(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 |
| 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
| 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. |
||
| 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.
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 |
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