A bit hilani (Akkadian) was a type of palace or large public building in the late 2nd and early 1st millennia BC. They had a colonnaded front porch, as described in 1 Kings 7:1-11 in reference to Solomon’s palace in Jerusalem.
Tukulti Ninurta I built Kar Tukulti Ninurta just across the river and 3km upstream from Assur. A canal bisected Kar Tukulti Ninurta along the north-south axis, piercing even through the core walled royal-administrative quarter. At the southern end of the canal was a monumental gate; the north end stopped short of the opposite end of Kar Tukulti Ninurta. To the west of the canal were monumental complexes, including two palaces at the northwest edge of the city and another right on the river. There was a ziggurat in the middle of the city’s western half, attached to which was the Assur Temple. Tukulti Ninurta I celebrated his new capital with commemorative inscriptions on alabaster tablets found at Assur and Kar Tukulti Ninurta:
Color plaster paintings decorate the palace: exteriorly, the north and south sides of the terrace; and interiorly, much of the palace walls. Dominant botanical motifs were rosettes, palmettes, lotus blossoms and the sacred tree. Color plaster was formed by mixing clay with sand and vegetable matter to form blue, red and black.
| Excavation | Overview |
|---|---|
| Royal Palace | The North Palace had an enormous terrace that has yielded fragmentary wall paintings. The terrace was 18m high, giving it the dominance of a ziggurat, and was accessed by a courtyard paved with unique rhomboid bricks and decorated with glazed green and yellow tiles. Texts found at Kar Tukulti Ninurta mention Hurrian families deported from Upper Mesopotamia to build Tukulti Ninurta I’s building projects; the unique style of the Royal Palace likely arose via their influence. |
| Asur Temple | In an innovative move, the ziggurat and temple complex were integrated. The cult room adjoins the ziggurat, and the cult nice is built into the ziggurat itself. Although the major deity was Assur, texts found at Kar Tukulti Ninurta indicate that his sanctuary was shared by many other deities of the Assyrian pantheon |
Kar Tukulti Ninurta was abandoned after the death of Tukulti Ninurta I, who was presumably assassinated by one of his sons.
References
http://proteus.brown.edu/mesopotamianarchaeology/1500
(L) 875-860 BC relief of King Ashurnasirpal II with sword and staff from Nimrud, NW Palace Room S Panel 3 (possibly his private apartments). British Museum, ME 124563. (R) 9th cent BC alabaster stela from Nimrud of Ashurnasirpal II. Cuneiform inscription of king’s titles and achievements. British Museum, ANE 118805. Images by L. M. Clancy.The 883-859 BC reign of Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (Ashur is Guardian of the Sun) brought in the Neo-Assyrian Period 1. Before Ashurnasirpal II, Assyrian rulers tried to “beat the bound” and restore Assyrian boundaries. Despite early kings’ campaigns in the Mediterranean and up the Tigris to Urartu, Ashurnasirpal II was the first to exert Assyrian hegemony in these areas. However, Ashurnasirpal II did not engage Babylonia.
| Year | Overview | |
|---|---|---|
| 910 BC | Ashurnasirpal II born as the son of Tukulti-Ninurta II. | |
| 883 BC | Ascends throne after his father. Campaigns to secure borders in north, east and west. | |
| 881 BC | Starts a campaign against the rebel governor of Nishtun at eastern Arbela. | |
| 880 BC | The governor of Nishtun is captured, and publicly flayed. | |
| 879 BC | Revolt in northern Kashiari hills leaves vassal Amme-ba’ali dead. Assyria subdues rebels. | |
| 879 BC | Calah founded as new capital after years of rebuilding using slave enemy captives. | |
| 867 BC | Mediterranean campaigns succeed. Phoenician kingdoms Tyre, Byblos and Sidon pay tribute. | |
| 859 BC | Death. | |
The Standard Inscription of Ashurnasirpal is the wording carved across the center of every Northwest Palace wall-panel 2. Certain narrow panels omit part of the inscription, but otherwise it is repeated over and over without significant variation around the entire room. The Standard Inscription of Ashurnasirpal is a catalog of royal titles, claims and achievements of Ashurnasirpal II. The translation below is displayed on a plaque alongside Ashurnasirpal’s reliefs at the British Museum.
Palace of Ashurnasirpal, priest of Ashur, favorite of Enlil and Ninurta, beloved of Anu and Dagan, the weapon of the great gods, the mighty king, king of the world, king of Assyria; son of Tukulti-Ninurta, the great king, the mighty king, king of Assyria, the son of Adad-nirari, the great king, the mighty king of Assyria; the valiant man, who acts with the support of Ashur, his lord, and has no equal among the princes of the four quarters of the world; the wonderful shepherd who is not afraid of battle; the great flood which none can oppose; the king who makes those who are not subject to him submissive; who has subjugated all mankind; the mighty warrior who treads on the neck of his enemies, tramples down all foes, and shatters the forces of the proud; the king who acts with the support of the great gods, and whose hand has conquered all lands, who has subjugated all the mountains and received their tribute, taking hostages and establishing his power over all countries.
When Ashur, the lord who called me by my name and has made my kingdom great, entrusted his merciless weapon to my lordly arms, I overthrew the widespread troops of the land of Lullume in battle. With the assistance of Shamash and Adad, the gods who help me, I thundered like Adad the destroyer over the troops of the Nairi lands, Habhi, Shubaru, and Nirib. I am the king who had brought into submission at his feet the lands from beyond the Tigris to Mount Lebanon and the Great Sea [the Mediterranean], the whole of the land of Laqe, the land of Suhi as far as Rapiqu, and whose hand has conquered from the source of the river Subnat to the land of Urartu.
The area from the mountain passes of Kirruri to the land of Gilzanu, from beyond the Lower Zab to the city of Til-Bari which is north of the land of Zaban, from the city of Til-sha-abtani to Til-sha-Zabdani, Hirimu and Harutu, fortresses of the land of Karduniash [Babylonia], I have restored to the borders of my land. From the mountain passes of Babite to the land of Hashmar I have counted the inhabitants as peoples of my land. Over the lands which I have subjugated I have appointed my governors, and they do obeisance.
I am Ashurnasirpal, the celebrated prince, who reveres the great gods, the fierce dragon, conqueror of the cities and mountains to their furthest extent, king of rulers who has tamed the stiff-necked peoples, who is crowned with splendor, who is not afraid of battle, the merciless champion who shakes resistance, the glorious king, the shepherd, the protection of the whole world, the king, the word of whose mouth destroys mountains and seas, who by his lordly attack has forced fierce and merciless kings from the rising to the setting sun to acknowledge one rule.
The former city of Kalhu [Nimrud], which Shalmaneser king of Assyria, a prince who preceded me, had built, that city had fallen into ruins and lay deserted. That city I built anew, I took the peoples whom my hand had conquered from the lands which I subjugated, from the land of Suhi, from the land of Laqe, from the city of Sirqu on the other side of the Euphrates, from the furthest extent of the land of Zamua, from Bit-Adini and the land of Hatte, and from Lubarna, king of the land of Patina, and made them settle there.
I removed the ancient mound and dug down to the water level. I sank the foundations 120 brick courses deep. A palace with halls of cedar, cypress, juniper, box-wood, meskannu-wood, terebinth and tamarisk, I founded as my royal residence for my lordly pleasure for ever.
Creatures of the mountains and seas I fashioned in white limestone and alabaster, and set them up at its gates. I adorned it, and made it glorious, and set ornamental knobs of bronze all around it. I fixed doors of cedar, cypress, juniper and meskannu-wood in its gates. I took in great quantities, and placed there, silver, gold, tin, bronze and iron, booty taken by my hands from the lands which I had conquered. 2
| 1 | Looklex Encyclopedia (link) |
|---|---|
| 2 | British Museum |
Bound by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is Mesopotamia (aka the Euphrates Valley), which in antiquity entailed Akkad to the north and Sumer to the south, and later Assyria to the north and Babylonia to the south 1:1. The first permanent Mesopotamian settlements formed in the 5th millennium BC, then flourished in the 4th millennium BC to form the empires of Akkad and Sumer. Later, Mesopotamia was dominated by Assyria and Babylonia. Romans misleadingly labeled all of Mesopotamia as Chaldea. In fact, Chaldea was a small part of southern Mesopotamia that accrued power and territory to form Neo-Babylonia (625-539 BC) 2:1.
Mesopotamia was the cradle of civilization due to the convergence of three factors: riverine trade; hospitable climate; and fertile soil. The Euphrates River (aka Purattu or the great river) was a very docile river. However, the agility of the Tigris River (aka Idiklat or the rapid) gave it command over riverine trade 2:5&7. In northern Assyria, the Kurdish mountains run near the Tigris below Mosul (ancient Nineveh). The temperate climate there is much like Western Europe 1:4. In southern Assyria, the mountains of the north give way to unbroken alluvial plains with unrelenting heat and minimal rain. Continuing further south into northern Babylonia, a Mediterranean climate returns and the river banks of Baghdad (near Babylon) were lined with palms. In southern Babylonia, the land is mostly consumed by marshes riddled with reeds. Winter rains swell the Tigris and its tributaries, causing fatal annual floods while leaving behind fertile soil deposits 1:3;2:7. A flood not only destroyed what was in its path, but due to the loose alluvial soil could cause the river to change its watercourse (a catastrophic event for a riverside settlement) 1:4. Rampant flooding was overcome by canals that defused the riverine deluge, irrigated the soil and provided navigable waterways.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| First Trace of Life | 65,000 BC | The first trace of human life in Mesopotamia is the ~65,000 BC Shanidar Man, a Middle Paleolithic Neanderthal buried in Shanidar Cave. This reveals that Neanderthals buried their dead instead of leaving them out in the open. |
|---|---|---|
| Mesolithic Period | 12,500-10,200 BC | Mesolithic humans were hunter-gatherers who lived in caves mostly but also built seasonal settlements. Near Shanidar Cave is a Zawi-Chemi, a cave that was used for shelter during this period. |
| Neolithic Period | 9,500-5,600 BC | Humans underwent the Neolithic Revolution by shifting from hunter-gatherers to food-proucers. Permanent villages were built and agriculture began. The first shrines and cult figures were made. Trade developed, particularly of obsidian. |
| Chalcolithic Period | 5,600-3,500 BC | Surplus food production allowed lifestyles to develop and villages to urbanize. The Chalcolithic is marked by: the use of native copper in pace of stone; a myriad of painted pottery cultures; the growth of land and river trade; and the interaction of distant cultures. Southern Mesopotamia was slower to develop, lacking any settlements during Northern Mesopotamia’s Neolithic Period and only gaining establishments during the North’s Chalcolithic Period. Based on pottery, in Northern Mesopotamia was the Hassuna, Samarra and Halaf cultures; and in Southern Mesopotamia was the Eridu, Obeid and Uruk cultures. Southern cultures spread north along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to permeate the whole of Mesopotamia. |
| Sumerians Arrive | 3600 BC |
Sumerians arrived in Mesopotamia ~3,600 BC and settled in city of Uruk. They were of Asian origin but further detail is open to dispute. They founded city-states whose political, social and economic epicenter was the local temple dedicated to the city’s main deity. The ensi (governor) ruled the city as the represented of the chief deity. Sumer was responsible for inventing: a pictographic script that was the prototype for cuneiform; mathematical numbers and multiplication tables; instrumental music, including the lyre; the wheel, quickening trade via the first carts; terracotta cone mosaics, used to decorate walls of monumental temples; the cylinder seal, allowing infinite bands of reliefs onto wet clay. |
| 1 | Contenau, Georges. 1955. Everyday Life in Babylon and Assyria. Chatham, Great Britain: W. & J. Mackay & Co. Ltd. |
|---|---|
| 2 | Jastrow, Morris. 1915. The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria. Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Company. |
| Deity | Origin | Overview |
|---|---|---|
| Adad | Weather god. | |
| Anu | Sky god. | |
| Ashur | Ass | Assyrian national god. |
| Bel | Bab | “Lord,” an appelative of Marduk |
| Belet Kidmuri | Bab | Lady of Kidmuri: Istar of Calah |
| Daguna | Phil | Dagon, Philistine god. |
| Ekur | Temple of Illil in Nippur | |
| Illil | Sum | Enlil, head of Sumerian Pantheon |
| Inurta | Ass | Ninurta, Assyrian war god. |
| Iqbi-damiq | ||
| Issar | Ass | Istar, Assyrian war goddess. |
| Manlaharbanu | ||
| Marduk | Bab | Babylonian national God. |
| Nabu | Bab | God of Writing. Originally a Babylonian God. Extraordinarily revered by Assyrians. |
| Nanaia | Goddess of love. | |
| Sin | Moon god | |
| Shamash | Sun God | |
| Based upon Queries to the Sungod (Starr 1990, 366-367). | ||
| Starr, Ivan. 1990. Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. |
Hadatu was an Assyrian provincial city. It was founded along an important route, just 30km east of Carchemish. The 4m thick city walls follow an oval plan, and were built of mudbrick on stone foundations. There are three large gates, one each at the east, west and north.
Amorites were mobile pastoralists perhaps living in North central syria near the jumble-bishree. After entering Assur, their commercial ambitions led them to form the colony Karum Kanesh (aka Kanis or Kanes) a few hundred miles north of Assur on the Anatolian plateau. Most of our knowledge of early Assyria is from Karum Kanesh, as Assur is relatively devoid of evidence during this period.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Ottoman Conquest | 16th & 17th Cent AD | Mesopotamia came under Ottoman hegemony and was split into three provinces based on the towns of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. Tension between the Sunni Ottomans and Shi’i Safavid shahs of Persia led to fragmentation and diminished control from the central Ottoman government in Istanbul. Initiative and power lay with those who could command forces. |
|---|---|---|
Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq: New Edition.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Mandate for Iraq | April 1920 | The Mandate for Iraq was awarded to Great Britain at the San Remo Conference in April 1920. This justified Iraqi fears of European imperial rule, no matter how indirect, as well as pride concerns of their own administrative and political leaders being belittled. |
|---|---|---|
| Denouncing the Mandate | May 1920 | Coalitions began to form against Iraq’s incorporation into the British Empire. In the Shi’i city of Karbala, Ayatollah al-Shirazi issued a fatwa declaring it unlawful to serve in the British administration. The Shi’i ‘ulama and tribal Shaikhs of the mid-Euphrates as well as the Independence Guard all met and agreed to form a coordinated network of action. The Independence Guard branched into provincial towns. The strategy was to peacefully protest in Baghdad, the seat of British power, and pursue more violent resistance should these protests fail. |
| Downfall of al-’Ahd al-’Iraqi | May 1920 | Jamil al-Midfa’i led regular soldiers and tribal allies to capture Tall ‘Afar. They intended to capture Mosul at the same time as a planned revolt, but the British dispersed the troops and the revolt never occurred. Thus ended the organized activities of al-’Ahd al-’Iraqi. |
| Protests Begin | May 1920 | Increasingly large mass-meetings occurred at Sunny and Shi’i moques in Baghdad to denounce the Mandate. There was significant cooperation for Iraqi independence between the two sects. At one meeting, fifteen representatives were nominated to present the case for Iraqi independence to the British authorities. Arnold WIlson agreed to meet the representatives (mandubin, aka delegates), but only in the company of twenty-five Baghdad notables who he would select himself. |
| Armed Revolt Murmurs | May 1920 | As early as May 1920 their had been discussions among shaikhs of the mid-Euphrates aout acting against the British. Their concerns varied from general dislike of the notion of British hegemony to specific concern about British interference in land tenure. Misgivings in London about occupying Iraq had become public knowledge, giving rise to the perception that armed rebellion might accelerate Britain’s retreat. |
| Self-Rule Gains Traction | June 1920 | Wilson and the mandubin had a fruitless meeting. However, suggestions from London (encouraged by Bell in Baghdad) impelled the British to pursue a policy of limited Iraqi self-rule. As the notion of a state of Iraq gained momentum and seemed unavoidable, persons at all level oriented themselves towards it and even pursued an advantageous niche in the forming government. |
| Constituent Assembly | June 1920 | It was announced that elections would be held for a Constituent Assembly. The task of devising the electoral machinery was appointed to former Ottoman deputies headed by Sayyid Talib al-Naqib, who had returned from exile to seize upon the opportunities that were arising with the creation of a new state. |
| Armed Revolt Erupts | June 1920 | Armed revolt erupted at the end of June 1920. The arrest of his son prompted Ayatollah al-Shirazi (the leading Shi’i mjtahid in Iraq upon Ayatollah Yazdi’s death) to issue a fatwa that encouraged armed revolt. The British authorities attempted to quash this by arrested various mid-Euphrates tribal chiefs. The arrests gave momentum to the revolt, which thrived on weak and thin British garrisons, strong links between the Shi’i spiritual centers of Najaf Karbala, and powerful armed tribes. Tribal shaikhs in Kut and ‘Arma worked against the revolt as their extensive landholdings had been recognized by British authorities. |
| Armed Revolt Succeeds | July 1920 | The rebels captured much of the mid-Euphrates, giving heartt to others and causing the revolt to spread to the lower Euphrates as well as districts to the north, east and west of Baghdad. However, the rebels were limited due to decreasing support the further they went from their home areas. |
| Kurdish Uprising | July 1920 | Kurds seized the chance to opportunistically seize towns near the Persian border, but were limited by a decrease in support like rebels to the south. |
| Collapse of Revolt | August 1920 | The revolt of Shi’i tribes began to flag, much to the relief of the British and Sunni notables in Baghdad. Also, organized public opposition in Baghdad became virtually impossible due to British security and intelligence forces. By late October the British had re-exerted hegemony over lands seized by the rebels and the rebellion was over with the surrender of Najaf and Karbala. In total, the Iraqi revolt cost about 6,000 Iraqi lives and 500 British and Indian soldiers’ lives. What had begun as general protests had become a mid-Euphrates revolt. The revolt became the founding myth of Iraqi nationalism, regardless of what the revolt’s actual intentions were. Ideas began to form about the meaning, identity and interests of a new Iraqi state. In London, the revolt and the costs of its suppression made clear the need for a form of government in Iraq other than the controversial direct rule that was attempted. |
| Preparing A Government | October 1920 | Sir Percy Cox arrived in Baghdad to take up his post as first high commissioner under the Mandate. Great Britain realized that direct rule was much too costly, prompting Cox to persuade the elderly naqib al-ashraf of Baghdad, Sayyid ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kailani, to accept the presidency of an appointed council of ministers working under British supervision. |
| First Iraqi Government | November 1920 |
Sayyid ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kailani forms first Iraqi government, becoming the first Prime Minister of Iraq. The government was headed by the naqib al-ashrad Sayyid ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kailani and included 21 eminent Iraqis from all three of the old Ottoman provinces. Sunni Arabs predominated and help the most important posts, but the council of ministers also included a few Shi’a and Christians as well as a prominent Jew. Before long, the Ottoman administrative units were restored, as were municipal councils, and Iraqi officials began to replace Brits in the provinces (except in Sulaymaniyah). However, Iraqis in charge of the provinces were assisted by a British adviser; and British advisers were attached to the new ministries. Immediately apparent was the absence of any Shi’i appointees to senior administrative positions, save in the ‘Atabat. The old Sunni-dominated order of Ottoman times was apparently being re-established. Indeed it could hardly have been otherwise. The Shi’a had largely been excluded from the Ottoman administration and consequently there were few amongst them with any administrative experience. Furthermore, the attitude of the naqib [Sayyid 'Abd al-Rahman al-Kailani] and other Baghdad notables to the Shi’a in general and the wariness of the British towards the Shi’a following the recent revolt gave them common ground for looking elsewhere for the officials of the new state. They did not have far to look. Large numbers of predominantly Sunni Arab ex-Ottoman officials, hitherto excluded by the British, were now looking to the new government to restore them to the place that they regarded as rightfully theirs. (Tripp 2002, p 45; bold added)
|
| Iraqi Army Formed | 1921 | |
| Cairo Conference | March 1921 | Cairo Conference decides on Prince Faisal bin Husain al-Hashemi as king of Iraq. |
| King Faisal Enthroned | August 1921 | King Faisal enthroned in Baghdad. |
| Constituent Assembly | March 1924 | Constituent Assembly opens. |
| Anglo-Iraqi Treaty | June 1924 | Anglo-Iraqi Treaty passed. |
| Geneva Protocol Signed | 1931 | The Iraqi regime signed the 1925 protocol of Geneva of the prohibition of the deployment of the chemical and biological weapons in wars in 1931. |
| King Fisal Dies | September 1932 | |
Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq: New Edition.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Iraq Independence | October 1932 | League of Nations ends Mandate and grants independence to Iraq. |
|---|---|---|
| King Ghazi Succeeds | September 1932 | |
| Kirkuk-Mediterranean Pipeline | January 1935 | Opening of the Kirkuk-Mediterranean Pipeline. |
| Military Coup d’État | October 1936 | Military coup d’état, backed by General Bakr Sidqi. Hikmat Sulaiman forms a government. |
| Sidqi Assassinated | August 1937 | Bakr Sidqi assassinated. Hikmat Sulaiman is overthrown by the army. |
| King Ghazi Dies | April 1939 | King Ghazi killed in a car accident. |
| King Faisal II Succeeds | April 1939 | King Ghazi is succeeded by his infant son Faisal II, under regency of Prince ‘Abd al-Ilah. |
| MIlitary Coup d’État | April 1941 | The Government of National Defence is formed by Rashid ‘Ali al-Kailani following a military coup d’état. The regent Prince ‘Abd al-Ilah flees Baghdad. |
| British Invasion | May 1941 | British troops march on Baghdad. Rashid ‘Ali al-Kailani flees as his government collapses. |
| Regent Returns | June 1941 | The regent Prince ‘Abd al-Ilah returns to Baghdad. |
| al-Wathba | January 1948 | A new Anglo-Iraqi treaty is signed at Portsmouth. Mass protests in Baghdad, known as al-Wathba (the leap) lead to abandonment of the treaty. |
| Iraq Expedition | May 1948 | Iraq sends an expeditionary force to Palestine. |
| Iraq Withdrawal | February 1949 | Iraqi army withdraws from Palestine. |
| League of Iraqi Women | 1952 | League of Iraqi Women founded with branches throughout the country. It was not part of the CP but many of its active members were CP members, |
| Iraq Petroleum Company | February 1952 | Iraq agrees with Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) on a 50-50 share of profits. |
| al-Intifada | 1952/11-12 | Demonstrations erupt in Baghdad, known as al-Intifada (the uprising). |
| King Faisal II Enthroned | May 1953 | King Faisal II is enthroned, ending the regency. |
| Baghdad Pact | February 1955 | |
| Suez Crisis | October 1956 | Riots known as the Suez Crisis occur in Baghdad, Mosul and Najaf. |
| United Arab Republic Arab Union |
February 1958 | Egypt and Syria form the United Arab Republic. Jordan and Iraq form the Arab Union. |
| Kurdish Revolution Begins | 1961 | |
| Halabja Attacked by Iraq | 1963 |
Halabja is attacked for the first time by the Iraqi army. Jet fighters came and bomber-aircraft; peshmerga came to our house in the middle of the night and told us, “You should run away from here.” We fled to the Iranian border, to a very small village called Hanagermala. We stayed there for three months: my mother, my sister, my brothers and I. When we came back to Halabja we found everything our house had been completely destroyed by the army. Completely. (Thornhill, p 157)
|
| Kurd-Iraq Negotiations | 04 1964 | Roads begin to re-open and the economic blockade against Kurdistan by Baghdad is disassembled. |
Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq: New Edition.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Republic of Iraq | 1958 July | A military coup d’état occurs in Baghdad. The monarchy is overthrown. The Republic of Iraq is established. Brigadier ‘Abd al-Karim Qasim becomes prime minister, minister of defense and commander in chief. |
|---|---|---|
| Agrarian Reform Law | 1958 September | |
| Mustafa Barzani | 1959 October | Mustafa Barazni asserts control of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). |
| Baghdad Pact Withdrawal | 1959 December | Iraq withdraws from Baghdad Pact. |
| Kuwait Independence | 1961 June | Kuwait gains independence. Iraqi Prime Minister Qasim demands its integration into Iraq. Great Britain sends troops to Kuwait, replaced by Arab League force in August. |
| Kurdish Demand | 1961 July | Fighting erupts in Kurdistan between Brazani’s forces the Iraqi army. |
| Law 80 Reclamation | 1961 December | Law 80 reclaims unexploited areas of IPC’s concession. |
| MIlitary Coup d’État | 1963 February | Military coup d’état led by Ba’this and Arab nationalist officers. Iraqi Prime Minister Qasim and his colleagues killed. |
| Ba’th Disorder | 1963/10-11 | Splits and confusion in the Ba’th. |
| Ba’thists Ejected | 1963 November | President ‘Abd al-Salam ‘Arif and military allies eject Ba’thists from power. |
| Nationalizations | 1964 July | Nationalization of all banks, insurance companies and large industrial firms. Further land reform. |
| More Kurd Uprising | 1964 October | Kurdish autonomy talks break down and fighting resumes. |
| Kurdistan War | 1965 April | Full-scale war erupts in Kurdistan. |
| Prime Minister al-Bazzaz | 1965 September | ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Bazzaz appointed as prime minister. |
| President ‘Arif Dies | 1966 April | Iraqi President ‘Abd al-Salam ‘Arif dies in helicopter crash. |
| President ‘Arif Succeeds | 1966 April | ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Arif, brother of former President al-Salam ‘Arif, becomes president. |
| Kurd Autonomy Program | 1966 July | Barzani accepts al-Bazzaz’s twelve-point program on Kurdish autonomy. |
| al-Bazzaz Dismissed | 1966 August | Iraqi Prime Minister al-Bazzaz is dismissed by President ‘Arif. |
| War with Israel | 1967 June | Iraq goes to war with Israel. Israel sends token force to Jordan. |
| Military Coup d’État | 1968/07/17 | Arab nationalist and Ba’this army officers stage a coup d’état. President ‘Arif is sent into exile. |
| President al-Bakr | Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr becomes president. |
Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq: New Edition.
Eridu (modern Abu Shahrain) had a ziggurat with only two stages yet reaching seventy feet high (Jastrow 1915, p 29-30). The tower was crowned by a small chapel or chamber, likely housing a statue of Eridu’s deity Ea.
Borsippa (modern Birs Nimrud) had a striking ruin of a ziggurat rising high above its mounds (Jastrow 1915, p 30). Borsippa was close to Babylon, likely forming a single complex in antiquity (Jastrow 1915, p 31). After restorations at the start of the 6th century BC, the tower had seven stages whose lowest stage was 272 square feet and 26 feet high (Jastrow 1915, p 32). Brick fragments were glazed in black, blue, red and possibly other colors. Regarding excavating the ziggurat, the following story is remarkable:
| Period or Event | King | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Old Akkadian Period | 2334-2154 BC | ||
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Ottoman Re-Conquest | Early 19th Cent | Under the rule of Sultan Mahmud II (1808-39) the central Ottoman government began to implement the Nizam-i Cedid (New Order) which reclaimed power from semi-autonomous provincial governors into the hands of the sultan |
|---|---|---|
| Taking Baghdad | 1831 | Da’ud Pasha, the mamluk governor of Baghdad, refused to comply with the New Order and relinquish his office. An Ottoman army led by ‘Ali Rida Pasha, governor of Aleppo, invaded Baghdad. Da’ud Pasha was captured along with his city, ending mamluk rule in Baghdad.. |
| Taking Basra | ‘Ali Rida Pasha went on to occupy Basra and end mamluk rule in that city. | |
| Taking Mosul | 1834 | Central Ottoman rule was restored in Mosul, ending the hold of the Jalili family on the governorship. The three provinces were now under direct rule from Istanbul. |
| Tanzimat Reforms | Sultan Abdulmecid implemented the Tanzimat Reforms, which transformed landholding, administration, conscription, law and public education. However, these reforms were implemented at different rates, depending on the initiative, energy and tenure of the Ottoman governors appointed by authorities in Istanbul. However, the norms and methods of the mamluk era endured; furthermore, Ottoman power over major cities did not necessarily increase hegemony over semi-autonomous tribes and tribal confederations of the countryside. Ottoman reforms nonetheless brought a new way of politics to Mesopotamia, one largely built on the European model. | |
| Land Law of 1858 | 1858 |
The Land Law of 1858 sought to formalize land tenure, creating security of tenure (whilst reasserting state ownership) in hopes of encouraging productive and settled agriculture, attracting investment and generating tax revenues. The land reform involved the granting of title deeds (tapu sanad) to anyone who possessed or occupied land. The land remained state property, but the registered owner of the title deed had nearly complete rights of ownership. Collective ownership of land was expressly prohibited and registration could only be in the name of an individual. Thus, areas of tribal cultivation were registered under the powerful shaikh. Due to ignorance, superstition and/or misplaced trust in the shaikh, tribal cultivators failed to register and thus become tenant farmers. On lands belonging to the sultant (saniyya lands), tax-farming continued and tax-farming rights were periodically auctioned, thus denying the inhabitants a long enough tenancy to apply for title deeds. The Land Law of 1858 brought about conflicts. Namely, cultivators were oft stripped of their land rights. Registered owners were sometimes wholly unconnected with the cultivators, instead gathering title deeds via influence or capital. Gaining rights to land did not only confer power over the newly-privatized land, but also conferred power over those who cultivated it. This restructured social power, as agricultural land was now private property. |
| Vilayet Law of 1864 | 1864 | The Vilayet Law of 1864 mapped the boundaries of Iraq’s three provinces a new structure of administration from the provincial to the village levels. The Vilayet Law sought to bring the central administration systematically down to people hitherto outside the state apparatus. More radically, the Vilayet Law intended to involve even previously uninvolved Muslims and non-Muslims from the general population into various administrative councils alongside Ottoman officials. |
| Midhat Pasha in Baghdad | 1869-1872 | When Midhat Pasha attained the Baghdad governorship, he energetically and forcefully implement the Land Law and Vilayet Law. The Vilayet Law was relatively easy, as Istanbul was eager to assert its centralized authority and the populace was receptive. The Land Law was not fully implemented by the time Midhat Pasha was recalled to Istanbul in 1872. |
| Young Turk Revolution | 1908 | The Young Turk revolution occurs in Istanbul. |
| Abdulhamid II Deposed | 1909 | Sultan Abdulhamid II is deposed. |
| British Occupy Basra | November 1914 | British occupation of Basra. |
| British Occupy Baghdad | March 1917 | British occupation of Baghdad. |
| British Occupy Mosul | November 1918 | British occupation of Mosul. |
Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq: New Edition.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Outbreak of War | October 1914 | Outbreak of war between Ottoman Empire and Great Britain. Shortly thereafter, the British landed the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Forces (MEF) at the head of the Persian Gulf near Basra. |
|---|---|---|
| British Capture Basra | November 1914 | By the end of November, Basra was in British hands. This was a pre-emptive move by the British government of India to protect British interests in the Persian Gulf. |
| British Take Basra | April 1915 | Defeat of Ottoman forces at Shu’aiba empowers the British to seize all of Basra in a realization of the value of territorial gain. |
| British Setback in Kut | November 1915 | British forces reach within fifty miles of Baghdad. However, a powerful Ottoman counter-attack drives these forces back to Kut where the forces are besieged for four months before eventually surrendering in April 1916. |
| Arab Revolt in Hijaz | Mid-1916 | Arab Revolt against Britain in the Hijaz. Led by Hashemite Sharif Husain of Mecca and his sons. |
| British Take Baghdad | March 1917 | Baghdad falls to British forces. |
| Society of Islamic Revival | Early 1918 | Shortly after the British establish control over Najaf and Karbala, the Society of Islamic Revival (Jam’iyya al-Nahda al-Islamiyya) was founded in Najaf, bringing together notables, clerics and tribal shaikhs. A British official was eventually assassinated, leading to swift reassertion of British hegemony. |
| British Capture Kirkuk | May 1918 | British capture of Kirkuk. |
| Kurdish Ally Britain | May 1918 | A meeting of Kurdish tribal leaders in Sulaimaniyya offered the rule of their country to Great Britain. British had already established contact with one of them, Shaikh Mahmud Barzinki. |
| British Take Kirkuk | September 1918 | British forces take Kirkuk and effectively destroy the Ottoman 6th Army. |
| Armistice of Mudros | October 1918 | The Ottoman government pursues peace, leading to the Armistice of Mudros. The terms of the Armistice of Mudros were that Ottoman garrisons in Mesopotamia surrendered to the British. |
| British Capture Mosul | November 1918 | The British commander then went on to Mosul, demanding its surrender. The Ottoman governor protested that Mosul was not part of Mesopotamia, but nevertheless was forced to comply and Ottoman forces withdrew. This established the line of the Armistice of Mudros as the northern border of the Mosul province. |
| Shaikh Mahmud Ascends | December 1918 | Shaikh Mahmud Barzinki was appointed governor of Lower Kurdistan, causing him to fall out with some other Kurdish chiefs. The British were harassed by Kurdish resistance, and upon realizing Shaikh Mahmud Barzinki’s desire for greater control moved to restrain him. |
| British Occupy All of Iraq | End of 1918 | British occupation of the three provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul. |
| Shaikh Mahmud Quashed | May 1919 | Shaikh Mahmud Barzinki defiantly announces an independent Kurdistan. This strengthened British officers’ proclamations from Baghdad that direct rule was needed in Kurdistan. A British military expedition is dispatched. Shaikh Mahmud Barzinki is captured and British administration is re-established in Sulaimaniyya. Outbursts of revolt and defiance continue. |
| Sykes-Picot Agreement | ||
| Anglo-French Declaration | November 1918 | Promised self-government in the three provinces. |
| TCCD Regulation | The Tribal Civil and Criminal Disputes Regulation was based on the Government of India Act of the same name. It gave tribal shaikhs, designated by British authorities, the power to settle all disputes with an between members of their tribe. Also, it charged tribal shaikhs with collecting taxes on behalf of the government. The TCCD Regulation was encoded into Iraqi later in 1924. This was based on the premise that tribal hierarchies and units constituted the natural order of the society. | |
| Arnold Wilson’s Plebiscite | Early 1919 | Misleadingly labeling it a plebiscite, Arnold Wilson surveyed notables of the three provinces. Opinions were inconsistent regarding the shape and constitution of the state, but there was agreement outside the Kurdish areas that the state should comprise all three Ottoman provinces under an Arab government. Wilson greatly exaggerated the degree to which notables would acquiesce to continued British control. |
| Versailles Peace Conf | 1919 | The British prevented a delegation from going, leading to the formation of the Independence Guard. Like al-’Ahd al-’Iraqi, the Independence Guard called for an independent Iraq (now recognized as the three provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul) under one of Sharif Husain’s sons. The Independence Guard was composed of more civillians than military officers than did al-’Ahd al-’Iraqi. |
| French Occupy Syria | 1920 | The French came to occupy all of Syria via a Mandate by the League of Nations. |
| Al-’Ahd al-’Iraqi Congress | March 1920 | Al-’Ahd al-’Iraqi held a congress in Damascus and declared the independence of Iraq under the kingship of Amir ‘Abdallah, brother of Amir Faisal and one of the sons of Sharif Husain. Few recognized the authority of the congress and ‘Abdallah himself was notably cool towards it. Regardless, this was a distinct shift of al-’Ahd’s activities and a number of officers moved to Dair al-Zur in eastern Syria in hopes of establishing a base of operations. |
Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq: New Edition.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| US Invasion | 2003 03 20 | U.S.-led forces invade Iraq from Kuwait to oust Saddam Hussein. About 125,000 U.S. and British soldiers and Marines arrive in Iraq. By the end of April, U.S. says it will add 100,000 more soldiers to the U.S.-led invasion force. |
|---|---|---|
| 2003 03 23 | On the third day of the war, 28 U.S. soldiers are killed, mostly in fierce fighting in southern Iraq. | |
| US Takes Baghdad | 2003 04 09 | U.S. troops take Baghdad, Saddam disappears. |
| 2003 05 01 | President George W. Bush declares hostilities over. Between March 20 and May 1, 138 U.S. troops are killed. | |
| 2003 12 13 | U.S. troops capture Saddam near Tikrit. | |
| 2004 11 08 | U.S. troops begin a second assault in Falluja – a Sunni Muslim city 30 miles west of Baghdad – intended to deprive insurgents of a safe haven from which American officials said rebels had coordinated a spree of killings, bombings and kidnappings. More than 71 U.S. Marines and more than 1,000 guerrillas were killed in the 10-day attack. | |
| 2005 01 26 | U.S. Marine transport helicopter ferrying troops comes down in western desert, killing 31 U.S. troops in the deadliest single incident for Americans in Iraq. Six more are killed in insurgent attacks. | |
| 2006 02 22 | Bombing of Shi’ite shrine in Samarra sparks widespread sectarian slaughter, raising fears of civil war. | |
| Surge Begins | 2007 02 14 | Maliki launches U.S.-backed crackdown in Baghdad aimed at pulling Iraq back from brink of civil war. Five U.S. combat brigades plus supporting troops, or some 30,000 soldiers, are sent to Iraq between February and mid-June 2007. Besides reducing violence, Washington wanted to create “breathing space” for Iraqi leaders to make progress on laws seen as critical to fostering national reconciliation. |
| Surge Reaches Height | 2007 06 15 | U.S. military says it has completed its troop buildup, or “surge,” to 160,000 soldiers. From April to June 2007, 331 U.S. soldiers are killed, the deadliest quarter of the war for the U.S. military. |
| 2007 09 10 | U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, recommends cutting troops by more than 20,000 by mid-2008. | |
| Surge Ends | 2008 06 22 | The U.S. military says the last of five extra combat brigades sent to Iraq in 2007 have withdrawn, leaving just under 147,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. |
| Status of Forces Agrmt (US Withdrawal Pact) |
2008 11 17 | Iraq and the United States sign an accord requiring Washington to withdraw its forces by the end of 2011. The pact gives the government authority over the U.S. mission for the first time, replacing a U.N. Security Council mandate. Parliament approves pact after negotiations 10 days later. (link) |
| 2009 01 01 | U.S.-Iraq security pact comes into force, placing 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq under Iraqi authority. | |
| Combat End Deadline | 2009 02 27 | New U.S. President Barack Obama announces plan to end U.S. combat operations in Iraq by August 31, 2010, but says will leave up to 50,000 troops to train Iraqi forces. |
| 2009 06 30 | All U.S. combat units withdraw from Iraq’s urban centers and redeploy to bases outside. | |
| 2010 02 06 | Obama announced in a speech at Camp Lejeune that 16 months have become 18, and that 50,000 soldiers and Marines will be continuing the occupation until 2012 under the guise of training Iraqi army and police forces, “counter-terrorism,” and force protection. (link) | |
| Baquba Attack | 2010 03 03 | Three suicide bombers blew themselves up in Baquba, northeast of the capital, killing at least 31 people in the deadliest attack in weeks. |
| Election: Early Ballot | 2010 03 04 | Early ballots are cast in the second parliamentary election since former dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003. An early voting session goes underway for those who may not be able to get to the polls on Sunday. That includes soldiers who will have to be at work when the rest of the country votes, as well as prisoners and hospital patients. Two suicide bombers in Baghdad killed seven soldiers, seven civilians and wounded 25 others as Iraqis cast early ballots Thursday in the country’s general election. Earlier, officials say a rocket or roadside bomb attack killed seven people at a polling site that was not being used. |
| Election: Election Day | 2010 03 07 | In the second parliamentary election since 2003, nearly 6,200 candidates, including 1,718 women, are vying for a place in Iraq’s now expanded 325-member Parliament. The leading formations were: State of Law Coalition (Shia); Iraqi National Alliance (Shia); Iraqiya (secular); Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (Kurdish); and Iraqi Accordance Front (Sunni). With security a major threat, authorities deployed nearly 2,00,000 personnel in an effort to keep a lid on violence. At least 12 persons were killed when an explosion destroyed a residential building in Baghdad soon after polls opened at 7 a.m. local time. Five more were killed in another blast in the capital. Another seven died in other parts of the country. Violence was reported from Fallujah where two bombs went off close to a polling station. (link) |
| Kurdish Genocide Ruling | 2010 03 08 | An Iraqi supreme court March 8 recognized chemical weapons attacks on the Kurdish city of Halabja as an act of genocide. (link) |
| Halabja Anniversary | 2010 03 18 | The Kurdish government of Iraq marked the 22nd anniversary of the 1988 massacres in Halabja as a time for reflection and optimism, officials said in Washington. “The Halabja anniversary is not, however, just a time for the people of the Kurdistan Region to look back,” he said. “It is a time for us to heal, to seek closure and to look forward.” (link) |
| 2010 03 26 | Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al- Maliki rebuked the United Nations for not backing his demand that the ballots in the March 7 parliamentary elections be recounted. Nouri al-Maliki insisted on the recount in comments to the private Al-Sumariya TV and indicated his side still may form the next government as part of a larger alliance in the making. () Later, Allawi has accused Iran of seeking to prevent him becoming prime minister again by inviting all major parties except his secular bloc to Tehran. (link) | |
| Iraqi Toll Released | 2010 03 | 367 Iraqis were killed in violence in March, the highest number so far for 2010. |
| Sahwa Massacred | 2010 04 03 | Men disguised in uniforms marched into Sufia, a village south of Baghdad, and killed 25 civilians execution-style. All the victims were linked to the Sahwa, or Awakening movement, a civilian-led armed movement that began in 2006 and worked with American and Iraqi security forces against insurgent groups, including al-Qaeda. |
| Baghdad Blasts | 2010 04 04 |
Three car bombs rocked Baghdad in a co-ordinated attack that shattered a period of relative calm in the city. The explosions happened in quick succession just before 11.30am and were in different locations. One was outside the Iranian Embassy in Karadat Mariam district, about 1km west of the International Zone, a second was in al-Ruad Square, in the western Mansour district, and a third was outside the German Embassy, also in Mansour, in a street that has many other embassies. A police source told The Times that there was a private security company based near al-Ruad Square. The Interior Ministry said initially that 15 people had been killed at the Iranian Embassy. Television reports also suggested that there were victims at the Egyptian Embassy. The Baghdad Operations Centre said that 20 people had been killed and 45 wounded and that all three car bombs were suicide attacks. The centre also said that the al-Ruad Square bomb had been targeted at the German Ambassador’s residence. The Interior Ministry put the total death toll at 30 and said that at least 224 people were wounded. (link) |
| Baghdad Blasts | 2010 04 06 |
Six bombs in the capital on Tuesday killed at least 35 people, in the second spate of bloody attacks in three days, increasing fears that insurgents are making a return due to a political impasse following elections. The blasts destroyed residential buildings in mostly Shiite neighbourhoods, leaving bodies and rubble strewn across streets. “We are in a war. In our case, it is an open war with remnants of Al-Qaeda and the Baath” party of Saddam Hussein, Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta told Al-Arabiya television. “There has been support for terrorist groups from outside Iraq, from people who don’t want to see the political process be a success,” he added, without elaborating. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, said Sunday’s embassy attacks bore the signature of Al-Qaeda and attributed the bombings to groups who wanted to derail the formation of a new government. “This is a political attack, aimed at derailing the process, sending a message that the terrorists are still in business,” Zebari told AFP. (link) |
| 2010 06 04 | U.S. military says there are 88,000 troops in Iraq. | |
| 2010 08 07 | The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, the last brigade mainly focused on combat, hands over to Iraqi forces. | |
| 2010 08 18 | U.S. troop strength in Iraq is 56,000, a senior Obama administration official says. | |
| 2010 08 25 | Coordinated car bombings hit seven cities in the north and south, killing at least 45 people. In Kut, a car bomb at a police station near the governor’s offices killed 16 and wounded 18. In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle at a police station in Qahira neighborhood, killing 15 (including 6 policemen) and wounding 60. In Moqdadiya, a parked car blew up by the City Council, killing at least 3. In Baquba, a car bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing 1 policeman and 2 civilians and wounding 16 people. In Baquba’s outer district of Buhruz, insurgents blew up the homes of 3 policemen and 1 electoral commission employee, wounding 5. Also, the attackers planted the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq. In Ramadi, a car bomb struck a bus station, killing 2 policemen and 1 civilian. In Fallujah, a council member was killed when assailants planted a bomb on his car. A policeman also died when assailants blew up his car. Another three policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded during their patrol. A bomb also killed an Iraqi soldier in the center of Fallujah, police said. In Basra, a car bomb left 11 people wounded. A car bomb attack in the southern pilgrimage city of Karbala by a police station left another 19 wounded. (link) | |
| 2010 08 31 | U.S. to cut its troop levels to 50,000. | |
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Desert Storm Begins | 1991 01 | Desert Storm begins, a campaign of air bombardment of Iraq by US-led allied forces. Result is liberation of Kuwait by allied forces in February. |
|---|---|---|
| Desert Storm Ceasefire | 1991 02 28 | |
| Uprisings Begin in South | 1991 02 28 | Anti-government uprisings began in the south of Iraq in the Shi’i city of Basra on 28 February 1991, the day of the ceasefire, when a column of tanks fleeing from Kuwait rolled into Sa’ad Square and the commander at the head of the column stopped in front of a giant mural of Saddam and climbed onto the roof. He denounced the dictator as responsible for the humiliation and defeat of the Iraqi people, climbed back into the tank and began to blast the portrait with shells, to the delight of the assembled crowd. |
| Uprisings Spread in South | 1991 03 | Within days of the Gulf War ceasefire, spontaneous anti-government rapparin (uprisings) against the Iraqi regime had spread throughout the largest cities of the (predominantly Shi’i) south: Karbala, Najaf, Hilla, al-Nasiriya, al-Amara, Samawa, Kut and Diwaniya. The uprising was especially forceful due to disillusioned soldiers who joined forces with the rebels. |
| Uprisings Begin in North | 1991 03 04 | Rebellion erupted in the Kurdish north, beginning in the town of Ranya to the northwest of Sulaymaniyah. Many of the jash collaborator militia defected and fought alongside the peshmerga and the people. In both the north and south, rebels attacked security force headquarters, brutally killing large numbers of their personnel in revenge for the Iraqi government’s countless victims. Prisons were sacked and many prisoners were released, many of whom had not seen the light of day for ten years or more.The uprising spread so rapidly that within 10 days the Kurds were in control of every city except Kirkuk and Mosul. The Kurds’ greatest moment came on 20 March, when they succeeded in capturing Kirkuk. |
| Rebellions Squashed | 1991 03 | The uprisings were put down savagely by the Republican Guard. By the end of March the government regained control of all but a few areas in the south, inflicting tremendous suffering and seriously damaging the holy Shi’a sites at Karbala and Najaf. Next the government turned its attention to Kurdistan. Kirkuk was retaken by 28 or 29 March 1991; D’houk and Arbil on 30 March; Zakho on 1 April; and Sulaymaniyah by 3 April. Half of the population of Kurdistan fled to the mountainous Iranian and Turkish borders due to fear of renewed use of chemical weapons against them. By 5 April it was reported that up to three million Iraqi Kurds were fleeing. |
| Kirkuk Under Guard | 1991 03 2nd Week |
Suspecting that the Kirkuki Kurds might join the uprising, the Iraqi army increased street patrols in Kurdish neighborhoods and placed many of them under curfew. Ali Hassan al-Majid was put in charge of the city’s security and a door-to-door operation began in which several thousand boys and men aged from their early teens to their fifties were arrested. They were transported to military camps and compounds outside the city, where they were held in appalling conditions for the next five weeks. When the majority of them were finally released, they were forbidden to return to Kirkuk. Having put many of the men out of action, the army was then sent in to demolish large numbers of houses in the Kurdish neighborhoods, using dynamite and bulldozers and putting families out on the streets. Army patrols drove past houses that were still standing, calling out on megaphones to the ‘heroic masses of Kirkuk’ to surrender their weapons to the Ba’ath party. |
| Kikruk Seized by Kurds | 1991 03 18 |
Thornhill (1997) writes, Peshmerga were advancing on Kirkuk from the north and on 18 to 19 March Kurdish neighbourhoods began to fall under their control. By 20 March the peshmerga were in control of the entire city. Journalist Gwynne Roberts, who reached Kirkuk shortly afterwards, wrote in the Independent: Kurdish rebels were using bulldozers to clear the streets of Kirkuk of Iraqi corpses … I saw several bodies of security officials sprawled in the mud, one of them with live rounds of ammunition jammed into his mouth. A local Kurd said: ‘That bastard was a torturer, and God knows how many men, women and children he persecuted. He deserves what he got.’
Peshmerga lined up government officials and security police against walls and machine-gunned them by the dozen. Regular soldiers were spared because it was known that they had been forced to serve in the army. (Thornhill 1997, p 106) |
| Ba’athists Retake Kirkuk | 1991 03 21 |
Thornhill (1997) writes, Few civilians had been hurt in the peshmerga seizure of the city, but a counter-offensive by government forces began almost immediately. By 21 March, tanks to the southwest of the city began shelling residential areas day and night, and helicopter gunships flew over the city firing rockets and dropping napalm. Scores of residents were killed dial and some began to flee the city. After a week-long bombardment, Kirkuk fell to the government. On 27 March, loyalist troops including Republican Guard assault units, paratroopers and special forces entered the city. One of their first acts was to attack Saddam Hussein hospital with tanks and helicopters. They then entered the wards, which were crammed with injured peshmerga and civilians. Scores of patients and medical staff were shot dead and some patients were slashed with knives or thrown out of windows. As they consolidated their hold on the city, the government troops ordered the remaining Kurdish population, which was predominantly women and children, to leave the city within 24 hours. Soon a stream of refugees was fleeing north and east in the directions of Arbil and Sulaymaniyah, while troops looted their abandoned homes. (Thornhill 1997, p 106-107) |
| R.G. Retakes Kirkuk | 1991 03 28 | Republican Guard retakes Kirkuk and peshmerga forces withdraw. |
| UN SCR 687 | 1991 04 | UN Security Council Resolution 687 demands Iraqi recognition of Kuwait and destruction of all Iraq’s non-conventional weapons, and affirms that economic sanctions would continue until full compliance. Safe haven established in northern Iraq, effectively placing most of Kurdistan under allied protection. |
| Safe Haven | 1991 04 | John Major’s ‘Safe Haven’ set up via UN SCR 687. Many refugees came down from the mountains to return to Kurdish cities. The security personnel of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime were still present. By later summer, after failed negotiations between the Kurds and the regime, the latter withdrew from about 50% of the area and the Kurdistan Front was left largely in control of the area. Kurdish cities of Mosul and Kirkuk remained in government control while Sulaymaniyah, Arbil and Dohuk were in the liberated area. |
| UN SCR 688 | 1991 04 | UN Security Council Resolution 688 calls on Iraqi government to stop oppressing its own people. |
| First UNSCOM Visit | 1991 05 | First visit of United Nations Special Commission on Disarmament (UNSCOM) weapons inspection team. |
| Kurdistan Blockade | 1991 10 | Iraqi armed forces blockade Kurdistan. |
| Kurdish Elections | 1992 05 | Kurdistan Front did not have a mandate to govern the area, so after some months it was decided to hold an election and when they occurred a Kurdish administration was formed. More or less equal balance between KDP and PUK. Iraqi Kurds claimed to not want an independent state, but rather part of a post-Saddam Iraq under a federal arrangement. The enclave soon became host to the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a coalition of the Iraqi opposition. |
| KRG Formed | 1992 07 | Kurdish Regional Government formed by KDP and PUK, with essentially two parallel administrations ruling separate areas. |
| Belgian Killed | 1993 03 | Vincent Tollet, a young Belgian aid worker, killed near Sulaymaniyah. No successful assassinations until after September 1993. |
| Iraq-Kuwait Border | 1993 05 | UN Security Council approves demarcation of Iraq-Kuwait border in Kuwait’s favor. |
| US Missile Strike | 1993 06 | United States launches missile strike on headquarters of Iraqi intelligence services in Baghdad in reprisal for Iraqi plot to kill US President Bush during his first visit to Kuwait. |
| Zakho & Dohuk Power Cut | 1993 08 | Saddam cuts off power to Zakho and Dohuk. |
| Anti-Marsh Campaign | 1993 10-11 | Iraqi forces launch campaign against inhabitants of marshes in south of Iraq and finalize plans for draining of marshes. |
| PUK-IMIK Fighting | 12 1993 | In the third week of December, fighting erupts between the PUK and the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan. Clashes began in the Kifri region and spread to towns and cities in the governorates of Sulaymaniyah and Arbil. By the end of December the IMIK were forced to retreat to their bases near the Iranian border. Both sides had sustained heavy casualties; Amnesty International estimated as many as 500 civilians and combatants were killed. Each side took prisoners and they accused each other of torture. |
| PUK, KDP and IMIK Fight | 01 05 1994 | Fighting was intense throughout the month of May, followed by sporadic clashes in June and July and further fighting in August until a ceasefire was eventually agreed and observed. The May 1994 fighting began with a conflict over ownership of a small piece of land in Qala Diza, in the Sulaymaniyah governorate. This sparked local fighting between the KDP and PUK< and before long KDP personnel in Dohuk overtook the PUK office there. PUK personnel in Sulaymaniyah similarly interfered with the KDP office there and fighting spread throughout the region. This was the beginning of the division of Iraqi Kurdistan into zones: the northwest under KDP control; the southeast under PUK control; and the Iranian border region intermittently controlled by IMIK. This led to a blockade established by the KDP whereby food supplies from Turkey into Kurdistan never reached the PUK-controlled areas. Both KDP and PUK tried to seize Arbil, but the PUK was more successful and for much of the summer controlled Arbil. Parliamentary sessions ceased altogether. The Iraqi National Congress saw the inter-Kurdish fighting as an opportunity to show they had something to offer; INC militias were major in keeping the PUK and KDP peshmerga separate. Amnesty International estimated between 600 and 2,000 combatants and civilians were killed; on 1 June 1994, Amnesty called on leaders of the political parties involved in the conflict to ‘stop deliberately killing and mutilating prisoners in their custody, and abducting, killing and torturing civilians based on their political ties’ (Amnesty International 1995, Human Rights Abuses in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991). |
| Women Protest Fighting | 06 1994 | 300 women marched from Sulaymaniyah to Arbil to protest against the fighting and the disastrous effect it was having on the lives of ordinary people, many of whom had been killed or injured or had lost their livelihoods. The women, from across the political spectrum, marched for five days and nights; when they arrived in Arbil they camped out in the parliament building. |
| KDP-PUK Ceasfire | 08 1994 | |
| Iraq Recognizes Kuwait | 1994 10-11 | Iraqi threats to Kuwait lead to crisis and eventual Iraqi recognition of Kuwait as an independent state. |
| KDP-PUK Fighting | 12 1994 | A further round of fighting began when the PUK accused the KDP, who controlled the broder with Turkey, of embezzling tax money levied on lorries entering the enclave at Khabur. The PUK seized control of Arbil. A deadlock ensued whereby the KDP refused to hand over tax money until the PUK evacuated Arbil, and the PUK refused to do so until it received the money. |
| Turkey Invades | 03 1995 | Turkish army launched a massive incursion over the border into the KDP part of Iraqi Kurdistan, allegedly in pursuit of PKK fighters. |
| KDP-PUK Meet in Tehran | Early 1995 | The KDP and PUK met in Tehran for discussions; meanwhile, Baghdad was making overtures and it was a topic of interest which party would first reach a deal with Saddam. |
| US-Broked KDP-PUK Talks | 08 1995 | Talks were help between the PUK and KDP in the Republic of Ireland. Deadlock ensued over Arbil and tax money. There was at least no fighting amidst the stalemate but much vitriol was exchanged. |
| Iraq Accepts UN SCR 986 | 1996 02 | Iraq accepts UN SCR 986, allowing limited Iraqi oil sales for purchase of vital civillian supplies. |
| Iran Shuts Kurdistan Border | 2-16 07 1996 | Iran closed its border with Iraqi Kurdistan in an attempt to thwart cross-border activities of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group, the KDP-I, which was then encamped outside Koysanjaq. the PUK claimed to have lost 50 million Iraq dinars (USD 50,000) as a result, its main income being taxes levied on illicit traders moving between Iran, Iraq and Turkey. |
| PUK Guides Iran into Iraq | 28 07 1996 | PUK forces guided the Iran government’s Islamic Guards into Iraqi Kurdistan to launch an attack on the KDP-I bases. The PUK’s collusion with Iran was widely condemned by Kurds and PUK lost much popular support. |
| PUK-KDP Fighting | 08 1996 | In early August, fightin between PUK and KDP broke out as kasnazan near Arbil. US-brokered talks were held in London but were fruitless. The KDP had apparently been negotiating with Baghdad for some time because later that month the Iraqi government stepped in to help the KDP. |
| Iraq Aids KDP Take Arbil | 1996 08 31 | 450 Iraqi government tanks enter the Kurdish region at invitation of KDP and help to capture Arbil from PUK. Republican Guards raised the national flag on the Kurdish parliament building alongside the KDP’s yellow flag. The US responds by launching missile attacks on southern Iraq and extending the southern no-fly zone north to the 33rd parallel. However, cruise missile attacks by the US were ineffective and confused and ended amidst the aeasy excuse of Arab and Western pressure. |
| Iraq Withdraws | 1996 09 04 | Iraqi troops withdrew to southeast of the city, leaving behind many mukhaberaat, government secret police. People of Arbil described seeing men dressed in sharwal and who did not speak Kurdish accompanying the peshmerga of the KDP as they patrolled the city. Then, using information given to them by the KDP, the secret police began making house-to-house searches and arrested over 2,000 people from the Iraqi opposition, the Turkoman community and the PUK. Political offices were ransacked and records and information seized. Ninety-six Iraqi government deserters who had been living in a camp outside Arbil for several years were among those executed. The Kurdish parliament building became secret police headquarters. |
| Iraq Seizes Sulaymaniyah | 1996 09 09 | After Arbil, Koysanjaq then (on 1996 09 09) the city of Sulaymaniyah fell to the KDP. Many PUK had already fled and the capture was met with little resistance. |
| Iraqi Oil Flows | 1996 12 | Iraqi oil flows again through pipeline to Turkey. Iraq returns to world oil market as a producer. |
| Washington Agreement | 1998 09 | The Washington Agreement ends fighting between KDP and PUK. |
| Iraq Liberation Act | 1998 11 | Iraq Liberation Act passed by US Congress. |
| Operation Desert Fox | 1998 12 | Operaration Desert Fox, air bombardment of Iraq by US Air Force and Royal Air Force in retaliation for Iraqi non-cooperation with weapons inspections. Iraq ceases al cooperation forthwith. |
| Weekly Allied Bombardment | 1999 01-12 | American and British planes bombar Iraqi forces weekly, challenging their right to overfly Iraqi territory in southern and northern no-fly zones. |
| UN SCR 1284 | 1999 12 | UN SCR 1284 offers to suspend sanctions if Iraq cooperates with UNMOVIC, a a new weapons agency. Iraq rejects the resolution and refuses to allow UNMOVIC into Iraq. |
| Iraq Begins Civil Flights | 2000 03 | Iraq defies a UN ban on civil air flights and organizes flights of pilgrims to Mecca. |
| Uday Husain Elected | 2000 05 | Uda Husain is elected to Iraqi National Assembly. |
| Baghdad Airport Reopens | 2000 09 | Baghdad airport reopens. Much-publicized flights arrive from Russia, France, Syria and other countries. |
| Domestic Flights Resume | 2000 11 | Domestic civil flights resume within Iraq. |
| KDP-PUK Relations Improve | 2001 01 | Masoud Barzani (KDP and Jalal Talabani (PUK) meet for the first time in three years. Some improvement in relations follows. |
| Extensive US & UK Strikes | 2001 02 | Extensive American and British air strikes against air defense systems around Baghdad. |
| Ba’ath Party Regional Congress | 2001 05 | 12th Ba’ath Party Regional Congress occurs. Qusay Husain is elected to the Regional Command of the Ba’ath party. |
| Failed UN Sanctions Reform | 2001 05-07 | UK and US try to persuade UN SC to adopt ‘smart sanctions’ resolution aimed at allowing greater freedom for Iraq to import civilian items, while tightening import of military and dual-use items. Attempt eventually abandoned in face of Russian opposition. |
| Extensive US & UK Strikes | 2001 08 | Extensive US and UK air strikes against air defense systems in southern Iraq. |
| KDP-PUK Reconciliation | 2001 10 | KDP and PUK reconcile and cooperation proceeds. |
| PUK Fights Jund al-Islam | 2001 10 | PUK fights Kurdish Islamist group Jund al-Islam. |
| UN SCR 1382 | 2001 11 | UN SCR 1382 renews six-month oil for foor arrangement and opens way for sanctions reform and return of weapons inspectors in May 2002. |
| US Identifies Iraq as Evil | 2002 01 | US President Bush identifies Iraq as part of an axis of evil. |
| Iraq Reconciles with Saudi Arabia | 2002 03 | Iraq publicly reconciles with Saudi Arabia at Arab League Summit in Beirut. |
Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq: New Edition.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Military Coup d’État | 1968/07/30 | Ba’thist military coup d’état organized by al-Bakr ousts non-Ba’thist allies. |
|---|---|---|
| Iraq-USSR Oil Agreement | 1969/06 | Major agreement between Iraq and USSR on Soviet assistance in exploiting Iraqi oil fields. |
| Saddam Husain Appears | 1969/11 | Saddam Husain appointed to ruling Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and becomes its vice-chairman. |
| Kurdistan Manifesto | 1970/03 | Manifesto on Kurdistan grants limited autonomy. Barzani calls cease-fire. |
| Kirkuk Arabisation | 1970s | Kirkuk has an important oil refinery and the was thus left out of the definition of Kurdish areas. Large numbers of Kirkuki Kurds were forced out of their jobs and homes and resettled elsewhere. Arabs were then made to move to Kirkuk form the south as part of the government’s Arabisation program. |
| Land Reform | 1970/05 | Land reform measures. |
| Kurdistan Recognized | 1970/07 | New provisional constitution recognizes Kurdish nationalism. |
| Iraq and Iran Chill | 1971/11 | Relations between Iraq and Iran are severed. |
| Iraq-USSR Treaty | 1972/04 | Iraq and USSR sign fifteen-year Iraq-USSR Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. |
| Geneva Convention | 1972 | The regulations of the 1972 Convention of Geneva requesting all countries to cease production, completion and conservation of all kinds of chemical and biological weapons and to demolish them and the UN 37/98 resolution emphasizing the necessity of observing the articles and contents of the 1925 protocol and the 1972 Convention of Geneva have also been accepted by the UN member countries including Iraq. |
| IPC Nationalized | 1972/06 | Iraq Petroleum Corporation nationalized. |
| North Kurdistan Unrest | 1972/11-12 | Fighting erupts in northern Kurdistan. |
| Failed Coup | 1973/07 | Kazzar leads a failed coup attempt. President al-Bakr and Vice-President Hussein reinforce their hold on the state. |
| Iraq in War Against Israel | 1973/10 | Iraq limitedly participates in war with Israel. |
| Kurd Autonomy Law | 1974/03 | Autonomy Law for Kurdish areas is announced. Disagreement continues between government and KDP. Fighting is widespread throughout Kurdistan. |
| Algiers Agreement | 1975/03 | Algiers Agreement between Saddam Hussein and shah of Iran ends Iranian assistance to KDP, leading to collapse of the Kurdish revolt. |
| Kurd Party Split | 1975/06 | Kurdistan Democratic Party Provisional Leadership (KDP-PL) was led by Masoud Barzani. Popular Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was led by Jalal Talabani. |
| Safar Intifada | 1977/02 | 30,000 process from Najaf to Karbala as an anti-government protest known as the Safar Intifada. |
| Ayatollah Expelled | 1978/10 | Ayatolla Khomaini expelled from Iraq. |
| Baghdad Summit | 1978/11 | Baghdad Summit following Camp David accords marks Iraqi bid for Arab leadership. |
| Shi’I Islamist Uprising | 1979 Spring | Success of Iranian revolution encourages Shi’i Islamist organizations to launch more active campaigns in Iraq. |
| President al-Bakr Resigns | 1979/07 | President al-Bakr resigns. |
| President Saddam Hussein | 1979/07 | Vice-President Saddam Hussein immediately sworn in as President. Purge of Hussein’s party, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), and also of Ba’th Party. |
| KDP Congress | 1979/11 | KDP Congress elects Masoud Barzani as chairman and calls fro continuing armed struggle inside Iraq. |
| Mujama’aat for Kurds | 1980 | Mujama’aat (collective towns) are built by the Iraqi government to house Kurds whose rural communities were destroyed by scorched-earth policies of the 1970s and 1980s. They were generally built close to the main roads for ease of surveillance by the camp. The Barzani clan was transferred to two mujama’aat outside Qushtapa, named by the Iraqis al-Qadissiya (after the historic battle where Arabs defeated Persians and converted them to Islam) and al-Quds (the Arabic name for Jerusalem, meaning the Holy). |
| National Assembly | 1980/03 | Law for election of National Assembly in Iraq. |
| Shi’A Expulsion | 1980/04 | Ayatollah al-Sadr and his sister Bint al-Huda executed in Baghdad. Over 40,000 Shi’a expelled to Iran. |
| Iraq Invades Iran | 1980/09 | Iraqi forces invade Iran. |
| Iran Counteroffensive | 1982/06-07 | Iran’s counteroffensive recaptures most of its territory. |
| Hussein’s Totalitarianism | 1982/06-07 | 9th Regional Congress of Ba’th Party reasserts Saddam Hussein’s absolute control. |
| al-Bakr Dies | 1982 Autumn | Former President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr dies suddenly. |
| Iran Seized Haj Omran | 1983/07 | KDP units help Iran seize the border town of Haj Omran in Iraqi Kurdistan. |
| Iraq Slaughters Barzani | 1983/07 | In retaliation for helping the Iranians, Iraq sent troops to Qushtapa’s two mujama’aat (where the Barzani clan had been relocated) to seize the men and boys and load them into trucks at gunpoint. The collective towns of Qushtapa were left inhabited almost exclusively by widows and their children. |
| Escalation of Gulf Wars | 1984 | Wars escalate in the waters of the Gulf. |
| Iraq-US Relations | 1984 | Iraq re-establishes diplomatic relations with the United States. |
| Iran Captures al-Faw | 1986 | Iran captures the al-Faw pensinsula. |
| Anti-KDP & -PUK Action | 1987 | Iraqi government campaigns against KDP and PUK in Kurdistan. |
| Germiyan Relocations | 1987 |
‘Sumud … was built by the Iraqi army in 1987. When it was finished, the government announced that the people from all the villages of Germiyan should abandon their homes and come and live here. Many villagers thought it was a plan to kill them and they didn’t come. But later in the year, the villages near the main road to Kifri were destroyed by the government and so their people were forced to come to Sumud. When they arrived, they were given houses. The government waited another year for the people from the more distant villages of Germiyan, far from the main road, to follow the ones who villages had been destroyed. … But the people didn’t come and so in 1988 those villages became a target of the Anfal campaign. Thousands of villagers disappeared and the villages were dynamited and bulldozed into the ground. The women and children who didn’t disappear ended up in Sumud, but in worse conditions than those who had come here voluntarily in ’87.’ (Thornhill, p 169) |
| PUK Op in Jafati | 14-16 04 1987 | PUK peshmerga seized over 100 government posts in the Jafati valley. Most of the peshmerga from Balisan were involved in this operation. In reprisal the Balisan Valley was attacked on 17 04 1987 |
| Kurdistan Bombarded | 1987 04 |
Twenty four villages of Iraq’s Kurdistan were targeted by chemical bombardment. These villages were chemically bombarded twice in less than 48 hours. Saber Ahmad Khoshnam, one of the inhabitants of the bombarded villages in Loqmanodulleh Hospital in Tehran on 28th of April 1987, told reporters that the Iraqi warplanes dropped 18 chemical bombs at Sheikh Dassan, Kani Bard, Pasian and Tuteman villages. He said that more than one hundred people of these villages were wounded and that he had witnessed that an entire family in Parsian village lost their sight. In the course of the chemical bombardment of the late April 1987 of the Iraqi villages, more than 130 innocent villagers were martyred and about five hundred of them were wounded. The Iraqi regime has deployed chemical weapons against its own people while the UN general secretary’s representatives during their visits to Iran in two occasions, prepared detailed reports from the deployment of the chemical weapons against the civilian people and submitted them to the United Nations in reports number S/1 6433 and S/18852 and after the submission of these reports by the general secretary to the Security Council, eventually this council, too, joined those individuals and organizations who condemned Iraq’s deployment of chemical weapons. But despite all these condemnations, Baghdad’s rulers have continued their crimes. |
| Balisan Valley Attacked | 17 04 1987 |
The Balisan Valley was attacked with chemicals, including the village of Sheikh Wisan, in reprisal for the PUK operations in days prior in Jafati. The chemicals had actually landed up the slope from Sheikh Wasan, but the gas was so heavy that it drifted along. The shells perhaps still remain, their thin green metal hulls surely now rusted beyond immediate recognition. There had been about 100 families living in Sheikh Wisan at the time of the attack, which meant about 600-700 people. Four hundred and eighty-five were affected by the chemicals, and 153 died. He pointed to a chart on the wall, a hand-written list of the names of the martyrs, arranged by gamily. In some families, almost no one had survived. The name Kimia – ‘Chemical’ — appeared here and there, beside the date of birth of several babies born in the days following the attack. After the bombing, 2,000 Iraqi soldiers were brought in to comb the valley for peshmerga. |
| Kurdistan Front | 1998/06 | Kurdistan Front formed to unite main Kurdish parties. |
| al-Anfal Begins | 1988 | The al-Anfal begins in Kurdistan, including the notorious chemical attacks in Halabja that came to symbolize the senseless and unbridled aggression of the al-Anfal. |
| Halbja Attack | 1988 03 | Halabja was a town of 70,000 people. Chemical bombardments on Halabja began before sunrise on the 18th of March; on this third day of attacks, Halabja was bombarded more than twenty times by the Iraqi regime’s warplanes with chemical and cluster bombs. According to the findings of Iranian physicians, the mustard, nerve and cyanide gases have been used against civilians in Halabja and its surroundings. The chemicals used included mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, tabun, and VX. At least 5,000 people died immediately as a result of the chemical attack and it is estimated that up to 12,000 people in all died during the course of the three days of attack. Post-mortem examination of the bodies of the chemical bombardment of Halabja, has proved that the suffocation of the most of the martyrs has been due to the inhalation of cyanide gas. Along with Halabja, Khormal, Dojaileh and their surrounding villages were also chemically bombarded frequently but the center of the catastrophe was Halabja. (KDP’s A Glance at the Town on the Position of Halabja, link) |
| Iraq-Iran Ceasefire | 1988 | Iran accepts UN cease-fire resolution. War with Iraq ends. |
| Kuwait Invasion | 1990/08 | Iraq invades and annexes Kuwait. UN imposes total trade embargo and sanctions on Iraq. |
Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq: New Edition.
The frontrunner was the Shia-supported State of Law Coalition headed by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. This formation had done well, especially in the southern Shia strongholds, during the provincial council elections held in January 2009. The Prime Minister during that year was credited with improving the general state of security. However, spiralling violence since the second half of 2009 and lack of basic services may now have dented his party’s appeal.
Another Shia formation with strong support was the Iraqi National Alliance. The Alliance, which appears to have a pro-Iran slant, includes heavyweights such as Ammar Al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) and the largest Shia party in Iraq. Analysts point out that Mr. Hakim and his followers have recently begun to stress the need for an early exit of U.S. troops from Iraq. Moqtada Al-Sadr, a leading critic of the occupation, is also part of this coalition. His presence imparts a prominent non-sectarian accent to the Alliance.
In a Saturday (near 2010 03 07) interview aired by the Iran-based Al Alam television, Mr. Al Sadr said: “I want the Iraqi to serve the Iraqi, whether he is a Kurd, a Shia, a Turkoman or a Sunni or a member of any other Iraqi sect, whether a minority or a majority one.” Observers say that an alliance between Mr. Maliki’s coalition and the Iraqi National Alliance is a post-poll possibility, as neither of the two formations, on their own, may muster a simple majority in Sunday’s poll.
The former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi heads the secular Iraqiya List, which is another major formation participating in the polls. Mr. Allawi’s bloc, having wide cross-sectarian support also has the backing of Sunni Vice-President Tariq Al-Hashimi.
The Iraqi Accordance Front, which a Sunni dominated formation, having 44 seats in the current Parliament, is also contesting the polls.
Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party. The KDP + PUK alliance bloc has 53 seats in the current 275-member Parliament.
President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The KDP + PUK alliance bloc has 53 seats in the current 275-member Parliament.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
Hawler Citadel, née Erbil (Irbil, Arbil) Citadel. View from Minare Park. Photo by L M Clancy 2010 04 27| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Establishment | 6000 BC | Formed the original boundaries of the city, making Hawler one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. |
|---|---|---|
Erbil Citadel (also written Arbil or Irbil; Kurdish: ههولێر, Hewlêr; Arabic: اربيل, Arbīl;; Syriac: Arbela, Turkish: Erbil) is believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and is one of the larger cities in Iraq. The city lies eighty kilometres (fifty miles) east of Mosul. The city is the capital of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region and the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Ancient history
Urban life at Arbil can be dated back to at least the twenty-third century BC. The city’s archaeological museum contains only pre-Islamic objects. The name of Arbil appears to be of non-Semitic origin. The initial ar element is a feature of a number of Hurrian place names. The name Arbil was mentioned in the Sumerian holy writings (about 2000 B.C.) as Arbilum, Orbelum or Urbilum. Later, Akkadians based on similarity and folk etymology rendered the name to mean four gods (arba’ū ilū). The city was a centre for the worship of the Assyrian goddess Ishtar. In classical times, the city was known by its Aramaic name, Arbela.
Under Median Empire the Median King Cyaxares settled a number of Sagarthian tribes of Zagros in Arbela and Kirkuk, probably as a reward for their help in capture of Nineveh. After revolts of Medes led by Phraortes king of Media (522-521 BC) were put down by Darius I of Persia, the Sagartians of Arbela rebelled against Darius continuing the Median revolts. Darius sent an army led by a Median general named Takhmaspâda, and in the summer of 521 BC defeated Sagartians, led by Tritantaechmes, who claimed to be a descendant of the Great Median King Cyaxares. According to Darius, the rebel of Arbela was the last revolt of Media which he put down. These incidents are carved on the Behistun Inscription around Kermanshah.
The Battle of Gaugamela, in which Alexander the Great defeated Darius III of Persia in 331 BC, took place about one hundred kilometres (sixty miles) west of Arbil. After the battle, Darius managed to flee to the city, and, somewhat inaccurately, the confrontation is sometimes known as the Battle of Arbela.
The name Hewlêr, is also used for this historic town of Mesopotamia by Kurdish settlers of the city and derives from Horlêr, meaning “Temple of the Sun” in the Kurdish language. This may have originated from the religions of Mithraism, Yazdanism and Zoroastrianism practiced by Kurds in which the sun and fire play a significant role (see also: Helios).
Arbil became, like Amida (Diyarbekr), part of the region disputed between Rome and Persia under the Sassanians. Under Emperor Trajan it was named the Roman province of Assyria, and after a century of independence was reoccupied by Rome. The Jewish kingdom of Adiabene (Greek form Hadyab) had its center at Arbil, and the town and kingdom are known in Jewish Middle Eastern history for the conversion of the royal family to Judaism, although the general population may have remained eclectic but with a strong eastern Christian presence.
Arbela was an early center of Christianity. By AD 100 there was a bishop headquartered in the city. Most of the early bishops had Jewish names, suggesting that most of the early Christians in this city were converts from Judaism.
The queen of the Adiabenians apparently adopted Christianity, and it spread throughout this region, so that the area became a Christian stronghold. It served as the seat of a Metropolitan of the Church of the East. It is known from Butler’s Lives of the Saints (see Martyrs of Hadiab) as the site of the Sassanian Persian martyrdom of almost 350 Christians in the year 345.
Medieval history
Until 10th century Arbil was populated by Hadhabani (Adiabeni) Kurds who gradually migrated northward. no references? In 1310 the Assyrian population suffered a massacre by the Arabs; but the Kurds had no share in it. Its Aramaic speaking Assyrian population remained significant in size until destruction of the city by the forces of Timurlane in 1397. From its Christian period come many church fathers and well-known authors in Syriac, the classical language off-shoot of Aramaic. The 13th century Syriac writer Gewargis Warda Arbillaya[citation needed] [from Arbil] identifies the Christian population of Arbil and neighboring areas as Assyrians in a prayer dedicated to the Rogation of the Ninevites. In the wake of Timur’s raids, when only one Christian village is alleged to have survived, Arbil increasingly became a Muslim-dominated town. As is attested in the region in general, those who converted to Islam became enfolded into the ethnic Muslim culture of the region, whether Turkish, Arab, Persian or Kurdish. Arbil is also the birth place of the famous Muslim historian and writer of 13th century, Ibn Khallikan.
The modern town of Arbil stands on a tell topped by an Ottoman fort. During the Middle Ages, Arbil became a major trading centre on the route between Baghdad and Mosul, a role which it still plays today with important road links to the outside world. A small population of Assyrian Christians (about 15,000) live mostly in suburbs such as Ankawa.
The Kurdish name for the city is Hawler meaning the place where sun is worshipped. The name is thought to derive from the Greek helio (sun).
Modern history
The parliament of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region was established in Arbil in 1970 after negotiations between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by Mustafa Barzani, but was effectively controlled by Saddam Hussein until the Kurdish uprising at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. The legislature ceased to function effectively in the mid-1990s when fighting broke out between the two main Kurdish factions, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The city was captured by the KDP in 1996 with the assistance of the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The PUK then established an alternative Kurdish government in Sulaimaniyah. On March 1996 PUK asked for Iran’s help to fight KDP. Considering this as a foreign attack of Iraq’s soil, KDP asked the central Iraqi government for help.
While the forces of Saddam Hussein ransacked Arbil, many NGO’s and International Organizations fled. These same organizations were able, with the assistance of the United States and other countries, to accept many Kurds as refugees. Many bound to the US were first taken to Guam.
The Kurdish Parliament in Arbil reconvened after a peace agreement was signed between the Kurdish parties in 1997, but had no real power. The Kurdish government in Arbil had control only in the western and northern parts of the autonomous region.
During the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, a United States special forces task force was headquartered just outside of Arbil. The city was the scene of rapturous celebrations on April 10, 2003 after the fall of Baghdad.
Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, only isolated, sporadic violence has hit Arbil, unlike many other areas of Iraq. Parallel bomb attacks against the Eid celebrations arranged by the PUK and KDP killed 109 people on February 1, 2004. Responsibility was claimed by the Islamist group Ansar al-Sunnah, and stated to be in solidarity with the Kurdish Islamist faction Ansar al-Islam. Another bombing on May 4, 2005 killed 60 civilians. Despite these bombings the population generally feels safe.
The new Iraqi constitution of 2005, explicitly recognizes the Kurdistan Regional Government, and the two parallel administrations, in January 2006, signed an agreement to unify the administration of the entire Kurdish region under a new multi-party government in Arbil. In May 2006 the unitary government of the Kurdistan region was formally presented.
Travel
Erbil International Airport, a new airport flying the Kurdish flag instead of the Iraqi flag, was opened in autumn of 2005, with portraits of Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani, and Masoud Barzani. It has scheduled flights to a number of airports in the Middle East and to Vienna via Austrian Airlines 5 flights weekly. Royal Jordanian flies in from Amman and Kurdistan Airlines flies to many locations across the Middle East.
Moreover, the KRG is building a new $325 million airport adjacent to the existing terminal, which will have the capacity to accept the largest aircraft in the world, including the Russian Antonov 225 cargo plane and the American C-5 Galaxy. It is scheduled for completion in 2008.
Visa information
Visas on arrival are available for citizens of the United States and most European countries. Other nationalities must obtain a visa before arrival. As of Spring 2007, the enforcement of this policy became more strict.
Now Public: Hawler Citadel by James Gordon.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
The Choly Minaret was 36m high when built 1190-1232 under the reign of Erbil King Muzaffar al-Din Abu Sa’eed al-Kawkaboori (630-586, Islamic Calendar). The Minaret is built of baked bricks with a high octagonal base and a tall cylindrical shaft, with a balcony between the base and the shaft. The base is decorated with two tiers of niches with pointed arches, two on each of the eight faces that are inscribed in rectangular frames. The balcony parapet is carved with 24 small niches. The access door to the minaret steps is on the eastern side of the octagonal base and leads to the balcony. From there a small door gives access to steps inside the cylindrical shaft that led to the second balcony which has since collapsed. The shaft tapers inward and is decorated with several bands of interlocking diagonal Hazar-Baf motifs that are separated with thin bands.
| Period or Event | Time-Frame | Overview |
Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq: New Edition.
An alliance of the Medes and Babylonias, a decision that Assyria had become too much to deal with, forced the Assyrians to fall back into Haran. Then the Babylonians took over all the southern half of old Assyria and the Medes took over all the northern half. Sacked in 763 BCE, Harran was restored under the Assyrian ruler Sargon II. It served for two years as the headquarters for the then–crumbling Assyrian Empire after the fall of its capital Nineveh in 612 BCE.
Mari has provided more than 20,000 texts written in Old Babylonian, found in destroys remains of palace of Zimri-lin (~1,664 BC) and regarding adminsitration and royal correspondence. Primary source for identifying “city states” as actual kingdoms are the inscriptions found at Mari.
| Time Frame | Overview |
| 853 BC | Shalmanesser III faces coalition of Levantine kingdoms at Qarqar. Ahab of Israel and Hadadezer of Damascus are members. Coalition succeed (according to the Monolith inscription). |
| 849-848 & 845 BC | Shalmaneser III faces coalition of Levatine kingdoms (according to the bull inscription and Black Obelisk) and Hadadezer of Damascus is mentioned, uncertain if Jehoram of Israel participated. |
| 841 BC | Damascus besieged and Jehu of Israel mentioned as paying tribute (according to the Black Obelisk) |
| 838 BC | Shalmaneser II atacks four cities of Hazael of Damascus (according to the Black Obelisk). |
Ashur-dan II set the basic patterns of strategy and ideology that are elaborated by succeeding Assyrian kings. First, Ashu-dan II re-conquered Assyrian territories. Like his ancestors, he fought extensively in the mountainous and problematic northern frontier. It was strategically critical due to its proximity to the Assyrian heartland and its routes that led into Anatolia (a source of crucial metals).
Notably, to the north and close to Assyrian territory, Kadmahu’s bronze, tin and precious stones were looted and its king was flayed so his skin could be exhibited on Arbela’s walls; an Assyrian loyalist assumed his throne. To the west, Ashur-dan II’s fragmentarily perserved annals reveal that Aramaeans in loosely controlled territory had revolted by slaughtering Assyrians. In response, he devastated the region and looted all valuable things and creatures. To the east, it was critical for Assyria to secure the limited mountain routes in the Zagros foothills down to the lower Zab.
Next, Ashur-dan II began a campaign of resettlement. After the hunger and instability of the Assyrian recension, Ashur-dan II built new fortified centers with ploughs, horses and stores of grain. This allowed Assyrians to return to regions where they had been forced away, increasing Assyria’s cultivatable land and its security. Also, Ashur-dan II continued the tradition of building palaces in various districts across his land.
Hasanlu (aka Mania) was a well-preserved city caught between the Urartians and Assyrians, and others. It had pseudo-Assyrian art styles, and was eventually obliterated in an utterly destructive attack likely by the Babylonias (due to the preponderance of scythian arrowheads).
The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC) was found in a central palace erected by Shalmaneser III and Tiglath-Pileser IV (Jastrow 1915, p 19). The Black Obelisk depicts five scenes of tribute, like a miniature throne room. Each scene occupies four panels, wrapping around the obelisk, and is identified by a line of cuneiform script above it. The Black Obelisk provides the earliest depiction of an ancient Israelite.
| Scene | Overview |
|---|---|
| Sua of Gilzanu | Northwest Iran. |
| Jehu of Bit Omri | Ancient Israel. |
| Musri | An unnamed rule of Musri likely heralds from Egypt. |
| Marduk-apil-usur of Suhi | Middle Euphrates, Syria and Iraq. |
| Qalparunda of Patin | Antakya region of Turkey. |
~728 BC relief of Tiglath-Pileser III from the Central Palace at Nimrud. British Museum. Image by L. M. Clancy.Tiglath-Pileser III (744-727 BC) reconfigured Assyrian administration to make villages responsible to the center. For this reason, he is often considered the founder of the Assyrian empire. His strategy relied upon diplomacy, deportation and military action. When Tiglath-Pileser III conquered a village, he installed bureaucrats and military officials; these people maintained order and reported directly to him. His queen was named Yaba.
Tiglath-Pileser III started a trend in Assyria of dismantling a conquered capital and replacing it with a controlled capital elsewhere (he did so when he replaced Jerusalem with Lachish). He left behind few monuments in the Assyrian heartland, as he was too busy militaristically to focus on much else. Tiglath-Pileser III stopped Urartu in the west, and solidified areas that had been conquered yet remained rebellious. Tiglath-Pileser III also incorporated large parts of Syria, and defeated the Babylonians (he even stole hands from a statue of Bel). Notably, this made Tiglath-Pileser III the first Assyrian king to rule Babylonia (other than a few appointees) since Tukulti-Ninurta. Tiglath-Pileser III also managed to reach the Mediterranean and Gaza. He did not attack the Palestinians because of their great timber trade. Instead, he had them acknowledge his superiority and offer tribute.
Assyrian king Sargon II (721-705 BC) completed the siege of Samaria begun by Tiglath-Pileser III and continued by Shalmaneser V. Israelites were deported to Gozan (modern tel-Hallath, in the Habur), Media (in modern Iran) and Dur Sharruken. Sargon II had established a new capital at Dur Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad) to replace Nimrud, which had been the capital since the early 9th century BC. Sargon II’s queen was named Atalia.
In addition to taking Samaria, Sargon II trekked to Tarsus and Malatya on the Anatolian plateau. After conquering Palestine, Sargon II went eastward to enter modern-day Turke, Iranian highlands and Elamite territory. However, Sargon II grew weary of conquering and re-conquering vassals and adopted a no good vassal but a dead vassal policy. He abolished local dynasties and ruled Assyrian territories with the efficient social and military organization developed by Tiglath-Pilezer III.
The settlement and re-settlement of the Habur region by people from Samaria, the Mediterranean shore or even way over on the border of Iran had an Aramization on Assyria. Sargon II (722-705) claims to have built a structure at Dur Sharrukin in the bit hilani style. Also, Sennacherib (704-681) claims to have done construction at Nineveh in the bit hilani style.
| Ancient | Modern | Founder | Year | Overview |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ashur | The capital of the kingdom Shamshi-Adad I (1813-1781 BC). | |||
| Karum Kanesh | Kültepe | Amorite Businessmen | Though not an Assyrian capital, most of our knowledge of early Assyria is from the commercial colony Karum Kanesh founded a few hundred miles north of Assur on the Anatolian plateau. | |
| Kar Tukulti Ninurta | Tukulti-Ninurta I | ~1220 BC | ||
| Kalhu | Nimrud | Ashurnasirpal II | ||
| Dur Sharruken | Khorsabad | Sargon II | 717 BC | Temple: ideograms are expressing great king, king of the universe type of thing, are the sequence of pictures. |
| Nineveh | Mosul | Sennacherib | Citadel is mound called Kuyunjik. Main citadel itself has palace without rival of Sennacherib, likely completed by his son. There is a semi-completed zigarat. There was also a Nabu, Shin Shamash and Kidnumi temple. Excavations at the kuyunjik go back to the 6th millenium BC. There was a change in style starting in Sennacherib, with miles and miles of relifs (not just throne room like at Nimrud). These reliefs lacked extensive inscriptions and only had epigraphs. | |
| Lachish | Not a capital of Assyria itself, but the capital of Assyrian control over Judah. | |||
Ashur-uballit I reigned over Assyria as it truly gained traction and was completely free of Mittanian control, as shown in his letters found at Amarna. These letters are significant, as up until this point all communications had been through the Mittanni; Ashur-uballit’s predecessors were not allowed to directly contact other kingdoms. In an unprecedented move, Ashur-uballit I communicated with Egypt (forming trade links) and gave one of his daughters to the Kassite king in Babylonia (forming a dynastic link).
Ashur-uballit I did not detail his own military campaigns, but his successors note that he thrust his military northwards into mountains that hid disruptive gangs, contained raw materials and held ideal horse-breding areas. These northern and eastern mountains (along the borders of modern-day Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran) are a recurring military theme throughout Assyrian history. Ashur-uballit’s great-grandson said that the security of his kingship was firmly established as far distant as the mountains (north Iraq) and that he succeeded against the forces of the widespread land of the Subarians (referring to general northerners) and a land called Musri (a vague northwest region).
Adad-nirari I (aka Adad-narari I) (1307-1275 BC) grew Assyrian power and described himself as defeater of the feocious ones, turning Hanigalbat (Assyria’s term for the Mitanni kingdom) into a vassal before annexing it completely (including Washukanni, the old Mittanni capital). However, Adad-narari I was unsuccessful against the Hittites and lost large parts of Mesopotamia to them; after trying to form a brotherly alliance with the Hittites, their king snidely responded; Why should I write to you about brotherhood? Were you and I born of the same mother?.
Assyria now controlled the whole western and northern territory within the defensible boundaries of the Euphrates and Tigris, giving Assyria hegemony over the riverine trade routes. To the south, just east of the Tigris, the boundary between Assyria and Babylonia was formed by either the Lower Zab, Adhaim or Diyala rivers. Adad-narari’s hard stance on this boundary led to celebratory epic, one of Assyria’s first native literary works. However, this area was battled over innumerable times and fluctuated according to levels of Assyro-Babylnonian power.
The ziggurat of Assyrian cities was less prominent than ziggurats in Babylonian cities.
Esarhaddon appointed his successors after seing the rebellion that ensued when he took over the throne.
Ashurbanipal (reigned 668-627 BC) was known to the Greeks as Sardanapalus and in the Old Testament as Asnapper (Ezra 4, 10) (Jastrow 1915, pg. 21). Ashurbanipal is best remembered for his library of Assyro-Babylonian literature. This library has yielded most modern knowledge of Mesopotamian tradition. His artistic side is also shown in his dedication to completing Sennacherib’s construction projects, making it difficult to discern works from Sennacherib or Ashurbanipal. Militaristically, Ashurbanipal was forced to withdraw from Egypt (in ~660 BC) and then entered a very bloody long-term struggle against the Babylonians. The Babylonians were ruled by his own brother, and supported by the Elamites. He was fixated on the Elamites, trying diplomacy; raising children captives; and even beckoning for a king’s held to be swiftly delivered to be hung in his garden.
The costly Elamite wars ended in 646 BC when Assurbanipal defeated Susa, a victorious culmination of his obsession with eliminating the Elamites. His reliefs reveal that he had even flayed an Elamite king, then took his severed head home so that he could admire it hanging on a tree in his garden while he relaxed with his queen under a grape arbor. However, his win was bittersweet because Assurbanipal had focused so many resources on controlling a truly hopeless region. The Assyrian government suffered and was plagued by internal strife.
Removing the Elamites allowed the Medes and Babylonians to rise; also, the Persians were beginning their encroachment. Assyrian control over the far west of Egypt and the Levant fell apart, the east was taken by the Medes and the south was taken by the Neo-Babylonians. Assyria’s hegemony was reduced to just its core area until even that was defeated in 612 BC. There were a few more destructions before Nineveh was totally obliterated. Perhaps foreseeing this end, Ashurbanipal gathered works from far and wide and formed a library that provides much of our knowledge of the region’s culture.
 Foundation inscription. Ishtar Temple built by Tukulti-Ninurta. 1243-1207 BC. Assur. Lead. Istanbul Museum of the Ancient Orient. Inv No 8856, 8857. Image my L. M. Clancy, 2009/08/28 |
Ashur (aka Assur or Asur; modern Kaleh-Shergat, aka Qala’t Shargat). When looking at artifacts, a winged sun-disk (sometimes containing a homunculus) represents Ashur. |
Hanigalbat (the Mitanni) had gained power and allied with the Akhlamus (Aramaeans) and Hittites. The Hittites provided not just military aid, but also used their enduring international power to force their vassals into imposing an embargo against Assyria. This prompted Shalmaneser I to re-conquer the Hanigalbat region, a reassertion of Assyria’s growing importance that made the Hittite monarch regard Shalmaneser I (and his successor) as an equal, brother. In a departure from prior policy, Assyria did not just kill the conquered masses. Shalmaneser I allowed skilled and established merchant families to continue, feeding them into a government trading network that greatly benefited Assyria. Also, Shalmaneser I installed an Assyrian administration in the conquered Mittanni site at Tell Fakeryiah. His administration was implemented across upper Mesopotamia and possibly the upper Tigris as well. He appointed local elites and his own officials as saknu (governors) reporting to a sukkallu rabu (great vizier).
Also, people from the northern territories were deported en masse to labor in Assyria’s agricultural fields: 14,400 captives were deported from Hanigalbat, each person blinded in one eye; 720 captives were deported from Shubru (likely north or within the Tur Abdin) in four gangs each under an Assyrian foreman with an overseer responsible for the whole; 99 people were deported from the land Nairi (north of the Tigris, west of Lake Van); and 174 were deported from Kadmukh (between Tigris and Tur Abdin) under two Assyrian officials. These detailed records are taken from administrative account of grain and wool rations so that the laborers could eat and make their own clothing. Assyria had very precise oranization at this point: regarding a construction campaign, the total of foreign workers and the seven Assyrian officials in charge of them amounted to exactly 1,000.
During the reign of Shalmaneser I (Adad-narari’s son), Uruatri (later Urartu) was still a federation amongst the Armenian highlands. Shalmaneser I spoke of destroying 51 Uruatrian towns to squash their disruption of Assyrian hegemony. Some young men from Uruatri were enlisted into Assyria’s service and relocated. This marks a new phase in Assyrian policy that led to groups of people being shifted around on an increasingly massive scale; these persons could have been just slaughtered, but it was in Assyria’s economic interest to divide the people and let them live.
Bibliograpy
Saggs, 1985. The Might That Was Assyria.
| Event | Overview |
|---|---|
| Early History | Nineveh (ancient Ninu(w)a; near modern Mosul on the site Kouyunjik) was located on the Tigris’ east bank (36°24′ N 43°08′ E). Nineveh was settled from the 3rd millennium onwards and a crucial node in Assyria’s heartland since the Middle Assyrian Period, Nineveh was a major riverine trade port. Nineveh began to overshadow Ashur as Assyria expanded northward and westward. Shalmaneser I restored a temple ate Nineveh, and business tablets from his reign were found 30 miles to the west at Tell el-Rimah (attesting to trade activity). Nineveh continued to grow in importance under Tiglath-Pileser I and Nineveh was regarded as Assyria’s second capital. |
| Assyrian Capital | However, it was only after Sargon II’s (721-705) death in battle that Sennacherib (704-681) declared Nineveh as Assyria’s official capital and secured its place in history. The city was bisected by Hosr, a minor tributary of the Tigris. The western part of Nineveh has the principal mound, Kuyunjik (alt Kouyunjik), a steep-sided mound with a ~45 ha flat top ~25-30 m above the ground. Within the mound are notable prehistoric finds and the Neo-Assyrian South-West and North Palaces. |
| Without Rival | After diverting the river Tebiltu (modern Khosr) around the city, Sennacherib hydrated Nineveh with the Jerwan Aqueduct. He also installed a new city wall and a canal system. Also, Sennacherib had found a new source for building stone in Mt. Nipur to the north (modern Judi Mountain) — it is possible he used this stone to fashion his massive lamassu. When Sennacherib had fully developed Nineveh, it was the largest city of the era with a whopping 750 hectares of urban land (Dur Sharrukin was 320 ha). Nineveh was surrounded by a 12km long and 25m wide city wall riddled with as many as 18 gates. Sennacherib’s inscriptions describe vast open spaces within the city walls, allowing for plazas, gardens, fields, a zoo and possibly military camps. There were two residential areas: one with flimsy buildings was found to the west, near the Maski gate; and nearby were larger and better-constructed houses. |
| Excavation | Overview |
|---|---|
| Jerwan Aqueduct | Brought water for his new city building an aqueduct from a good source at Jerwan. |
| Citadel | Sennacherib’s citadel was located at the Small Sheep mound at the northwest edge of the city, between the city wall’s Quay gate and the Maski gates. |
| Istar Temple | The earliest building at Nineveh was the Istar Temple, which dated to the 3rd millenium bC. It was rebuilt multiple times during the Old, Middle and Neo-Assyrian Periods, revealing that Istar was a long lasting cult. |
| Nabu Temple | In the middle of the citadel was the Nabu Temple. It had a central courtyard encircled with very thick walls. This temple was built before Sennacherib. |
| Royal Palace | Sennacherib built his Palace Without Rival (aka Southwest Palace) on the southern edge of the citadel, at the southwest of the Kuyuncuk mound. It was completed in 694 BC. The palace had a new architectural feature: bronze lions in a striding (yet weight-bearing) pose served as column bases. The palace had: a throneroom (Court H) to the northeast; a colossal throneroom suite (Rooms I-IV); an inner court (Court VI) surrounded by additional reception suites decorated with elaborate relief orthostats; a second inner court (Court XIX) with even more grandiose thronerooms; and residential quarters behind it. Palace walls in all 38 rooms (except 3) were decorated with military reliefs. The palace was expanded piecemeal: early inscriptions give dimensions of 60×34 cubits; the last inscriptions state 914×440 cubits. The palace grew to fill the space bound by the Istar Temple and the Ziggurat. |
| Bit Nakkapti | To the northeast of the palace was Bit Nakkapti (aka Sennacherib’s Eastern Building). An inscription on its enormous lamassu indicate that it was a ~ 683 BC addition to the palace complex. Its main gateway: was paved with three large, wheel-rutted stone threshold slabs; bore apotropaic orthostats similar to the Southwest Palace. |
| North Palace | Little is known of Assurbanipal’s North Palace (aka Crown Prince Palace) at Nineveh. Assurbanipal had restored Sennacherib’s palace, and also built the North Palace on the northern part of the Small Sheep citadel, just north of the Nabu Temple. Oddly enough, the North Palace lacked lamassu in all excavated parts; the double columns marking some passageways are reminiscent of the bit hilani style. Within the North Palace were two rooms that formed a library of Assyro-Babylonian literature and official Assyrian archives (Jastrow 1915, p 21). The corpus consisted of divinations, incantations, legends and lexical lists. The divinations were copies of Babylonian priestly texts that described how to interpret phenomena of rivers and occurrences in houses, streets and cities (Jastrow 1915, p 21). Incantation texts detailed how expel demons of disease from victims and how to fight evil spells (Jastrow 1915, p 22). Legends included creation stories and the Epic of Gilgamesh. |
The reliefs at Nineveh were different from those at Dur Sharrukin and Nimrud. Palace reliefs originally in a life-like scale, with large figures taking up much space. At Nineveh, lots of figures were crowded together against very detailed backgrounds. Musculature was not as detailed, as the reliefs were just trying to communicate what happened and where. The magnificent and powerful figures found in Nimrud’s reliefs are absent from Nineveh. The reliefs at Nineveh used illustrations rather than inscriptions to detail locations and times. For example, a torture scene in a Southwest Palace reliefs clearly shows victims wearing western-style clothes. There is much more activity in the reliefs at Nineveh than the reliefs at Nimrud. Incidentally, this also makes Nineveh’s reliefs much more informative of material culture.
Relief fragment of cavalrymen along a stream in mountainous terrain. Alabaster. Palace of Sennacherib, Room XXXVIII, Nineveh. Neo-Assyrian Period, reign of Sennacherib (704-681 BC). Gift of John D Rockefeller Jr 1932. Metropolitan Museum, 32.143.16
Protective spirit (lahmu) guarding a door. Assyrian ~700-692 BC from Nineveh SW Palace WA 124792
Protective spirit (ugallu, great lion). Assyrian ~700-692 BC From Nineveh SW Palace WA 124826
Stone relief from the South-West Palace of Sennacherib (Room 32). Nineveh. Neo-Assyrian, 704-681 BC. Two guardian figures. British Museum. Image by L M Clancy 2009/08/17.
Campaigning in southern Iraq. Assyrian ~640-620 BC. From Nineveh, SW Palace. Court XIX panels 10-12. British Museum.
A central band of river, the Tigris or Euphrates, separates two otherwise independent compositions. Above the Assyrians attack a town on a small island and carry booty from it. Below the Assyrian king in his chariot watches as prisoners are brought in and heads and booty are piled up in a palm grove.
http://proteus.brown.edu/mesopotamianarchaeology/1499
Assyrian expansion continued under Shalmaneser I’s son Tukulti-Ninurta I, who conquered further, exploited more and penetrated deeper. He started with the north, studying the Uqumeni kingdom (aka Uqumani, later Qumani), the principal among the Qutian federation, in anticipation of conquering the land. Upon his victory, he imprisoned the Uqumeni princes at Ashur until they took an oath of allegiance. This allegiance not only reduced Uqumeni to vassaldom, but also incurred a hefty annual tribute. This opened up a channel between Assyria and its vassal, and some Uqumeni names have been found amongst receipts for rations for Assyrian workers.
Next, Tukulti-NInurta I charged south to Babylonia. After many boundary clashes, Tukulti-Ninurta I initiated a full invasion into Babylonia that was immortalized in a laudatory Assyrian epic. Assyria’s defeat of Babylonia was not like the defeat of northern barbarians, but rather a huge cultural coup equivalent to sacking Vatican City, Jerusalem or Mecca in modern times. To justify this, the Tukulti-Ninurta epic claimed Babylon’s tutelary deity Marduk had disapproved of Kashtiliash’s resistance to Assyria, thus deserting Babylonia and giving Tukulti-Ninurta I permission to invade Babylonia. This was symbolized by an image of Tukulti-Ninurta taking the god Marduk to Ashur, where Marduk was revered even after Babylonia recovered its independence.
After conquering Babylonia, Tukulti-Ninurta I moved the capital of Assyria from Ashur. His prestige had begun to wane, and rather than further displease Ashur’s citizenry with higher taxes (for construction labor) or land takeover (for space), he chose to revolve his government around a site on the opposite side of the Tigris: Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. When Babylonia’s Nechuchadnezzer I o(1,125-1,105 BC) conquered back Babylonia and began the second dynasty of Isin after just seven years of Assyrian rule, Tukulti-Ninurta I’s claim that he had divine approval to take over Babylonia was shattered. After gross exaggerations failed to save his public image, his son (Ashur-nasir-pal) and the nobles of Ashur conspired against him. Tukulti-Ninurta I was removed from the throne, imprisoned in a building at Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta and assassinated. Tensions and conspiracy destabilized Assyria, leading to a decline in Assyrian power.
Bibliograpy
Saggs, 1985. The Might That Was Assyria.
To the NorthThere was activity on all four of Assyria’s frontiers. To the north and at the start of Tiglath-Pileser I’s reign, a group of ~20,000 Mushki leapt from territory they had held for ~150 years northwest of the Tur Abdin and invaded Kadmukh. While Assyria had not acted against the Mushki prior, this was a threat to Assyrian security and Tiglath-Pileser I defensively counter-attacked immediately and succeeded initially. He seized 6,000 Mushki prisoners, releasing them as subjects of Assyria into the lands they had invaded and settled. This aided Assyria, as the Mushki helped agricultural production and also provided 120 chariots, teams of horses and presumably their accompanying personnel.
Kadmukh natives, siding with the Mushki, crossed to the north bank of the Tigris to attack an Assyrian fortress there. Tiglath-Pileser I pursued the rebels, and along the way encountered skirmishes with the Papkhu people, who spoke Hurrian and resided north of the Tigris. He also accrued a few more subjects, included the Kaska people who had lived along the Black Sea coast to the west and were likely glad to be accepted by a stable power. He explored the territory where the Papkhu and many other small kingdoms existed (there was no major kingdom in the area) in anticipation of his next move.
Tiglath-Pileser I next took his chariots and main army across the Tigris and northwards into Papkhu territory. His troops carried their chariots in impassible regions. Although the Papkhu tried to battle the Assyrians along the mountainside, they failed and Assyria massively destroyed Papkhu territory before marching onwards north of the Tigris and into eastern Anatolia. Tiglath-Pileser I’s conquests are documented at only two sites in this region: the city of Melid whose capture he recorded, and also a rock he inscribed northwest of Lake Van and in the Melazgirt area: Tiglath-Pileser, strong king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters, conquerer of the land Nairi from the land Tumme to the land Dayenu, conqueror of the land Habha to the Great Sea. He accrued booties of copper and bronze and tributes of thousands of horses, cattle, oxen and asses. Also, he deported captives to boost Assyria’s working population. Simultaneously, he tirelessly developed Assyria’s military chariots to unprecedented capacities.
To the WestAramaean disruption of the Euphrates, a main artery for trade and communication, was a formidable threat. To chase off the Aramaeans for good, Tiglath-Pileser I had to cross the Euphrates 28 times over several years. Once the Aramaeans were off of Assyrian territory, Tiglath-Pileser I was able to leave the Euphrates alone and penetrate the Mediterranean coast. To reach the shore, he crossed former Hittite territory (north Syria) and, on a separate occasion, he trekked through Tadmor (in the heart of Aramaean territory). Once at the shore, he exhibited Assyria’s fascination with the sea and excitedly took a boat ride. I made replicas in basalt of the nahiru, which they call a “sea-horse”, which with a harpoon, as an achievement of my own hand, I killed i the sea of Amurru-land at the command of…the great gods, my lords. It is unclear whether the sea-horse was a dolphin or whale.
To the SouthThe Assyro-Babylonian border remained sensitive. After several normal borer clashes, Tiglath-Pileser I responded by forcing through northern Babylonia to even defeat Babylon. Rather than occupy the territory, though, he merely raided the area and then left as a show of his might. Babylonia’s influence continued in Assyria, with Babylonian month names even replacing their Assyrian counterparts.
Tiglath-Pilser I, NaturalistLike other Assyrian kings, Tiglath-Pileser I was fascinated by foreign animals. Like other kings, he accepted apes, crocodiles and other strange animals as tribute; Tiglath-Pileser I even built a zoo to house animals that were gifted to him and which he had captured. There was rich fauna amidst ancient Assyria, with texts mentioning hunting of bears elephants, wild ox (powerful beasts as tall as six feet at the shoulder), hyenas, lions (up to 800 at a time, as they were a danger), tigers, leopards, deer, wild, water buffalo, wild pigs, gazelle, sheep, lynx, cheetahs, wild asses and onagers. He even attempted to breed herds of two-humped camels that had been sent by merchants abroad, as mentioned in his son Ashur-bel-kala’s Broken Obelisk. Assyrian kings also decimated the ostrich, although it has been rarely sighted in the 20th century AD.
Dur Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad in Iraq) was established by Assyrian king Sargon II (722-705 BC) as a new capital of Assyria to replace Nimrud. Dur Sharrukin was constructed from 717-707 BC and Sargon II died in battle shortly thereafter in 705 BC. An outer wall pierced by seven fortified gates enclosed a 2.59 sq km city. Within the citadel, buildings had: walls that were thick, windowless and made of mud bricks; and gates opening onto internal courts. The State Court and Grand Entrance Court were the largest courts. The Throne Room was nestled between the State Court and a court for women and children. There was a seven-tiered ziggurat and a group of temples.
| Excavation | Overview |
|---|---|
| Royal Palace | 9 hectares. |
| Nabu Temple | There was a temple to Nabu, the God of Vegetation and a patron of writing. |
References
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/174077/Dur-Sharrukin
http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/sargon_iis_palace_dur-sharrukin
| Next Steps | Immediately after Sargon II, Sennacherib replaced Dur Sharrukin with Nineveh as capital of Assyria. |
|---|
Assyrian king Sennacherib’s (701-681 BC) military campaign and siege of Jerusalem are depicted in his ~689 BC hexagonal prism (discovered at Nineveh; now at the Oriental Institute) and in the reliefs from his palace at Nineveh (particularly his campaign against Lachish). The prism is an example of the Assyrian king’s annals, which catalogue annual accomplishments.
Bibliography
701 BCE; ANET, pp. 287-88; Ben Sasson, HJP, figure 11.
| Term | Overview |
| Karum Kanesh | |
|---|---|
| Annals | Started by Tiglat-Pileser I |
| City of Assur | |
| Kalhu | Kalhu (modern Nimrud) was made the capital of Assyria in ~879 BC by Ashurnasirpal II. Notable among its artifacts was the Banquet Stele. (link) |
| Banquet Stele | Found at Nimrud, near the entrance to the throne room. |
| Dur Sharrukin | Dur Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad in Iraq) was established by Assyrian king Sargon II (722-705 BC) as a new capital of Assyria to replace Nimrud. Dur Sharrukin was constructed from 717-707 BC and Sargon II died in battle shortly thereafter in 705 BC. An outer wall pierced by seven fortified gates enclosed a 2.59 sq km city. (link) |
| Kar Tukulti Ninurta | Established in late 13th century BC as the new capital of Assyria. |
| Old Assyria | |
| Middle Assyria | |
| Neo-Assyria | |
| Assyrian Letters | |
| Assyrian Ivories | |
| Disembedded Capital | Building a city away from major population centers is called ‘disembedded capital’ by some archaeologists |
| Aramaeans | |
| Asur-nasir-pal II | |
| Ashurbanipal | |
| Assurbanipal’s Library | Found at Nineveh. He collecteed works by sending requests to other literatures for copies and/or originals of old texts. He gathered great works such as the Gilgamesh Epic and Enuma Elish. He also gathered prayers, divine hymns (¡O! Ishtar, your radiance) and many proverbs. In addition, Assurbanipal gathered spells of magic and medicine, which oftentimes overlap. Texts regarding divination (ie, looking at entrails, intestines and gallbladders) and astrology were also compiled by Assurbanipal. |
| Sennacherib | |
| Chaldaen | It was only under Nabopolassar in 625 that the Kaldu attained lasting control over Babylon, after having defeated Assyria and Egypt at Karchemish, founding the Chaldean dynasty, which lasted until 539 and the rise of the Achaemenid Empire. The Chaldeans were traditional allies of the Elamites and Persians in their struggle against the Assyrians. |
| Marduk-apla-iddina | Known as Merodach Baladan in the Bible. Chaldean prince who usurped the Babylonian throne in 721 BC. Marduk-apla iddina II was also known as one of the brave kings who maintained Babylonian independence in the face of Assyrian military supremacy for more than a decade. Sargon of Assyria repressed the allies of Marduk-apla-iddina II in Aram and Israel and eventually drove (ca. 710 BC) him from Babylon. After the death of Sargon, Marduk-apla-iddina II recaptured the throne. In the time of his reign over Babylonia, he strengthened the Chaldean Empire. He reigned nine months (703 BC – 702 BC). He returned from Elam and ignited all the Arameans in Babylonia into rebellion. He was able to enter Babylon and be declared king again. Nine months later he was defeated near Kish, but escaped to Elam with the gods of the south. He died in exile a couple of years later. |
| Carchemish | an important ancient city of the Mitanni and Hittite empires. In the 9th century BC, the city paid tribute to Kings Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III of Assyria, and was conquered by Sargon II in 717 BC, in the reign of King Pisiris. The Battle of Carchemish was fought about 605 BC between the allied armies of Egypt and Assyria against Babylonia. When the Assyrian capital Nineveh was overrun by the Babylonians in 612 BC, the Assyrians moved their capital to Harran. When Harran was captured by the Babylonians in 610 BC, the capital was once again moved, this time to Carchemish. Egypt was allied with the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit II, and marched in 609 BC to their aid against the Babylonians. Assyria ceased to exist as an independent power. Egypt retreated and was no longer a significant force in the Ancient Near East. Babylon controlled the territory up to the Wadi of Egypt and the Pharoah no longer left Egypt to exert any influence in the affairs of the region. |
| Cimmerian | The first historical record of the Cimmerians appears in Assyrian annals in the year 714 BC. These describe how a people termed the Gimirri helped the forces of Sargon II to defeat the kingdom of Urartu. The migrations of the Cimmerians were recorded by the Assyrians, whose king, Sargon II, died in battle against them in 705 BC. They are subsequently recorded as having conquered Phrygia in 696-695 BC, prompting the Phrygian king Midas to take poison rather than face capture. In 679 BC, during the reign of Esarhaddon of Assyria, they attacked Cilicia and Tabal under their new ruler Teushpa. Esarhaddon defeated them near Hubushna (tentatively identified with modern Cappadocia).
714 – suicide of Rusas I of Urartu, after defeat by both the Assyrians and Cimmerians. |
| Cilicia | The Assyrians were not interested in the underdeveloped mountain area and its poor tribes. However, during the reign of Aššurbanipal (668-631 BCE), Hilakku was threatened by the Cimmerians, a nomadic tribe from the northeast that had already overrun Armenia. Therefore, Hilakku placed itself under Assyrian protection. In 612, the Babylonians and Medes captured the Assyrian capital Nineveh. Hilakku survived the collapse of Assyria. A new kingdom came into being, in which both areas were united. Its capital was Tarsus. The Greeks rendered the title of its kings, suuannassai, as syennesis, and the name of the country as Cilicia. |
| Esarhadon | |
| Guzana (Tell Halaf) | In 894 the Assyrian king Adad-nirari II recorded the site in his archives as a tributary Aramaean city-state. In 808 the city and its surrounding area was reduced to a province of the Assyrian Empire. The governor’s seat was a palace in the eastern part of the citadel mound. Guzana survived the collapse of the Assyrian Empire and remained inhabited until Roman-Parthian Period. |
| Jehu | |
| Malatya (Melid) | The encounter with the Assyrian king of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115-1077 BC) resulted in the kingdom of Malatya being forced to pay tribute to Assyria. Malatya continued to prosper however until the Assyrian king Sargon II (722-705 BC) sacked the city in 712 BC. At the same time the Cimmerians and Scythians invaded Anatolia and the city declined. |
| Nineveh | |
| Musasir | The Musasir temple was an important Araratian temple in Musasir, the holy city of Ararat (Assyrian: Urartu). The Temple at Musasir appears in an Assyrian bas-relief which adorned the palace of King Sargon II at Khorsapat, to commemorate his victory over “the seven kings of Ararat” in 714 BC.
in the summer of 714 BC, Sargon with a great army crossed the Kurdish mountains towards Lake Urmia, swept through the Araratian cities in the area and then turned westward into the land of Nairi, south of Lake Van. For good reason (knowing that many of his Assyrian predecors were thrown back from the gates of Van), Sargon by-passed Tushpa and marched around the northern and western reaches of the lake and stealthily attacked Musasir, throwing the entire countryside into panic and confusion. King Urzana and his retinue fled into the mountains, leaving the victorious Assyrians to overrun the city and capture the palace of the ruler with its store-rooms filled with immense treasure. |
| Shamas-shum-ukin | Esarhaddon, the father of Shamash-shum-ukin and Assurbanipal, bequeathed Babylonia to Shamash-shum-ukin and Assyria to Assurbanipal. Shamash-shum-ukin’s relationship with his brother deteriorated, and Shamash-shum-ukin began a secret alliance with the Elamites, the Arameans and others, directed against his brother Assurbanipal.
Earlier, Elam had been defeated by Assurbanipal’s forces following an Elamite incursion, so Elam was naturally eager for the alliance headed by Assurbanipal’s resentful brother to revolt against him. This revolt ended badly for Shamas-shum-ukin, whose army was defeatedin 648 B.C. and who died in his burning palace in Babylon. In the following year, the Elamites were punished with their finaldestruction by Assurbanipal, whose army destroyed Susa, Elam’s capital, and Elam became an Assyrian province. http://www.angelfire.com/nt/Gilgamesh/assyrian.html http://www.varchive.org/tac/seti.htm http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/A/Assurban.asp http://www.slider.com/enc/17000/Elam.htm |
| Scythians | Around 676 BC, the Scythians (led by Ishpaki — Old Iranian *Spakaaya) in alliance with the Mannaens attacked Assyria. The group first appears in Assyrian annals under the name Ishkuzai. According to the brief assertion of Esarhaddon’s inscription, the Assyrian empire defeated the alliance. Subsequent mention of Scythians in Babylonian and Assyrian texts occurs in connection with Media. Both Old Persian and Greek sources mention them during the period of the Achaemenid empires, with Greek sources locating them in the steppe between the Dnieper and Don rivers. |
| Urartu | Assyrian inscriptions of Shalmaneser I (ca. 1270 BC) first mention Uruartri as one of the states of Nairi – a loose confederation of small kingdoms and tribal states in Armenian Highland in the 13th – 11th centuries BC. Uruartri itself was in the region around Lake Van. The Nairi states were repeatedly subjected to attacks by the Assyrians, especially under Tukulti-Ninurta I (ca. 1240 BC), Tiglath-Pileser I (ca. 1100 BC), Ashur-bel-kala (ca. 1070 BC), Adad-nirari II (ca. 900), Tukulti-Ninurta II (ca. 890), and Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC). Urartu re-emerged in Assyrian inscriptions in the 9th c. BC as a powerful northern rival of Assyria. The Nairi states and tribes became a unified kingdom under king Aramu (ca. 860-843 BC), whose capital at Arzashkun was captured by Shalmaneser III. Roughly contemporaries of the Uruartri, living just to the west along the southern shore of the Black Sea, were the Kaskas known from Hittite sources. |
| Til Barsip | Til Barsip became the chief town of the Aramean tribe Bît-Adini and was captured by the Assyrians in the 9th century BC. The city was then renamed as Kar-Šulm?nu-ašar?du, after the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. It became a prominent center for the Assyrian administration of the region due to its strategic location by the Euphrates river. These record how the 8th century BC Aramean king Bar Ga’yah, who may be identical with the Assyrian governor Shamshi-ilu, made a treaty with the city of Arpad. |
| Shalmaneser III | |
| Tiglath-Pileser III | |
| Sargon II |
Sennacherib (704-681) likely was involved in the death of his father, Sargon II. Sennacherib moved the Assyrian capital back to Nineveh (modern day Mosull, Iraq) and demarcated a huge area north and south of the original site for his massive building projects. He diverted water courses, built water horses and funneled water from afar (even 20 miles away) with his Jerwan Aqueduct. Sennacherib also built an Incomparable Palace (aka Palace Without Rival) referred to in inscriptions as ekallu sa sanina la.
When Maduk-apla-iddina usurped the Babylonian throne, Sennacherib stationed his troops along the Tigris. After seizing some Babylonian territory, a power struggle ensued between he and Babylonia. In 691 BC, the Babylonian ruler lost his chief ally when the Elamite ruler died of a stroke. Sennacherib invaded, and in an example of god-napping he took a revered statue of Marduk back to Assyria. Sennacherib seized Lachish in Judah, building upon his predecessor’s success at Samaria, but he failed to conquer Jerusalem. To maintain frontier security, Sennacherib also campaigned in Anatolia as well as the Syrian desert and southern Levant. However, he failed to reach Egypt as Assyria’s homeland grew unstable without his presence.
Shamshi-Adad I, the first Assyrian king known via his own inscriptions, recorded 38 prior kings and organized them as shown below.
| #’s | Group & Order | King | → | Son Of | Description | ||
| 1-17 | Kings Living in Tents Chronological |
Ushipya Apiashal |
Ushipya |
The first twelve ancestors are the same as Hammurabi of Babylon. Hammurabi had Amorite ancestry, so these twelve ancestors shared between Assyrian and Babylonian must have been nomadic chieftains from before Amorites emerged from the western desert, split apart and settled Mesopotamia in ~2,000 BC. Ilu-Kabkabi, Shamshi-Adad’s father, is linked to this line through Apiashal son of Ushpiya. Shamshi-Adad included these undifferentiated ancestors, interjecting his own father a little later, to demonstrate that he was from an old line of ancestral chieftains and thus had legitimately usurped the Assyrian throne. | |||
| 17-26 | Kings Who Were Ancestors Genealogical |
Amnu Ilu-kabkabi Yazkur-ilu Apiashal |
Ilu-kabkabi Yazkur-ilu Yakmeni Ushipya |
Most recent kings are named first, then backward through ancestory. | |||
| 27-32 | Kings With Unknown Eponyms | Suli Kikkiya Akiya Puzur-Ashur I Shalim-ahum Ilu-shuma |
Amnu | ||||
| 33-38 | Kings With Names on Bricks | Erishum I Ikunum Sargon I Puzur-Ashur II Naram-Suen Erishum II |
Illu-shuma Illu-shuma Ikunum Sargon Puzur-Ashur Naram-Suen |
This way people know who built the buildings. Later scribes must have gone around Nineveh and found some sort of old bricks with inscriptions. | |||
| 39 | Shamshi-Adad | Ilu-kabkadi | Continue to the timeline of Assyria. | ||||
To read about Assyrian pre-history (including part of the Old Assyrian Period) then read the article on the Assyrian Kinglist.
| Period or Event | King | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Old Assyrian Period | 2000-1600 BC | The Assyrians managed an extensive trade network during the period from about 2000 BC until the end of the Old Assyrian kingdom. Most of our knowledge is from several hundred miles to the north in Karum Kanesh (modern Kültepe in the Cappadocia region of Turkey). After Ishme Dagan, king Hammurabi (~1,770-1,650 BC) of Old Babylon slaughtered the Assyrian king and turned Assyria into a vassal. However, trade activity continued and Assyria still made large profits via trade. | |
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| Erushim I | Spans 1900 BC | Documents in Anatolia mark the dawn of expansive Assyrian trade to ~1,900 BC. This matches Kanesh texts that mark Erushim I as the first Assyrian ruler. However, the massive trade infrastructure had likely been built upon by prior Assyrian rulers. | |
| Shamshi-Adad I | 1,813-1,781 BC | Until Shamshi-Adad, Assyria had not been impacted by the growing minor Amorite kingdoms. Shamshi-Adad was an Amorite born in the middle Euphrates kingdom his father (Ilu-kabkabi) had built. He spent time in Babylonia as a diplomat, and when he left he was ripe with ambition. Shamshi-Adad I seized the fortress of Ekallatu, thus gaining hegemony east of the Tigris. Just three years later, in 1,813 BC, he seized Ashur itself and usurped Erishum I (as son of Naram-Sim) as king of Assyria.
In addition to extending Assyrian hegemony from the Euphrates (from whence he came) to the Zagros foothills, Shamshi-Adad I united Ashur, Nineveh and Erbil under a single kingdom. To gain control of the middle Tigris and middle Euphrates region, he installed his older son as sub-king in Ekallatu and his younger son (Yasmakh-Akad) as king of Mari. Mari was strategically located on the middle Euphrates and was networked with Babylonia and Syria. Shamshi-Adad I did not just conquer, but subsequently installed garrisons and an efficient bureaucracy across his territory; simultaneously, he formed inter-dynastic treaties and marriages.Of note, Shamshi-Adad I kept Ashur as his formal capital but resided northwest in Shubat-Enlil for proximity to political currents in Syria. Shamshi-Adad developed the Assyrian Kinglist, legitimizing his reign (which disrupted a dynasty) by cleverly showing he was a descendant of a mutual Amorite pre-Assyrian ancestral chieftain named Apiashal. Another textual resource is texts excavated at Mari, including correspondences between Yasmakh-Adad and his father and brother. |
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| Ishme Dagan | 1775 BC | Shamshi-Adad’s son Ishme-Dagan ruled for forty years, but quickly lost control of the middle Euphrates, northeast Syria and even Shubat-Enlil; Ishme-Dagan ruled only Assyria’s core region based in Ashur, Nineveh, Erbil and possibly Arrapkha (Kirkuk). | |
| Hurrian Rule | Assyria was insignificant under Mittannian suzerainty, which spanned about 6 Assyrian reigns and from the Zagros to the Kirkuk. Until ~1,420 BC there were not even any extant Assyrian royal inscriptions, although Assyrian kings retained their impotent title. Assyrian legal texts from the 15th century BC mention Hurrian officials, and two later officials even left monuments indicating their Hurrian heritage. In ~1,360 BC, Ashur-uballit wrote as though he was even a descendant of a Hanigalbat king. Saustatar looted Ashur of a door of silver and gold, using it in his own palace at Washukanni.
The primary source of information for this period is from archives at Nuzi, a site in the Kirkuk region. Even before Assyria’s vassaldom, this region had existed as a sub-kingdom of Assyria with a modicum of independence. During hegemony by Mittanni, though, the entire Kirkuk region was filled with Hanigalbatian settlers, messengers, officials and military units. |
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| Puzur-Ashur III | |||
| Ashur-bel-nisheshu | 1419-1411 BC | ||
| End of Hurrian Rule | Toward end of the 15th century, Ashur had regained enough strength to rebuild its walls, form a boundary treaty with Babylonia and even merit a gold present from Egypt. When the Hittites allied with the Hurri to fight the Mittanni, the Mittanni kingdom was destabilized and Assyria (like under Eriba-Adad’s rule) and Alshe (another kingdom) both seized Mittannian territory. Assyria’s removal of Mittanian shackles was exemplified by Ashur-uballit’s letter directly to Egyptian pharaoh just after ~, where he addressed the pharaoh as my brother. Babylonia’s king was less than thrilled as his fantasies of ruling Assyria grew unrealistic: “Why have these Assyrians, who are my subjects…come to your country? If you love me, do not let them get what they want. Send them off empty-handed.” | ||
| Eriba-Adad | 1,392-1,366 BC | Father of Ashur-uballit |
| Period or Event | King | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Middle Assyrian Period | 1365-1077 BC | The Middle Assyrian Period is marked by growth of Assyrian power. By the Middle Assyrian Period, the Kassite Dynasty usurped Babylonia, the Hittites settled in Anatolia and the Mitanni ruled northern Mesopotamia. The core of Assyria was a vassal within the larger Mitanni state. The Middle Assyrian Period begins with attacks against the Mitanni by the Hittite king Suppiluliumas, weakening the Mitanni enough to allow Assyria to regain independence. Ashur-uballit I (1363-1328 BC) is considered the first true king of Assyria, for her transformed a peaceful merchant state into a kingdom with its capital at Ashur.
During the Middle Assyrian Period, Babylonia exerted a huge cultural influence on Assyria. Enlil, a supreme Babylonian god paralleled in Assyria by the god Ashur, rose to prominence in Assyria. Adad-narari and his son Shalmaneser I both gave themselves the primary title governor of the god Enlil. Also, Babylonian dialect (not Assyrian) was used for the Assyrian royal inscriptions which became numerous from the time of Shalmaneser I. |
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| Ashur-uballit I | 1363-1330 BC | Ashur-uballit I established permanent control over northern Iraq, incorporated main cities of the region and added important agricultural ties to the north and east. He tried to establish Assyria as a powerful kingdom amidst Egypt and Babylonia. | |
| Enlil-nirari | 1329-1320 BC | Enlil-nirari I’s grandson described him as the one who widened borders and boundaries, indicated that Enlil-nirari I attempted to continue Ashur-uballit’s successes. At one point, Enlil-nirari is labeled the one who slew the hosts of the Kassites, referring to Babylon’s occupation by Kassites since ~1,600 BC and to Enlil-nirari’s response to Babylon’s failed attempt to make a vassal out of Assyria. | |
| Arik-den-ili | 1319-1308 BC | Arik-den-ili extended Assyrian borders for both expansionism and survival. An enemy from the Taurus foothills had reached just north of Nineveh, threatening Assyria’s heartland. Arik-den-ili not only defeated this advance, but penetrated the eastern Taurus (fighting the Qutians who dwelt there) and also advanced northwest to capture the Kadmukh plains that were west of the Tigris and bound by the Tur Abdin plateau.
Notably, up until this point, a pious Assyrian viewed the god Ashur as king; the ruler was merely his human representative. Thus, rulers were described as governors, overseers and supreme judgees. An Assyrian ruler only referred to himself as king when writing a letter, as did Ashur-uballit I. Arik-den ili, boldly departed from this tradition and asserted himself as mighty king, king of Assyria in formal inscriptions for the gods. Adad-narari up-stepped his father and referred to himself as king of the universe. |
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| Adad-nirari I | 1307-1275 BC | Adad-nirari I (aka Adad-narari I) annexed the Mitanni, but lost large parts of Mesopotamia to the Hittites. Regardless, Assyria now controlled the western and northern territories with the boundaries of the Euphrates and Tigris. Assyria now controlled the whole western and northern territory within the defensible boundaries of the Euphrates and Tigris, giving Assyria hegemony over the riverine trade routes. To the south, just east of the Tigris, the boundary between Assyria and Babylonia was formed by either the Lower Zab, Adhaim or Diyala rivers. Adad-narari’s hard stance on this boundary led to celebratory epic, one of Assyria’s first native literary works. However, this area was battled over innumerable times and fluctuated according to levels of Assyro-Babylnonian power. | |
| Shalmaneser I | 1274-1245 BC | Shalmaneser I re-conquered territories, but rather just killing the occupants he implemented an Assyrian administration across upper Mesopotamia and possibly the upper Tigris. Other novel policies of Shalmaneser I including adopting established merchants into a profitable Assyrian trading network, and deporting all others to serve as field labors in Assyria. Also, Shalmaneser I did his best to destroy the Urartian chiefdoms before they could pose a significant threat to Assyrian hegemony. | |
| Tukulti-Ninurta I | 1244-1208 BC | Tukulti-Ninurta I, Shalmaneser I’s son, first charged north to regain control of the rebellious barbarians in the northern mountains. He cemented Assyria’s control there and set up garrisons, but in a departure from prior policy he allowed merchant families to live. He adapted their trade infrastructure to Assyria’s benefit. Next, Tukulti-Ninurta I campaigned southward, invading and conquering Babylonia. This had a profound influence on Assyrian culture, as Babylonians, their gods and their customs swept across Assyria.
Tukulti-Ninurta I was the first Assyrian king to move the capital when he shifted the center of government to Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. This was not only a strategic move, but also a way to mark his reign. However, when Babylonia’s Nebuchadnezzer I successfully revolted, Tukulti-Ninurta I’s claim of divine approval was discredited and he was thought of as an evil man who had cast destruction upon Babylonia. His son Ashur-nasir-pal and the nobles of Ashur rebelled by removing him from his throne, imprisoning him and then killing him. |
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| Assyrian Recension | 1,207-1,116 BC | Assyrian inscriptions for the next several reigns are very scarce. As inscriptions usually commemorate a king’s accomplishments to gain credit with the gods, this indicates that Assyria was relatively weak and inactive. This arose due to instability after Tukulti-Ninurta I’s reign, as evidenced by a series of relatively short reigns. In the ancient Near East, the public’s rare opportunity to make its opinion known is only after a king’s death. Thus, it is likely that revolts, disturbances and rival prince-led factions struggled for control.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Elamite empire rose under Shutruk Nahhunte (1157 BC), Kutir Nahhunte (1155 BC) and Shilhak-Inshushinak (1132-1127 BC).. By the middle of the 12th century BC, it was Elam in southwest Iran (Khuzistan) that was the dominant power (not Assyria nor Babylonia). Also, migrations in the eastern Mediterranean had precipitated the collapse of the Hittite empire and attempts at settlement along the Levant coast. Babylonia’s Second Dynasty of Isin began under Nebuchadnezzar I (1125-1105 BC). The Assyrian Recension ended with the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I. |
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| Ashur-nadin-apli | 1207-1204 BC | The Tigris changed its course at Ashur during Ashur-nadi-apli’s reign, but fortunately returned to its prior bed due to royal prayers (and help from Assyrian engineers). | |
| Ashur-nirari III | 1203-1198 BC | ||
| Enlil-kudurri-usur | 1197-1193 BC | ||
| Ninurta-epil-Ekur | 1192-1180 BC | With Babylonian support, Ninurta-apil-Ekur usurped the Assyrian throne. This allowed renewed economic stability, giving his son Ashur-dad I the longest reign in Assyrian history. | |
| Ashur-dan I | 1179-1134 BC | Despite reigning longer than any other Assyrian king, Ashur-dad I’s inscriptions are scarce. There was a minor, local and typical Assyro-Babylonian border clash. | |
| Ashur-rosha-ishi I | 1133-1116 BC | Ashur-rosha-ishi I (aka Ashur-resh-ishi I) precipitated the Assyrian Renewal brought by his son, Tiglath-Pileser I. He embarked on consolidation campaigns in regions north and east that were under Assyrian, and also made infrastructure improvements after a damaging earthquake earlier in the century. | |
| Tiglath-Pileser I | 1115-1077 BC | Tiglath-pileser I sets the tone for the rest of the Assyrian empire. He was listened to because he presented himself as a direct pipeline to the gods. Tiglath-pileser I (1115 to 1077 BC) restored lands east of hte Euphrates. Crossed the Euphrates 28 times chasing the Aramaeans, according to his inscriptions. Reached Van Area and carved his image on the Tigris Tunnel north of Diyarbakir. Marched to the Mediterranean. The eocnomic concern of Tiglath-Pileser I is specifically mentioned in his inscriptions that he built up grain store, and increased herds.
Tiglath Pileser I restores lands east of Euphrates, campaigns in the Van area and leaves his image on a rock. Marches to the Mediterranean (Byblos and Sidon do hommage, went for a sail, caught a large fish, builds a cedar roof for the temple of Anu and Adad). Organizes deeds chronologically — the birth of the Assyrian Annals. As a good tourist he just wanted to honor the gods, knowing the Epic of Gilgamesh where one of the things is to go to the legendary cedar forest and bring back the trees, he does the same things and then builds the nice roof. Tiglath-Pileser ended his military exploit description in he annals with a count of the wild animals (lions, bulls and elephats) he had hunted and killed. This reflects the heroic nature of the king, and is followed by the protective descriptins of his building activities. There is stress on his divine selection as aking and hsi blessedness, and that he did not enrichhimself with his spoils but honored and exalted the gods. |
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| 1076-1075 BC | Brother of Ashur-bel-kala I, son of Tiglath-Pileser I. | ||
| Ashur-bel-kala I | 1074-1057 BC | Ashur-bel-kala I (son of Tiglath-Pileser I) took immediate action in the north upon ascending the throne, but his government was too weak to implement an Assyrian administration there. Assyrian power rapidly declined due to the loose, growing population of Aramaean tribes. Despite being plundered endlessly by the Assyrians, the Aramaeans were too pervasive to be simply pushed back across the Euphrates. The Ashur-bel-kala I allied with the Babylonian king Marduk-shapik-zeri to fight their mutual problem with the Aramaeans. Upon the usurp of the Babylonian throne by an Aramaean, however, Ashur-bel-kala I chose to simply ally with the Aramaeans and treat them as vassals. This backfired when Ashur-bel-kala I’s son (and successor) was removed from the throne by his uncle Shamshi-Adad IV (another on of Tiglath-Pileser I), who had Babylonian support. | |
| Shamshi-Adad IV | 1054-1050 BC | Begin with Shamshi-Adad IV, there was a century of Assyrian instability and decentralization | |
| Ashurnasirpal I | 1,049-1,031 BC | ||
| Shalmaneser II | 1,030-1,019 BC | ||
| Ashurnirari IV | 1,018-1,013 BC | ||
| Ashurrabi II | 1,012-972 BC | ||
| Ashurreshishi II | 971-967 BC | ||
| Tiglath-Pileser II | 966-935 BC | Then under Tiglath-Pileser II (966-935) there was chaos due to prolonged drought, Aramaeans in the heart of Assyria and Sea Peoples in West. |
Bibliograpy
Saggs, 1985. The Might That Was Assyria.
Class Notes, Carter 2009. Assyrians.
| Period or Event | King | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Neo-Assyrian Period | 935-610 BC | Broken into consolidation, expansion and downfall phases. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consolidation Phase | 935-745 BC | Beginning 935 BC and ending ~824 BC during the reigns of Assurnasipal II and Shalmaneser III. Assurnasipal II goes west as far as the Euphrates and built a new capital at Kalhu (Nimrud). The following two phases of the Neo-Assyrian Period are the expansion, followed by Nineveh’s rise and fall. | |
| Ashur-dan II | 934-912 BC | Ashur-dan II set the basic patterns of strategy and ideology that are elaborated by succeeding Assyrian kings. First, Ashu-dan II re-conquered Assyrian territories. Next, Ashur-dan II began a campaign of resettlement by rebuilding and equipping fortresses so that drought-exiled Assyrians could return home | |
| Adad-nirari II | 911-891 BC | Adad-nirari II (911-891 BC) extended and consolidated territory in which his father had campaigned. He campaigned west of the Khabur river and captured Husirina (modern Sultan Tepe, near Urfa) and Guzana (modern Tell Halaf). Nasibina (modern Nusaybin) is physically closer to Assyria, and was taken by an elaborate siege after six attacks. Adad-nirari II also campaigned in the north and north-east, often forcefully extracting tributes but in one instance aiding an allied city. Also, Adad-nirari embarked in a new direction, toward the Babylonian frontier. In the east Tigris region and one the Euphrates, frontier posts were established and an alliance was made with the Hindanu and Laqe states on the Euphrates north-west of Babylonia. Adad-nirari II’s military moved rapidly and redundantly, meaning it must have been stationed throughout the kingdom; although tributes fed the army en route to a location, it required efficiently networked supply points (likely begun by Ashur-dan II) at other times. | |
| Tukulti-Ninurta II | 890-884 BC | ||
| Ashurnasirpal II | 883-859 BC | Earlier rulers before Ashurnarsipal II tried to “beat the bound” and restore the Assyrian boundary. They would go to the Mediterranean and up the Tigris, but never realy controlled those regions until Ashurnasirpal II. | |
| Shalmaneser III | 858-824 BC | Shalmaneser III went about conquering regions and forcing tributes. | |
| Shamshi-Adad V | 823-811 BC | ||
| Adad-nirari III | 810-783 BC | ||
| Shalmaneser IV | 782-773 BC | ||
| Ashur-dan III | 772-755 BC | ||
| Ashur-Nirari V | 754-745 BC | ||
| Expansion Phase | 744-705 BC | From 744 to 705 BC (Tiglath Pileser III and Sargon II). Not just territorial expansion, but a phase of importance in restructuring. This is the place where there is a real empire with control from the center. | |
| Aramization | Pioneered by Hayam Tadmor, the notion of Aramization is the dilution of the god Ashur, and is indicative of Assyria’s pending collapse. Assyrian dialect for religious purposes, Babylonain for official documents, then beginning in 8th BC particularly Aramaic. Aramaic became the language of administration, and not Akkadian cuneiform. The lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire went from Akkadian to Aramaic in the Middle Assyrian Period. When Assyria absorbed the Habur, they also absorbed Aramaic. Since Aramaic is much easier to learn, the Assyrian empire underwent Aramaization. The focus on Ashur melted away, as the larger world of Aramaic speakers and participants became the dominant population group of the empire.
Armaization is evidenced by Assurbanipal’s desire to collect a huge library, a sign that cuneiform is slowly but surely dying out and that the literary background and trdadtion has beocome are fading away. There is a shift over time from when Assyrian is the language of empire to where Aramaic is the language of empire. |
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| Tiglath-Pileser III | 744-727 BC | Tiglath-Pileser III (744-727 BC) centralized Assyrian administration, giving him a reputation as the founder of the Assyrian empire. He stopped Urartu in the west, incorporated large parts of Syria, trekked to the Mediterranean and Gaza and defeated the Babylonians (he took home the hands of a statue of Bel). Notably, Tiglath-Pileser III was the first Assyrian king to rule Babylonia (other than a few appointees) since Tukulti-Ninurta. Tiglath-Pileser III’s reign left behind few monuments in the Assyrian heartland, as he was too busy militaristically to focus on much else. Sometimes he would take a longstanding capital, dismantle it and build a new capital capital elsewhere; he did this with Gugum, as well as when he replaced Jerusalem with Lachish. War technology developed under Tiglath-Pileser III, and his reliefs provide the earliest depiction of a battering ram. | |
| Shalmaneser V | 726-722 BC | Shalmaneser V, one of Tiglath-Pileser III‘s sons, continued his father’s conquest of Samaria, capital of Israel. Shalmaneser V’s early death allowed Sargon II, of a different mother, to assume the throne. His queen was named Banite. | |
| Sargon II | 721-705 BC | Sargon II completed the siege at Samaria begun by Tiglath-Pileser III. Sargon II conquered Palestine and then trekked eastward into modern-day Turkey, the Iranian highlands and Elamite territory. After conquering and re-conquering vassals, he implemented a no good vassal but a dead vassal policy and replaced local dynasties with the sort of administrative and military network developed by Tiglath-Pileser III. | |
| Nineveh’s Rise & Fall | 704-612 BC | From 704 to 612 BC (Sennacherib, Essarhaddon and Ashurbanipal). Greatest heights, with takeover of Egypt, but then knocked out by an alliance of Babylonians and “Miids” indo-european people who moved into central Iran around 1000 BC or so and allied with Persians to eventually become the Akkanemid empire. The Miids aligned themselves at this point with the Egyptians to knock out the Assyrians. Assyria’s weakness and downfall is an example of The Law of Diminishing Return, whereby Assyria began to fall when it overreached and the cost of new conquests outweighed their return. | |
| Sennacherib | 704-681 BC | Sennacherib moved the capital back to Nineveh (Sargon II had just put it at Dur Sharrukin), built an unrivaled palace (called ekallu sa sanina la isu) and installed the Jerwan Aqueduct (and other water works). He invested much of his loot in making Nineveh the primary city of the world. Militaristically, Sennacherib confronted Maduk-apla-iddina of Babylonia (and eventually seized control of Babylonia). Next, Sennacherib sacked Lachish in Judah in 701 BC (although he failed to take Jerusalem). To maintain frontier security, Sennacherib also campaigned in Anatolia, the Syrian desert and the southern Levant. | |
| Esarhaddon | 680-669 BC | Sennacherib’s younger brother, Esarhaddon, marched against Egypt in 675 & 674 BC, earning victory in 671 BC. He made a tenuous treaty with the Urartians to unite against the face of a Cimmerian threat. Esarhaddon appointed Ashurbanipal as his heir and Shamash-shum-ukin as king of Babylonia | |
| Ashurbanipal | 668-627 BC | The reign of Assurbanipal (aka Ashurbanipal) was marked by internal strife. After being forced to withdraw from Egypt, he had to confront the Babylonians, who were ruled by his brother and backed by the Elamites. A long series of Elamite wars ended in 646 BC when Assurbanipal totally destroyed the city of Susa. Assurbanipal was vindictive; his reliefs reveal him flaying an Elamite king, taking the head home with him and hanging it upon a tree in his garden while he relaxes with his queen under a grape arbor. Assurbanipal’s greatest legacy was his library, which provides most modern knowledge of Mesopotamian tradition. | |
| Ashur-etel-ilani | 626-623 BC | ||
| Sin-shar-ishkun | 622-612 BC | ||
| Ashur-uballit II | 611-609 BC | ||
| End of Assyrian Empire | 612 BC | Assyria was overthrown in 612 BCE by Babylonians. |
Bibliography
J. A. Brinkman, “Foreign Relations of Babylonia from 1600 to 625 Bc: The Documentary Evidence,” AJA 76, no. 3, 1972
Saggs, 1985. The Might That Was Assyria.
| Source | Periods | Overview |
| Limmu lists | Middle Assyria | In Assyria, each year was named after an official (the limmu, aka eponymous magistrate) from ~850-~700 BC. Useful and corrective to the triumphal rhetoric of the royal inscriptions: defeats, internal revolts, famines and diseases are mentioned. |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Inscriptions | Middle Assyria | particularly foundation inscriptions. often fragments, as from a bowl; rarely from a stone. Inscription composed for display in royal palaces and covering material that overlaps with the annals. These inscriptions are briefer and arranged geographically on the four compass points (instead of chronologically, like the royal annals). |
| More Inscriptions | Inscribed stelae, obelisks and rocks are similar to royal inscriptions and royal annals, but are intended for proclamation of royal achievements far and wide by being placed on roads, in or near conquered cities and at the furthest points reached by a king. | |
| Administration | Middle Assyria | Laws and administrative texts. |
| Letters | Middle Assyria | Local and diplomatic letters. For instance, requests for pottery for a dinner party. |
| Babylonian Chronicle | Middle Assyria | The Bablylonian Chronicle span 744-668 BC and are a dispassionate, sober and annual account of political events impacting Babylonia. Three copies are known, written in Akkadian on clay tablets, and provide invaluable thoughts on Assyria from a 3rd-party perspective (only equalled by the Old Testament). The Egyptian chronicle is also somewhat useful, when Assyria conquers Egypt. |
| Annals | Middle Assyria Neo-Assyria |
Tiglath-pileser I (1114-1076 BC) began a tradition of annals, which are written annually by the king scribe to document the king’s most important deeds that year. Variants, especially in prior periods, is a letter from the king to God Assur that was read aloud in various cities. Most Neo-Assyrian evidence comes from the Assyrian court’s royal annals, which are written in Akkadian and found primarily at the main Assyrian sites of Ashur, Kalhu (modern Nimrud), Nineveh and Dur Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad). The royal annals grippingly describe the annual achievements of individual kings, particularly focusing on military achievements and the king’s piety, and span from ~900 BC onward. The annals recounted booties, counts of enemy dead and calendrical data. Also, their descriptions of unfamiliar territory are extremely vivid and rich. Sometimes the annals were possibly read aloud at formal events. The annals were sometimes revised, but Olmstead’s rule of thumb is that the oldest annal is the most reliable (Olmstead, 1916). The annals were often inscribed on special objects (prisms, clyinders) that were deposited in the walls or foundations of memorials, indicating they were meant for the gods as well as future kings. It is known, for example, that Cyrus the Great of Persia (559-530 BC) found Ashurbanipal’s (668-631 BC) building texts in Babylon. |
| Old Testament | Particularly in Isaiah and in Chronicles. |
Starting in the Old Assyrian Period, the Assyrian king chose a limmu (aka eponymous magistrate) for each year. This distributed authority, allowing the limmu to perform certain cultic acts. Records listing each year and its limmu are critical for reconstructing Assyrian chronology. The limmuship rotated amidst Assyrian noble families and sometimes even the king himself. and in which king participated. The limmu tradition continued through the period of decline (~1,050-934 BC) separating the Middle and the Neo-Assyrian Period; only limmuships from ~892-~648 BC have been reconstructed.
Symbolic and religious imagery included the Tree of Life, signs of the gods and signs of the genii (good spirits). The king was often shown performing rituals. Reliefs depicting piety were situated in spots of great importance, such as behind the king’s throne, as they reassured that the king was directly connected to the divinities.
Booty scenes showed ambassadors of different lands bringing tribute to the Assyrian capital. Booty scenes dominated the outer courtyard. Tribute scenes were found in the outer courtyard, where tributaries may have actually been presented.
Narrative scenes consisted of reliefs depicting the king’s hunts military campaigns. The top and bottom portions had a continuous visual narrative, while through the middle was a standard inscription describing the events shown. Narrative scenes dominated the throne room, making it a place where both the king and his achievements were visible. Narrative reliefs were remarkably accurate in depicting a territory’s landscape, inhabitants and material culture.
Symbolic Scene. Assyrian, ~865-860 BC. From Nimrud, NW Palace. Room B panel 23. British Museum. WA 124531. Image by L M Clancy 2009/08/19.
British Museum, WA 124567. Image by L M Clancy 2009/08/20.
British Museum, WA 124568. Image by L M Clancy 2009/08/20.
British Museum, WA 124569. Image by L M Clancy 2009/08/20.
Court scene. Assyrian ~865-860 BC. From Nimrud NW Palace. Room G panels 2-4. British Museum, WA 124564-6. Image by L M Clancy 2009/08/20.
Closeup of British Museum, WA 124564-6. Image by L M Clancy 2009/08/21.
Tribute-bearers. Assyria ~865-860 BC. From Nimrud NW Palace. Court D Panel 7. British Museum, ME 124562. Image by L M Clancy, 2009/08/21.Two of a group of tribute-bearers who were shown on the facade of the throne room. The first one has a turban of a kind worn in NW Syria raiss clenched hands in token of submission. The second may be Phoenician, is bringing a pair of monkeys. The Assyrian kings enjoyed collecting exotic fauna.
Within the Northwest Palace was the Banquet Stele, a large sandstone slab near the entrance to a throne-room. It described in extensive detail the opulent 10-day inauguration of the Northwest Palace in ~879 BC, attended by workmen, officials, inhabitants and notable guests. In the center of the stele was a relief of Ashurnasirpal II standing in front of the deities Sin, Assur, Enlil, Adad and Sibitti. The text tells of 69,574 guests enjoying a dizzying array of luxurious foods amidst gardens whose every plant is listed. Also, the Banquet Stele lists all the woods used to build a terrace supporting Ashurnasirpal II‘s palace: boxwood, mulberry, cedar, cypress, pistachio, tamarisk and poplar. There are also descriptions of the royal orchards, its 42 varieties of fruit and its canal irrigation. Boastful depictions of royal lion and bull hunts are also present. Incidentally, this is one of the most extensive accounts of botany and diet in Assyria.
Assyrian reliefs often recount the majestic gardens of Assyrian gardens, packed with exotic flora and fauna.
The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III was found in a central palace erected by Shalmaneser III and Tiglath-Pileser IV (Jastrow 1915, p 19).
| Bibliography | http://proteus.brown.edu/mesopotamianarchaeology/1500 |
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| Next Steps | Sargon II established Dur Sharrukin to replace Nimrud as capital of Assyria. |
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From 934-745 BC, Assyrians tightened their grip on Upper Mesopotamian territories first conquered during the Middle Assyrian Period. Smaller neighboring states subjected to Assyrian dominance.Traditions continued from the Middle Assyrian Period right through the Neo-Assyrian Period:
| Limmu Lists | These continued right through the Middle Assyrian Period and into the Neo-Assyrian Kingdom. |
| Ashur | Ashur remained the central city, as well as its environs ands it god Ashur. |
| Ceremonies | Roal ceremonies, including coronation rituals and court hierarchical procedures, remained constant. |
| Writings | The literary form of royal inscriptions and campaign reports remained constant in the Neo-Assyrian Period after being developed in the Middle Assyrian Period. |
| Territory | Middle Assyrian rulers created an empire spanning northern Iraq, the plains of Ashur, Nineveh, Arbela, Kalhu and Kilizi, and the Assyrian heartland. This empire lasted through the period of waning power. |
From 745-610 BC, the Assyrian empire expanded to directly govern territory from the Arab-Perisan Gulf to Commagene in Turkey by 705 BC and until the Assyrian regime’s 610 BC collapse. By the 7th century BC, Assyria either directly or indirectly dominated the entire Fertile Crescent (including Egypt, temporarily) and controlled terminal points of the Syrian desert’s caravan routes. Rulers of several oases were subject allies of Assyria, and the powerful kingdoms of Urartu, Phrygia (later Lydia) and Elam maintained relations with Assyria.
Neo-Assyrian kings had a tradition of conquest upon which to elaborate; each king as part of a centuries-old monarchic institution, continuing an unbroken line of kings (supposedly of the same family) since ~1,500 BC. This awareness of prior kings’ expansions, sometimes in the same areas tackled by Neo-Assyrian kings, is noted in Ashur-dan II and Tukulti-Ninurta II’s inscriptions. Campaigns of individual kings were not always great wars of conquest, but often warlike marches to reconfirm dominance over areas regarded as Assyrian. Incorporated territories remained under their existing ruler, now viewed as an Assyrian governor. However, Assyrian control gradually intensified until truly reaching its height and then downfall during ~745-610 BC.
| Historical Source | Overview |
|---|---|
| Royal Inscriptions | |
| Chronicles | |
| Administrative texts | |
| Royal Annals | The royal annals (and commemorative texts). |
| Relief Inscriptions | Text and image relief inscriptions. |
| Limmu Lists | Also known as eponym lists. |
| Babylonian Chronicle | |
| Old Testament |
Assyrian style: beard; hairod; garments. More incised, not highly carved. Poepl in processions.
Syrian style: broader face, Phoenician and Egyptizing styles in arts and culture were emulated and imitated onthe Meditteranean coast in Phoenicia.
SYrian more solidslightly unbalanced, cutout work.
Egyptianizing wig, classene, palm, cut out.
| Nation | Carving | Face | Garments | Group | Symmetry | Notes |
| Assyria | More incised Not highly carved. |
Beard | Processions | |||
| Syria | Cutout work | Broader face. | Unbalanced | Phoenician and Egyptizing styles in arts and culture were emulated and imitated onthe Meditteranean coast in Phoenicia. |
Royal inscriptions… first across, then between two panels
Epigraph … a succinct little “comic book balloon” describing the events of the depicted scene.
Identifying features of an Assyrian king in reliefs are the fez, jewelry and braided beard and hair.
The Assyrians managed an extensive trade network during the period from about 2000 BC until the end of the Old Assyrian kingdom. Ashur has little evidence on early Assyria, and most of our knowledge is from several hundred miles to the north in Karum Kanesh (modern Kültepe in the Cappadocia region of Turkey). Merchants have resided in Cappadocia as early as the 24th century BC, but the ~14,000 tablets excavated so far are dated to the dawn of the 2nd millennium. These tablets revealed that Ashur’s businesses organized trade by placing representatives in multiple cities. Copper-hungry Assyria expanded commercially into copper-rich Anatolia, both importing copper and feeding tin (from the east) and textiles (from Babylonia) into Anatolia. This system benefited the foreigners (their rulers allowed their existence) and also Assyria (which needed vital timber and metals).
Merchants grouped together in large convoys, evidenced by some documents mentioning only a single donkey. It was too unsafe to take a single donkey alone for a 2 month, ~750 mile and sometimes deadly route. There were outposts of Assyrian merchants along the way to facilitate transport. A donkey’s total load, including harness was ~100 kilos. Tin was usually carried in a pair of balanced bullas. Textiles were rolled and placed on top of the donkey. These ass caravans would set off for Anatolia, along with documentation which was inspected against the load.
Upon arrival at Kanesh, the loads were processed and taxed before they could be resold. This suggests a system of private capitalists, rather than government workers. Taxes were hefty — in addition to Kanesh’s tax, 10% of the load’s value en route — and smuggling sometimes occurred. Sales often used gold and silver, but textiles and copper intermediaries were oft used and then resold for precious metals. Gross profits of as much as 100% were typical on tin, and textiles could garner even more. Principals in Anatolia would send the earnings back to their colleague in Ashur (sometimes a wife), and more goods were purchased for shipment to Anatolia. Even if they had a wife in Ashur, principals would sometimes be abroad for years and take additional wives.
The Old Period’s last two rulers, Shame-Adad I and Ishme-Dagan, had hegemony all the way to the western Zagros (a region between the Euphrates and Tigris). After Ishme Dagan, king Hammurabi (~1,770-1,650 BC) of Old Babylon slaughtered the Assyrian king and turned Assyria into a vassal. However, trade activity continued and Ashur remained a link between Iran (tin), Mesopotamia and Anatolia (copper). Assyria still made large profits on tin and prized textiles.
| Period or Event | King | Time-Frame | Overview | |
| Akkadian Empire | 2,350-2,200 BC | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ur III Empire | 2,100-2,000 BC | |||
| Old Babylonian | Shamshi-Adad I | 18th Century BC | Shamshi-Adad I | |
| Old Babylonian, South | Hammurapi | 18th Century BC | Hammurapi | |
| Middle Assyrian | 1,350-1,200 BC | |||
| Neo Assyrian | 9th Century BCE | |||
| Neo Assyrian | 745-609 BC | |||
| Babylonian Empire | ||||
| Persian Destruction | 539 BC |
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