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. |
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| 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.
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. | |||
| 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 |
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