs. Suddenly, in 652 BC, civil Slelo or rod< tMI rtia a ~ to scale 1 I7 000000 war broke out between the two brot hers, th ough e SenNchet1b (704-68I BC) 0 the reasons for the quarrel arc not clear. The e EsathaddM (680-669 BC) rebc!Jion lasted four y ears during which the Baby- lonians were supported by th e Elamites, Arabs and ~ (66k.627BC) so uthern tri bespeople. The Assyrians held th e cities in the south and by t he summe r of 650 BC - - - - ancianl ca,stlnt Babylon itself was und er siege. Shamash-shum- - - ilr\\\\Clenl COW1e ol ,tve, ukin was killed when the city was set on fire and by the end of 648 Ashurban ipal had regained The Assyrian emp ire In the d efeated the armies of t he Egyptia n princes of the control of Babylo nia. He had the oth er rebels exe- 7th century nc Del.ta in a battle in whi ch Necho I may have lost bis cuted in the same temple where Sennacherib had The empire c rnated by li fe. On hearing th e news, Ashurbanipal sent been murdered and their dismem bered bodies were another army to Egypt with, perhaps, himself at fed to th e dogs, t he pigs, the birds and the fishes. orTiglath-pileser II [ and Sargon II th e head, a nd forced Tanlamani to retreat. Ashur- banipal reca ptured Memphis a nd sacked The bes, Sha mash-sh um-ukin's successor as ruler or remained the basis the returning in triumph to Nineveh with great stores Babylon was called Kandalanu. Opi nions differ as Assyrion empire under their of booty. Assyrian sources arc silent about the later to whether this was a throne name adopted by succcssnrs. 1'hc principal relations with Egypt, but it seems clear that Ashur- Ashurbanipal or whether Kandalanu was the name additional conquests were the banipal decided to withdraw while the rulers of of Ashurban ipal's appointee. Nothing is known short-lived invasiu11s of Egypt Egy pt were still bound by oath a nd friendly to about Kandalanu's deeds, but Baby lo nia appar- under E)arhaddon and Assy ria. ently remained at peace throughout the 21 years of his reign. Ashurbanipal and the In west Anatolia the Lydians had _become the desrructlon of Elam by domina nt power after the collapse of the Phrygian Before the civil war, Elam had been the object of Ashurbanipal. Two problems kingdom at the beginning of the 7th century. two Assyrian campaigns, one in 667 and th e other plagued the later \/\\\\s~yri,111 According to Herodotu s, Gyges (c. 680- c. 650 BC) in 653 BC. In th e second, th e Elamitc king Teum - empire : succession to the throne became king of Lydia by murdering his prede- man (or Tc pti-Humban-Insh ushinak in Elamitc) and relations with Bd by)on . In cessor and marry ing his wife. An inscripti on o f was k illed in a battle on t he banks of t he river Ulai 652 DC I he two came together Ashurbanipal's described how t he god Ashur an d his head cut off and bro ug h t back to Ash ur- with the civil w,1r hclwccn caused Gygcs to h ave a dream in w hic h he lea rned banipal, who exhi bited it in A rbil and in Nineveh. Ashurbanipal and his bro1hcr that he would conquer his foes if h e s ubmitted to At t he end of the civil war, Ashurbanipa l again Shamash-shu111-ukln, who was Ashurbanipal. Consequently, Gygcs sen t an ambas- t urned his attention to the Blami tcs, who had sup- ki ng of' Ba by lon. Ashurbanipal sador to Ashurba nipal from his remote country, ported h is brothe r's rebellion. In 648 and 647 he won ,,i'lcr a damaging struggle w hose name was unkno wn to Ashurbanipal 's led his armies agai nst Ummanaldash (H u mban-Hal- from whic h Assyria never really ancestors (or so he claimed). a nd s ucceeded in tash UI), who had seized the Elamitc thron e, and recovered, It was destroyed by d efeating the Cimmeria ns. But when Gygcs sup- eventually defeated him. T he Assyrians sacked a nd the Baby lo nians and Mcdes in ported an Egyptia n k ing's rebellion aga inst Assyria looted Susa, destroying the temples, ca r rying off 612 ~l', (probably before 665 BC), his kingdom was overrun th e gods, d esecrati~g th~ graves and mutilating the by t he Cimmc rians who, under th e leadership of statues of the Elam1 te kings. T hey even sowed the Abo11e hft Relief' from 1he North Lygda mi5 (or Dugda mme as be a ppears in th e la nd w ith salt so that nothing woul d grow. Among P,1lacc al Nineveh s howing Assyrian sources), were themselves defeated by th e the booty from Susa was a statue of the goddess Ashurb,1nipal and his queen Assyrians in Cilicia in a bout the year 640. Inanna, whi ch, As hurbanipal claimed, had been Aslwr-s harrat feasting in ,l removed from Uruk 1,635 yea rs before. g,,rdcn. The head ofTeumnrnn, Ashurbanipal's library l<ing of' El,1m, which was sen! 10 Besides being a military leader, Ashurbanipal was a T he later part of As hurban ipal's reign is not well Assyrl.1 aflcr the baulc of scholar . In his inscrip tion s he record ed how he had documented and even the date of bis death is Til-Tuba, hangs from the pine learned the entire scribal art, could solve compkx uncertain, thoug h it is reckoned to have been in tree o n the left. mathemat ical problems and could rea d diffi cult 627. Coincid entally, Ka ndalanu (w ho may, in fa ct, texts in the Sume rian a nd Akkadian languages. He ha ve been Ashurbanipal) also d ied in that yea r, Lefr \/\\\\shurb,,nipd l ddc a1cd the even claimed to be able to und e rsta nd texts from a nd a period of ins urrection bega n in Babylonia before the Flood. which u ltimately led to the destruction of Assyria. blamitcs ,11 the hall le ofTil-Tuba on 1he banks of the lllai ri ver in 653 nc. AL the lop left an Absy rian soldier c uts off the he,1d of 1he Elamite king Teumman. Relief from the Sou1hwcs1 Palace ,,t Nineveh. 191","l '. M l ' I I U \u00b7~ Babylon - - - - - - - - - - -- -- - Ba bylon, w hose name mea ns the gate of t he gods, Right Stele of Ashurb;inipJI was the cult center of th e god Mardu k. A provin- carrying a basket on his head. J cial capital d ur ing the Th ird Dy nasty of Ur, in the motif dating b;ick tot he 1-'..irly 18th cen t ury BC it became the temporal and spiri- Dynastic period. The A,syr,an tual ca pital o f southe rn Mesopotamia und er the king ret urned to Babylon the Amorite ruler Ha mmura b i (! 792- 1750 HC). The Sl;llUC of MJrduk removed bv First Dy nasty of Baby lon ended w h en the city was sacked by the Hittites in 159 5 BC. T he Kassite ru lers his grandfather Senn.1cherib \u00b7a nd w ho followed w ere crow ned at Ba by lo n. restored the Temple of Marduk. In the fi rst mille nnium BC, Assyria n ki ngs a, recorded on the stele. aspi red to rule the a ncie nt holy city, w hile in Ba by- A,hurbJnipJI claimed credit for lo nia the Aramaca n and Chaldea n tribes w ho w ere the restoration even though his settled in the region strove for indepe nd ence. Sc.c:n- nache rib destroyed the city in 689 BC, but his suc- brother Shamash-shum-ukin wJ\\\\ cessor Esarhaddon re built it. Eventually king of Babylon. Height 36.8 cm. Nabopolassar (625 605 BC) defeated the Assy rians and he and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604 562 BC) restored the city to its fo rmer glory. Babylo n was incor po rated into the Persian em p ire in the 6th century BC a nd then fell to Alex- a nd er the Great an d his successors, before eve ntuall y losing its p reeminent position to the Greek city of Sclc ucia o n t he Tigri s. Ba by lon contained two of the Se ven Wonders of the Ancient W orld, the Hang ing Gardens a nd the city walls. The location of the Ha ng ing Ga rdens is in d oubt bu t th e walls ha ve been traced . The oute r wa ll stret ched for more tha n 8 kilometers and, according to Herodotus, had enoug h space on top to enable a fo ur-horse chariot to turn arou nd. Nortl\\\\e,n C,taoe1, 0 Wes s,nGate \/; IShtar Gate fop D,orite ,1,11 uc of J god or Ahn,\u00b7,\u00b7 r\u2022.~h1 The bulls and Ten1ple ol lshlar ol A9ildO HO MERA possibly a deified k111g (c. 2040 dragons on th<' found.it ions of Be). The inscription i, J the Ishtar Ga te were m.1dc from ka,im8,1. \u2022 ~ dcdkation bv Pu,ur-l>htar, th,\u00b7 mold ed baked bricks with ruler of MarL J nd his brother M ERKES Greek Theatre M ila)?J, Found in Babvlon bitumen mc,rt.,r a11d \\\\\\\\'ere: not togcth,\u00b7r wit h ,l w,\u00b7ond ,1Jmo,1 glal,\u2022d. M~1duk Gato idt\u00b7nllcJI umns4,,.\u2022ribcd ~ttllUC: in the Northern cit,,d,\u2022I. 11 prob,1hly R1Nht The Euphrates divided th;: I cEtemenankl ' belonged 10 the , o-callcd div of Babylon into two pJrt,, mu~cum. Thi, t'c)nt:tined ,1 conneClcd by ,l bridge re,ting 011 I Ziggu1a1 or M31duk varict v of exotic obj,\u00b7ct, ,tone, boat ,hapcd pier,, The I including a huge \\\"lco- H1tt11c excavations of Robert Koldcwev J.._.__g stone lion and the stele of between 189'l Jnd l'lli re,\u00b7caled bndge , ,.,,, <;h,1m,1sh-resh- u,u r of :,uhu much of the pl,rn of th,\u00b7 eJ,tt\u00b7rn l-ll'ight I 70 m, p,1rt of the c,t y ,n the.' I ,lie I ~Esag,1~ Temple lbbylon1J11 period. In the center. a11tien1 course 01--r- Ahm\u00b7,\u00b7 Under ;,.;ebuch.1dnc1.1.,1r II bc,idc th<\u00b7 riwr, were the ~ olM\u2022\u2022Ouk the w~ll~ of' the Prncc\\\"innal T~mplc of Marduk ,llld tl1<\u00b7 Rwar Eup\/lrates \\\\ \\\\\\\\',w, wh,ch r.1n from the 11ggur,11. Thc \\\" Tower of B,1bd\\\" AMRAN Temple of Marduk through the (Etc,m\u2022nJnki) \\\\\\\\'J> <jUJrned for \\\\ lshtJr Gate tow,1rd the ak,w it, baked brick, .111d b no\\\\\\\\' ,1 Templo OI IShhara temple, wnc decor.lied with hole in the ground . Enlll Gate ),!lazed relief fi),lurcs of >tridinj,! Bl lion,. Height of lion 1.05 m. moat Ir) Temple of N1nuni 0 200 J()()m Umsh Gate J---,-L-r-l \\\\ 0 500 \\\\1)00 fl","uft and below The Processional i\\\\SSYRli\\\\ TR IUMl'Hi\\\\NT Way, called \\\"May 1he enemy , on them. Above ground level not cross\\\", led from the Temple were glazed figures that were not in relid and above them of Marduk to the akilu temple others that were. The gateway ~nd passed through the Ishtar has beea recoas.tructcd from the Gate, one of the eight gates of glazed bricks found, so its original hdgh1 i, conjectural. the inner ci1y. Only the Reconstructed hcigh1 14. 30 m. foundations of the gate were found, goinl( down some l 5 m. with molded. unglazed figures uft The Southern Citadel was Above The Ishtar Gate was built round five courtyards with decorated with figures of bulb reception rooms on the south and dragons, which combined side in the typical Babylonian features ofsnakes, lions and manner. It was the creation of eagles. The bull was associated Nebuchadnezzar II. who called it with the weather god Adad \\\"the mar vel of mankind, the while the dragon was the anim,11 center of the land, the shining of the god Marduk. The goddess residence. the dwelling of lsht.ir's lion was not included majesty\\\", and was later used by though lions did decorate the the kings of Persia. It was walls of the Processional Way. probabl\\\"y the site of Belshazzar's feast and of the writing on the The molded and glazed bricks wall, and was the place where were marked on their upper Alexander the Great died . surface to show where they fitted into the design. Height of bull c. l.30 m. I CJ J","Mesopotatnian Warfare The first clear evidence for warfare in the ancient Near East comes from the late fou rth millennium BC, when seal impressions found at Uruk and Susa show scenes of fighting and of prisoners. The exca- vated remai ns of fortifications from earlier periods may indicate that warfare was prevalent in pre- historic times. The early weapons were the same as those used in hunting - s pears, clubs, bows and arrows, and slings. In the t hird millennium new weapons, such as copper daggers and axes as well as shields and helmets, came into use. Sumerian armies included battle wagons drawn by wild asses. Many advances in warfare were made in the second millennium, when armies of 10,000 men or more were recorded. At that time, siege warfare was developed and fortifications were improved. Soldiers wore bronze scale-armor, and horse-dra wn chariots were the chosen arm of the military elite. In the following millennium iron replaced bronze for many weapons and mounted cavalry supplemented the chariot troops. Psychological warfare including rel igious sanctions and omens as well as threats of deportation or torture was w ides- pread and played an important part in t he military successes of the Assyrians. Below A d\\\"IJil from the Std.: of Abot\u2022e nght On thb cylinder seal thl.' Vultures (c. 2450 ~t), fo1Jnd Impression from Uruk (c. 1200 JI Gir.,u. The ma,;;..,d phal,,nx of oc) the ruler armed with a ,pear th~ hclm<:tcd warrior, of 1....igash, >tands before naked and bound pri.oner,. 1..,d by their ruler l:Jnnatum I, trample over the corpse, ofthe Right A dewii from the Standard soldiers of Umma. In the lower of Ur (c. 2500 st), showing J rcgbtcr F..innatum, holding a Sumerian battle wagon. The long spear, attacks from his ,lnin enemy ,hown bcneAth the battle wagon, while his soldiers animJI> b a convcnli()n found armed with ,pearsand Jxc, later in Egypt and Assyria, march behind. 194","Left In the 9th century BC mounted soldiers rode in pairs so that one could control both horses while the other u,ed his bow. Saddles and ~tirrups had not yet been invented. Relief from the Northwe,t Palace at Ka lh u . Above After the capture of Above right A cast bronze Top Mace heads. dating from the Hamanu in Elam (c. 647 sc), crescentic axhcad dating to late 3rd millennium BC. The mace the city was looted and about 2400 BC. Axes were was both a weapon and a symbol Ashurbanipal's ,;oldiers set It attached to wooden hafts and ofauthority. Those shown here on fire, demolishing the were fixed into slots (and were probably ceremonial. fortifications with pickaxes and sometimes riveted, as here) or Length of largest 20 cm. crowbars. The threat of were cast with a hole to take the retribution was one of the chief haft. Height 14 cm, width Above center l)aggcrs like these 7.3 cm. were found in the Royal weapons used by the Assyrians. Cemetery of Ur dating to about Relief from the North Palace at Right Relief from the Southwest 2500 TIC. The blades and hilts Nineveh. Palace at Nineveh. An As,yrian were cast separately and then soldier tugs at the beard of a riveted together. Length uf the u:Jt An A,,yrian ,oldicr brings captive from the Zagros larger 26.1 cm. mountains and threatens him in a ,evcrcd head to be counted with a dagger. The fate of the Above Nearly 150 Oint with the rest of che booty after a prisoners varied. Sometimes they arrowheads were found at Tell battle in Babylonia. The royal were slaughtered; at other times Brak dating to the late 3rd annal, recorded t he number of they were deported to work for millennium. Although copper the king or resettled in distant and bronze ,~ere used for other enemy dead but it seems that the regions of the empire. weapons and tools, Oint was figures given were not always cheaper. based on an accurate head count. From the friezc in the Southwe,1 195 Palace at Nineveh (c. 630 612 oc).","","","THE LAST EMPIRES (626;33oBC) The resurge nce ofUaby lonia held out for a few years with th e ass ista nce of th e Hahy lu nia Between 900 and 68 1 nc, th e yea r in w hic h t he Egyptia ns, but a fter 609 HC Assy rian resista nce Assy ria n king Sennac her ib was murd ered , 24 kings seems to have e nd ed . Indeed, there is n o info r- w,,,l n the early Isl millennium ut ma ti on a bo ut wh at happened in Assyria after 612. had sa t o n the th ro ne o f Baby lon . Of these, only six Perhaps this was because t he a dministrati ve ll~bylonl,1 seu lcd by are known to have su cceed ed th eir fathe rs. There record s were writte n o n parchm en t or p ap yrus w ere at least 15 (a nd proba bly as ma ny as 2 1) rather t han on more durable clay tablets, or it ArJl'rl.it.'l111 tribe.~. They wcrl' changes of dynasty a nd the rulers incl ud ed Assyr- might have been because th e administrati ve struc- ians and Cha ldea n tribal lead ers as well as Ba by - ture had broken d ow n comp le tely . Tt is even l~ter joined hy Chalde,~n lribcs lonia n nobles a n d o ffi c ia ls . Ba by lonia suffered un certain whether it was th e Baby lonians or the who occupied much c\u2022f the Medes who controlled Assyria at that lime. countryside out side the cities during this pe riod of insta bility, as its prospe rit y depe nded on the functioning of the canal system, In the following inscriptio n Na bopoJassar The prosperity uf llaby luni\\\" w hi c h required a stab le and e ffecti ve go vernm ent. graphicall y d esc ribed his victory over t he h ated increased In the 7th an<l 6th Esarhaddon 's c ha nge of po licy t oward Ba by lo n, Assyria n en e my. centuries nc under Assyrian, Nco-Baby lonian ,ind Pe,\u00b7sian orfollowed by th e long reig ns Shamash-shum- ukin \\\"1 sla ughtered the land of Subartu (Assyria), T turn ed th e hosti le land in to heaps and ruins. ru lers, prob<1bly as a resu lt of a nd Kandalanu, promoted the econom ic grow th o f The Assyria n, wh o since dista nt days had ruled extensive catMl\u2022building. The the Ba by lonia n kingdom. Indeed , in th e century over all tht: pt:o ples, a nd wi th his h ea vy yoke that follow ed, Ba by lonia overtook Assyria as th e had brough t injury to the people of th e La nd, course~or the rivers arc not his [cc t from Akkad l t u rned back , bis yoke J ccrt,1fn 411,J t.hcrc were many main g rain-produ cing area of' th e Near East. threw off.\\\" The d eaths o r Kanda la nu, king of Baby lon, a nd ln the west th e Egy ptia ns, w ho had been allies 0 1\u00b7 m1nur w~1tcrcourscs I h,'J( ~.ire no! Assy ria, atte mp ted to ta ke co ntr ol. Tn 6 10 t hey had of Ashurba nipal, kin g of Assyri a, in a bout 627 BC come to t he aid o f the Assyrians a nd, ha ving sho w n un lhc 111r1p. def'ea te d a nd kill ed J osia h, kin g of' Ju da h, at The Nco\u2022 IJ,,by lunrnn king, were follo wed by th e ri se o [ a Babylonian lead er oC ucvoi-cd much or their wc,,lt h to un certain origin w ho took t h e na me Na bopolassa r. the c111 bcllls h111en1 of the c,1pit al He ascend ed the t hro ne of Ba by lon on 23 Novembe r 626 a nd became the fo u nder o r the Neo- cliy 8~hy l1111 .md the man y o ther Ba by lonian or Chald ean dy nast y. La ter tradition s Jncient holy cities of B.iby lonla, orsuch as Bor~lppa and Kutha. A notable entc:rprbe Nebuchad nezz.ir II WJ~ the construction of two walls made of baked brick and bitumen runnlnj:: between the F.uphrates :ind the T igri~. One t, y ju~t north ofSip p,1r ~nu the nthcr ran between R,1by lon and Kbh. Thdr purpC>~Cw,is to crc,JII.' Mtilkial lake, ~o as tu ,t rcngt hen the defence, of l!aby lo n. stated that he was a Cha ldean who had bee n a gov- Mcgiddo (c. 609) w hen he tried to bar their way, ern or\u00b7 o f' Lhe Sea la nd und e r the Assyrians, but in es tablishe d themselves in Ca rche mish . T he Baby - h is inscri p tions Na bopolassar c la imed to be a man lonia ns succeeded in 605 11c in dis lodging the Egy p- of the peo ple, \\\" the son of a nobod y\\\". tians and annihilated t he ir a rmy in th e region of For 10 yea rs Ba by lonia ns a nd Assy ri an s fo ug h t Hama duri ng a ca mpaign led by Na bo po lassar's each other in Ba by lo nia. Tn a period of in tense e ldest so n, the crow n prince Ne buchadnezza r . ha rd shi p, ci ties were besieged and changed ha nd s several times. On on e occasion citizen s of Ni ppur Jcrusa !em 's destroyer sold the ir child re n in to slave ry to avoid sta rva tio n Wh en Nabo polassar died on 16 A ugust 60 5 BC, during a s iege. By 616 BC Na bopolassa r had esta b- Ne buchadnezzar (Na bu- ku durri- usur, a lso ca lled lished his rule over Ba bylo nia and was ready lo Ne bu chadrezzar) immediate ly re t urned to Ba by lo n t hreaten the heartla nd of Assyria. The Baby lon ians where h e was crowned on 7 Se ptember. Fo r him to marc hed up t he Euphrates, whe re they fo ught an d ha ve return ed so soon both he a nd the messenger beat an Assy ria n army supported by Egyptian bringing 1'11c news must have averaged a rema rk- al lies. They a lso d efeated an Assy rian army in th e able 50 k ilome te rs a day. After his corona tion vicinity of Arrapha. Ne buchadnezzar II res umed h is campaig n in the rn 6 15 the Baby lo nia ns attac ked Ashur b ut !'ailed wes t, re turning to Babylon to parti cipate in th e to capture it. In the fo llow ing year t he Medes, led important New Yea r resti va l, w hi ch in tb e Baby - by Cyaxarcs, attacked the Assyri an ca pita l N in- lonian ca le nd ar was held in the spring. In th e eveh a nd ca ptured Ta rbisu , a bout 4 k ilome ters to fo llowing years h e continued operation s in Syria t he north, befo re marchi ng on Asbur and sacking a nd Pales tine a nd in 60J he attacked I:gy pt, where the city . Nabopolassar arrived aft er Ashur had he met w ith resistan ce. Describing this action, he falle n and mad e a treaty ofallianct: w ith lhe Medcs. wrot e \\\"in o pen battle t hey smote each othe r a nd ln 612 t he M cdcs t ogethe r with the Ba by lonia ns in(lic ted a maj or defea t on each othe r\\\" . ma rc hed aga inst Nineveh a nd, a l'tcr a siege lasting 111 Decem ber 598 Ne buchadnezzar left Ba byIo n three mo nths in whi ch t he Assyria n king Sin-sha r- once more to cam paign in the west. He besieged ishkun d ied, Nineveh fell . The co nquerors Jerusa lem, w hi ch had rebe lled three years ea rlier, dest royed the city and looted th e temples . They a nd on 16 March 597 it fell. King J e hoiachin a nd de fa ced the ca rv ings o f 1he Assy ria n kings in the ma ny of his su bjects were d eported to Ba by lo n a nd palaces a nd mutilated the copper h ead that Zed e kiah was insta lled as ki ng of J uda h in his possibly r ep resented the Akkadia n ki ng Nara m-Sin place. After some years Zed ekia h too rebelled. T he (2254- 22 18 BC.:). ln the temple of Na bu in Kalhu Baby lonians began a siege o f J eru sa lem w hic h t hey smas hed co pies o[ th e loyalty oath sworn by lasted fo r more than a year. The walls were fina lly th e vassal rul ers o f w estern Ira n to Esarh addon and brea ched in the s ummer of 587 (o r 586) BC and the Pr,\u2022u1uu., poge.v Glai ed relief brkk littered the floor w ith the fragments. panel l\\\"rom the l',1lacc of Darius c ity surre nde red about a month la ter. Much of ,ll Sus., <howing J horn,\u2022d A gro up of Assyria ns Ocd to Harra n , w here they Jerusa lem may have been destroyed at t h is time winged lion with e,1gle's feet. I'JR"]