Mesopotamia
A Brief History of Ancient
Mesopotamia (12,500 BP - 650 AD)
Map of ancient and modern Mesopotamia.
The Pre-History (12500 BP – 3500 BC)
The Mesopotamia is the Greek name that
means “between rivers”, a name given later by the Greeks to the land between
the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. This region is a vast plain with a topographic
variation of only 30 meters. It is an arid land that today represents the
countries of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The Levant, Palestine, Israel, and
Egypt together with the Mesopotamia is called Ancient Near East by the
historians and archaeologists. The great civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia
flourished in river systems developing a complex culture and a network of
interactions. All the Ancient Near East but Egypt shared a common writing
system called cuneiform. The cuneiform scripts were developed by the Sumerians
by 3200 BC that used a stick, called a stylus, to impress wedge shaped sings in
a soft clay tablet that then were baked or dried in the sun radiation to
produce a hard artefact that survived until today.
The first archaeological records of
Mesopotamia begin in the regions of Al Ubaid and Jamdet Nasr where a distinct
culture with an unknown origin developed there and had no writing. The common
artefacts discovered were flint tools and simple pottery sherds. There is
evidence of simple early settlements along the rivers and agriculture activity
is said to begin about 10,000 BC together with animal husbandry. Little farms
with a poor irrigation system were developed and the Ubaid culture disappear
from the archaeological record. The researchers argue that these people moved
away because the arid conditions and lack of knowledge to develop a
proto-agriculture in a hostile region. The river was to be deviated by
artificial channels to increase productivity. The Sumerians arrived in the
regions of Jamdet Nasr and Uruk about 5,000 years ago. There they established
settlements and begin an activity that will transform a culture into a complex
civilization. Scholars agree that the origin of Sumerians is puzzling because
they were not Semitic people. Recent discoveries in excavations at Gobekli Tepe
in ancient Anatolia, modern Turkey, demonstrates that this country must be the
point of origin of the Sumerian Civilization.
Archaeological site excavated of Gobekli Tepe in modern Turkey dating to c.8500 BC. This ruins is considered the first settlements of the peoples that originated the Sumerians. The shrine of Gobekli Tepe presents a complex architecture of T shaped megaliths and proto-cuneiform scripts.
The Late Uruk Period (3500 BC – 3000 BC)
This period represents the beginning of
the Sumerian civilization in which the first cuneiform writing system is
developed. The researchers call this early writing system proto-cuneiform with
a more pictographic and ideographic character. The Sumerians established a
complex and stratified society earlier than previously thought. The cities of
Uruk and Lagash are the ancient ones in which various proto-cuneiform tablets
were discovered. The stratigraphy was determined in excavations at Uruk and
three chronological horizons were established based on clay tablets with
different styles of scripts, pottery sherds and mud brick settlements. The
administrative system demonstrated in the contexts of the early cuneiform
tablets of Uruk demonstrates a large network of commercial and political
relationships. The Sumerians were a relatively peaceful people because no
material or documented evidence were found about internal conflicts or
political dissidences. Sumer was a “capital” of this rich culture that evolved
early into a complex civilization. The architecture, religion, mathematics, art
and the cuneiform script were later absorbed by the next civilizations that
developed in the Mesopotamia. The legacy for the next Mesopotamian cities were
also the fragmentary political system of city-states controlled by an ensi,
a kind of governor of each district. The Mesopotamia almost never were a unique
corpus of civilization that could be called Empire. Later in history the
Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians would transform the political landscape
characterizing them as Empire. Like in Egypt, the global administrator, the
king, was called by the Sumerians LUGAL that could be translated as
representative of the god. The Sumerians worshiped several deities but there
was a principal god, the patron of the main city-state.
Late Uruk clay tablet with proto-cuneiform Sumerian inscriptions with pictographic and ideographic glyphs that later evolved to complex syllabograms. The tablet has administrative content.
Sumerian ceramic vase of Warka ornamented with reliefs of daily life depicting agriculture and animal husbandry.
During the late times the city-states of Ur and Lagash
were the most prominent and the gods Enlil, Enki and Anu were the main deities
of the pantheon. The cities were divided basically as: the real palace where
the LUGAL lived, the God Pantheon which were the magnificent mud brick
construction called Ziggurat, a pyramid-like temple dedicated to the patron god
of the city-state, and finally the periphery with the great mansion of the
“governor” and the little houses of the other people. The low levels of society
were composed of artisans, scribes, farmers, and slaves. The slaves were few
and they were normally used to serve only the most prominent of the society.
Thousands of cuneiform tablets were discovered for all the Mesopotamia, and the
Sumerian tablets presents an evolution of the writing system through the Late
Uruk Period. The ancient proto-cuneiform signs were pictographic and difficult
to translate, then they evolved to a more abstract collection of strokes that
lately became the abstract wedge-shaped strokes with a logographic character.
The Akkadians later used the cuneiform writing system and adapted it to their
semitic language. The main structure of city-states under the control of the
Sumerians by the principal cities of Ur, Uruk, Lagash and Shuruppak developed
more prominently in the Early Dynastic Period.
Early
Dynastic Period (2900 BC – 2350 BC)
This is a period of consolidation of the kings and administrators in a
complex and highly stratified society developed under the culture of the Sumerians.
The cities of Ur, Uruk, Umma, Lagash, Nippur in the Lower Mesopotamia were
highly influential in a relatively homogeneous fabric of material and social
culture like the cuneiform writing system, architecture, and religion. The
city-states of the north were Kish, Mari, Nagar and Ebla. Of this period
several cuneiform tablets were found since 1800s in the ancient cities of
Girsu, Eshnunna, Khafajah, and Ur yielding large amounts of information about
the society and their culture. The material culture of the Central Mesopotamia
and adjacent regions is basically terracotta clay and baked clay artifacts,
metal and stone artifacts were imported from the mountainous regions, specially
the Zagros Mountains. Minerals and rocks like lapis-lazuli, gold, copper, and
limestone were acquired through a commercial network in the entire Ancient Near
East. Limestone is the only rock quarried in the proximities of the Euphrates
River.
Sumerian Early Dynastic votive plaque depicting people making offerings.
Sumerian early dynastic figurines from the Square Temple of Tell Asmar.
The archaeological excavations at the main cities of the Sumerians
provided stratigraphic information that could be separated in four different
chronological horizons called ED I, ED II, ED IIIa, and ED IIIb, in decreasing
order of antiquity where “ED” means Early Dynastic. The evolution of pottery
styles and cuneiform script is visible beginning in the ED IIIb horizon to ED
I. The ED I horizon is poorly known because of the lack of material information
discovered in excavations. Settlements also presents increasing complexity, the
people of that region built their houses with sun-dried mud bricks or, rarely,
baked mud bricks above a mound of pottery sherds and sand piles. The early
constructions became the mounds of new constructions and this stratification is
relatively common in all the archaeological sites in the Mesopotamia. Even the
Ziggurats where built in foundations of piles that raised above the
topographical level determined by the river plains. The ED III horizon presents
the great social stratification evidences with more abstract cuneiform writing
in the tablets recovered and clear evidences of a complex kingship organization.
The most remarkable discovery of that epoch is the Royal Cemetery at Ur and the
cuneiform archives of Fara and Abu Salabikh. There is also written documents of
the archives of Girsu and Ebla in Syria. The government of the city-states was
solidly established when each city had a patron deity and was controlled by a
LUGAL or ensi, a governor or “semi-divine” king. The priesthood was complex and
had great power over the general population. Land was the principal private
property and this highly advanced concept of stratified society with private
property partly indicated that the king had no absolute control over the nobles
and subordinates’ properties. This legal limitation of the state produced the
first code of law and conduct for the inhabitants.
Ruins of the Sumerian city of Ur. In the left of the background is the Ziggurat of Ur.
Sumerian standard colored with lapis-lazuli and other mineral goods imported from the Zagros Mountains. The scene is from the Royal Cemetery of Ur and depict a battle.
The Sumerians had a king list with the names of the first god-like kings
that governed Mesopotamia before the Deluge. The Sumerian legend registered in
the Enuma Elish (The Seven Tablets of Creation) and fragments like the Legend
of Adapa and later the Epic of Gilgamesh preserved in the Akkadian language,
says that in the beginning the gods emerged from the vast ocean called Apsu and
they created the Annunaki, the demi-gods that had a mission of teach the humans
how to be civilized. These Annunaki were the first kings of Sumer and the model
for the city-states and the LUGAL was stablished. According to the king list
the first Annunaki king were Adapa which is later called Oannes by the
Babylonian writer Berossus in the 2nd Century BC in his book Babyloniaka.
These legends incorporate the concept of law and order later compiled in the
Code of Hammurabi in the Old Babylonian Period. According to the Epic of
Gilgamesh, the last demi-gods of Sumer were Atra-Hasis, Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim
(Ziusudra or Xisuthrus of Berossus).
The
four sides of the Sumerian King List, a clay prism found in the ancient city of
Larsa with cuneiform scripts compiled during the Old Akkadian Period
listing the kings since the mythological beigns until the kings of the Sargonic
Akkadian Dynasty.
The human kings had taken control after the deluge.
The principal rulers of Lagash during the Early Dynastic III Period were
Enhegal, Lugalshagengur, Ur-Nanshe, Akurgal, Eanatum, Enannatum I, Entemena,
Enannatum II, and Urukagina. The sense of organization, justice and civilized
society established by the Sumerians is highly advanced with no doubt. The
first collection of laws and obligations were compiled by the king Urukagina.
He was a highly influential personality representing the Sumerian civilization
in the summit of their culture. The Code of Urukagina was developed and evolved
through the time in complexity becoming the Code of Ur-Namur and later the Code
of Hamurabi. The Early Dynastic III Period had another separate dynasty in Ebla
in the region of Syria. The Assyriologists assume the Sumerian king list as the
practical paradigm to associate dynasties with each city-state that could
naturally overlap in the considered chronological period. The kings of Ebla
were Abur-Lim, Agur-Lim, Ibbi-Damu, Baga-Damu, etc. The last king of Ebla
before the Akkadian conquest was Ish’ar-Damu (Ibbi-Zikir). The region that
embraces these city-states is called Babylonia.
The Old Akkadian Period (2350 BC – 2200 BC)
The Akkadians were Semitic peoples that invaded Mesopotamia in 2350 BC
and controlled the Sumerian culture absorbing it almost entirely. The Sumerian
cuneiform writing system was adapted to the Akkadian language. During that time
the power were divided between Akkad in the north and Ur in the south. Akkad
and Ur were both founded through military means in Babylonia proper and in the
surrounding areas, pursued policies of centralization in political,
administrative and ideological terms, and collapsed through a combination of
internal opposition and external forces. The founder of this period was Sargon
the Great, that held the kingship over Akkad and Sumer. The nature of the
rule of the Akkad dynasty differed from previous leadership in Mesopotamia in
that it temporarily ended the system of city-states that characterized
Babylonia until then and instead began a trend of centralization that would be
copied by Mesopotamian leaders to come. Sargon usurped the throne of the
Sumerian king Lugalzagesi ending the Early Dynastic Period of Uruk and Lagash.
Bronze head of king Sargon the Great of Akkad.
During the reign of Naram-Sin, standardizations of
accounting and measurements are attested. For the first time Akkadian was the
official language of the government, although Sumerian was still used in the
south for local concerns. The creation of agricultural estates granted by the
king to privileged individuals was a novelty introduced by Sargonic kings. The
land was taken from local owners. The old Akkadian language is a Semitic
language established during the Sargonic Period as official and Sumerian
language was used until the Hellenistic Period in Mesopotamian Literature. The
Akkadian used cuneiform writing system, but it represented syllabograms. Many
Akkadian words has roots in the Sumerian words. Based on linguistic and
epigraphic criteria, the Akkadian language can be subdivided into the following
categories: The Pre-Sargonic period, the Sargonic period, and the Ur III period.
The inner structure of the Akkadian language is the same of the Sumerian
language with its logograms, syllabograms and determinatives. The
determinatives are wider known in the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system
where a word is emphasized by a symbol of the object or person that is
indicated by the word to reinforce the meaning of a sentence and of the word
proper. The Sumerian king names is almost always accompanied by a determinative
LUGAL and the Sumerian gods has the determinative DINGIR that means god, and
names of stars in cuneiform astronomical tablets in Akkadian always is
accompanied by the determinative MUL that means star or celestial body.
The Empire of Akkad under Sargon kingship
also annexed the Levant. His reign is marked by conflicts with the Hurrians and
Elamites. The Gutians conquered later the Akkad Empire beginning a new dynasty
of the Sumer. Among the most important sources for Sargon's reign is a tablet
of the Old Babylonian period recovered at Nippur in the University
of Pennsylvania expedition in the 1890s. The tablet is a copy of the
inscriptions on the pedestal of a Statue erected by Sargon in the temple of Enlil. In
the inscription, Sargon styles himself "Sargon, king of Akkad, overseer (mashkim)
of Inanna, king of Kish, anointed (guda) of Anu, king of the land
[Mesopotamia], governor (ensi) of Enlil". It celebrates the
conquest of Uruk and the defeat of Lugalzagesi, whom Sargon
brought "in a collar to the gate of Enlil.". Naram-Sin (2254–2218
BC), due to vast military conquests, assumed the imperial title "King
Naram-Sin, king of the four quarters" (Lugal Naram-Sîn, Šar kibrat
'arbaim), the four quarters as a reference to the entire world.
He was also for
the first time in Sumerian culture, addressed as "the god (Sumerian =
DINGIR, Akkadian = ilu) of Akkad", in opposition to the previous
religious belief that kings were only representatives of the people towards the
gods. Naram-Sin also recorded the Akkadian conquest of Ebla as well
as Armanum and its king. The collapse of the Akkadian Empire happened
during the reign of Shu-Duru that did not prevented the invasion of the
Gutians, the peoples from the Zagros Mountains. Cuneiform sources suggest that
the Gutians' administration showed little concern for maintaining agriculture,
written records, or public safety; they reputedly released all farm animals to
roam about Mesopotamia freely and soon brought about famine and
increasing the grain prices. The Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (2112–2095
BC) expelled the Gutians from Mesopotamia during his reign. The Second Dynasty
of Lagash (Lagash II) overlapped with the Dynasty beginning with Ur-Nammu. This
was a localized continuation of the Sumerian culture that culminated in the
Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur III) principally according to the Sumerian king list
that begins the Ur III Period with the expulsion of the Gutians by the king
Ur-Nammu. The Sumerian culture is then one more time back in a renascence.
The
Ur III Period (2100 BC – 2000 BC)
The Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur III) or Neo-Sumerian Empire is called that
because of the third time that the dynastic lineage of Sumerian kings is
registered in their lists. The first king of this dynasty was Ur-Nammu that
compiled the system of laws later called the Code of Ur-Nammu, the inspiration
for the future Code of Hammurabi of the Old Babylonian Period. The Ur III
Period began after several centuries of control by Akkadian and Gutian kings.
It controlled the cities
of Isin, Larsa and Eshnunna and extended as far north
as the Jazira also called Al Jazira.
The Ziggurat of Ur. This monument were in its splendor at the Ur III Period.
Cuneiform tablet containing the Code of Ur-Nammu.
The period between the last powerful king of the Akkad Dynasty, Shar-Kali-Sharri,
and the first king of Ur III, Ur-Nammu, is not well documented, but most
Assyriologists posit that there was a brief "dark age", followed by a
power struggle among the most powerful city-states. Some researchers say that
Utu-Hengal, the last king of the so called end of the “dark age”, was deposed
by Ur-Nammu. The next kings of the Ur III Dynasty were Shulgi, Amar-Sin,
Shu-Sin and Ibbi-Sin. Sumerian texts were mass-produced in the Ur III period;
however, the word 'revival' to describe this period is misleading because
archaeological evidence does not offer evidence of a previous period of
decline. Instead, Sumerian began to take on a different form. As the Semitic
Akkadian language became the common spoken language, Sumerian continued to
dominate literature and also administrative documents. Government officials
learned to write at special schools that used only Sumerian literature. Some scholars
believe that the Uruk Epic of Gilgamesh was written down during this
period into its classic Sumerian form. The Ur III Dynasty attempted
to establish ties to the early kings of Uruk by claiming to be their familial
relations.
The Old Assyrian Period (2000 BC – 1900 BC)
The beginning of Assyrian civilization occurred in the main city Assur,
with their patron deity Ashur, in the proximities of the Tigris River. The
Assyrians represent a great part of the Mesopotamian history. During the Old
Akkadian Period the Assyrians were a subordinated people that were oppressed by
the flow of government of the kingdom of Akkad. During the last stages of the
invasion of the Gutians and the ending of the Ur III Dynasty, the Assyrians
accumulated forces and flourished as a strong empire. The Assyrians were the
first people in the early civilizations to organize a permanent army. Their
violence and supremacy were known through all the Ancient Near East, including
later invasions of Egypt. The land of Assyria then consisted of a number of city-states
and small Semitic-speaking kingdoms, some of which were initially independent
of Assyria.
The foundation of the first major temple in the city of Aššur was
traditionally ascribed to king Ushpia who reigned c. 2050 BC,
possibly a contemporary of Ishbi-Erra of Isin
and Naplanum of Larsa. He was reputedly succeeded by kings
named Apiashal, Sulili, Kikkiya and Akiya (died
c. 2026 BC), of whom little is known, apart from much later mentions of Kikkiya
conducting fortifications on the city walls, and building work on temples in
Aššur. The Assyrians preserved a great volume of material, social and literate
culture of the Babylonia and tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets is known
from the late library of king Assurbanipal in the city of Nineveh giving the
study of “cuneiform civilizations” the name Assyriology. The Assyrians spoke
two languages, the Sumerian and Akkadian languages and later the Akkadian
became the official administrative and literate language, but the Sumerian
still was used in some specific documents.
The Amorites had overrun the kingdoms of southern Mesopotamia and the
Levant between c. 2100 BC and c. 1900 BC, but had hitherto been successfully
repelled by the Assyrian kings during this period. However, Erishum
II (c. 1818 BC – c. 1809 BC) was to be the last king of the dynasty
of Puzur-Ashur I, founded c. 2025 BC. In c. 1808 BC he was deposed and the
throne of Assyria was usurped by Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1809 BC – 1776
BC) in the expansion of Amorite tribes from the Khabur River delta in
the north eastern Levant. About 1800 BC, Assyria came into conflict with the
newly created city state of Babylon, which eventually eclipsed the far older
Sumero-Akkadian states and cities in the south. The Assyrian cities were
Nineveh, Karum, Karum-Kanesh, Ankuwa, and Hattusa. More than 20,000 cuneiform tablets
were discovered in the ancient Assyrian city of Karum-Kanesh indicating that
this city was a large center of activities including administrative activities
like trading and general business.
The cities Ur, Isin, Larsa, Kish, Nippur, Eridu, Lagash, Umma, Uruk, Akshak and Adab,
were incorporated into a greater Babylonia. Assyria remained untroubled by the
emergence of the Hittite Empire and Kingdom of Mitanni, both to
the north of Assyria, and by the Kassites who had seized Babylonian
from its Amorite founders. After securing its borders on all sides, Assyria
entered into a quiet and peaceful period in its history which lasted for two
and a half centuries. The emergence of the Mitanni Empire in c. 1600 BC did
eventually lead to a short period of sporadic Mitannian-Hurrian domination in
c. 1500 BC. The Indo-European language-speaking Mitannians are thought to
have conquered and formed the ruling class over the indigenous Hurrians of
eastern Anatolia. The peoples of the Ancient Near East that could not be
properly put together in the civilizations of Babylonia like the Amorites,
Hurrians, Mitannians and Hittite also adopted the cuneiform writing system and
adapted it to their languages. The peoples of Ugarit and Ancient Anatolia like
the Hittites are included in the category of “cuneiform civilizations or
cultures”.
The
Old Assyrian Period is marked by the Dynasty of Puzur-Ashur I that stabilized
the Assyrian Empire in the early time of the development of their
civilization. Puzur-Ashur I (c. 2025 BC) is speculated to have
overthrown Kikkia and founded an Assyrian dynasty which was to survive for
eight generations (or 216 years) until Erishum II was overthrown by the Amorite
Shamshi-Adad I. Puzur-Ashur I's descendants left inscriptions mentioning him
regarding the building of temples to gods such as Ashur, Adad and Ishtar in
Assyria. The length of Puzur-Ashur I's reign is unknown. Puzur-Ar I's clearly
Assyrian name (meaning "servant of Ashur") distinguishes him from his
three immediate predecessors on the Assyrian King List, who possibly bore
non-Semitic names, and from the earlier, Amorite-named "Kings who are
ancestors" (also translatable as "Kings whose fathers are
known"), often interpreted as a list of Shamshi-Adad's ancestors. The next
kings were Shalim-Ahum, Ilu-Shuma, Erishum I, Ikunum, Sargon I (Sharru-Kim I),
Puzur-Ashur II, and Naram-Sin.
The Old Babylonian Period (2000 BC – 1600 BC)
Overlapping with the development of Old Assyrian Dynasties this period
is also called The First Dynasty of Babylonia, marked by a great unification of
the city-states that comprises Akkad, Sumer and adjacent territories. The
annexation of the vast lands of Mesopotamia by the Dynasty of Babylonia was
relatively parallel with the Assyrian Empire territories. Distinct dynasties
ruled at different regions at the same time. The short chronology of
Assyriology put the Old Babylonian Period at the time span of 1830 BC – 1531 BC
and the middle chronology puts it in the time interval of 2000 BC to 1600 BC.
These discrepancies of long, middle and short chronologies occur because of the
lack of precision dating of the archaeological evidences and written documents
represented by the cuneiform tablets. The chronology established by
archaeoastronomy of the Babylonian astronomical records in specific cuneiform
tablets and the calibrations of ages based on that (the specific position of
planets and constellations, heliacal rising of specific stars, passage of
comets, eclipses, etc.) is not always accurate and the uncertainty in the dates
of the distant past increase.
The kings of this period were Sumu-Abum, Sumu-La-El, Sabum, Apil-Sin,
Sin-Muballit, Hammurabi, Samsu-Iluna, Abi-Eshuh, Ammi-Ditana, Ammisaduqa,
Samsu-Ditana. The actual origins of the dynasty are rather hard to pinpoint
with great certainty simply because Babylon itself, due to a high water table,
yields very few archaeological materials intact. Thus, any evidence must come
from surrounding regions and written records. Not much is known about the kings
from Sumuabum through Sin-Muballit other than the fact they
were Amorites rather than indigenous Akkadians. What is known,
however, is that they accumulated little land. When Hammurabi (also an Amorite)
ascended the throne of Babylon, the empire only consisted of a few towns in the
surrounding area: Dilbat, Sippar, Kish, and Borsippa. Once
Hammurabi was king, his military victories gained land for the empire. However,
Babylon remained but one of several important areas in Mesopotamia, along
with Assyria, then ruled by Shamshi-Adad I, and Larsa, then
ruled by Rim-Sin I.
In Hammurabi's thirtieth year as king, he really began to establish
Babylon as the center of what would be a great empire. In that year, he
conquered Larsa from Rim-Sin I, thus gaining control over the
lucrative urban centers of Nippur, Ur, Uruk, and Isin.
Then, Hammurabi gained control over all south Mesopotamia. This king
became famous today because of his code of laws with more than 200 different
laws about criminal activities and their respective punishments, commercial
trades, familiar issues, divorce, equality, and private property.
Relief on the top of the basalt stela of the Code of Hammurabi depicting the king standing in front of the Babylonian sun god Shamash.
Detail of the basalt stela of the Code of Hammurabi showing the Akkadian cuneiform script.
The Middle Babylonian Period (1500 BC – 1000 BC)
The fall of the Old Babylonian Period represented the ascension of the
Kassite Dynasty. The son and successor of Hammurabi was Samsu-Iluna that was
deposed by the peoples who invaded Babylonia probably from the Zagros
Mountains. The Kassites dominated then the territory and they do not spoke the
languages of Akkad or Sumer. Samsu-Iluna repelled them, as did Abi-Eshuh,
but they subsequently gained control of Babylonia c. 1570 BC some 25 years
after the fall of Babylon to the Hittites in c. 1595 BC,
and went on to conquer the southern part of Mesopotamia, roughly corresponding
to ancient Sumer and known as the Dynasty of the Sealand by
c. 1460 BC. The Hittites had carried off the idol of the god Marduk, but
the Kassite rulers regained possession, returned Marduk to Babylon, and made
him the equal of the Kassite Shuqamuna. The circumstances of their rise to
power are unknown, due to a lack of documentation from this so-called
"Dark Age" period of widespread dislocation.
Relief of god Marduk, patron deity of Babylon, fighting the dragon Tiamat.
The Kassite Dynasty was a stable one dominating for four hundred years
without interruptions. Written documents in Kassite language are absent from
the archaeological record and this is interpreted as a cultural involution in
terms of literacy. The transformation of southern Mesopotamia into a
territorial state, rather than a network of allied or combative city states,
made Babylonia an international power, although it was often overshadowed by
its northern neighbor, Assyria and by Elam to the east.
Kassite kings established trade and diplomacy with Assyria. The Assyrian
Empire was gaining force and their dominance was equaled to the territory of
Babylonia. The Kassite kings established control of their realm through a
network of provinces administered by governors. Almost equal with the royal
cities of Babylon and Dur-Kurigalzu, the revived city of Nippur was
the most important provincial center. Nippur, the formerly great city, which
had been virtually abandoned c. 1730 BC, was rebuilt in the Kassite period,
with temples meticulously re-built on their old foundations.
Documentation of the Kassite period depends heavily on the scattered and
disarticulated tablets from Nippur, where thousands of tablets and fragments
have been excavated. They include administrative and legal texts, letters, seal
inscriptions, kudurrus (land grants and administrative regulations
inscribed in stone slabs and clay copies), private votive inscriptions, and
even a literary text (usually identified as a fragment of a historical epic).
The Elamites conquered Babylonia in the 12th century BC, thus ending
the Kassite state. The last Kassite king, Enlil-Nadin-Ahi, was taken
to Susa and imprisoned there, where he also died. The Kassites did
briefly regain control over Babylonia with Dynasty V (1025–1004 BC); however,
they were deposed once more, this time by an Aramean dynasty.
Babylonian kudurru of governor Eanna-shum-iddina, Kassite Dynasty.
The Middle Assyrian Empire (1500 BC – 1000 BC) [1392 BC – 934 BC]
The Assyrian Empire was developing a new dynastic lineage at the same
time of Kassite Dynasty during the Middle Babylonian Period. The short
chronology of Middle Assyrian Period is 1392 BC – 934 BC. According to this
chronology By the reign of Eriba-Adad I (1392–1366
BC) Mitanni influence over Assyria was on the wane. Eriba-Adad I
became involved in a dynastic battle between Tushratta and his
brother Artatama II and after this his son Shuttarna III, who
called himself king of the Hurri while seeking support from the
Assyrians. Ashur-Uballit I (1365–1330 BC) succeeded the throne of
Assyria in 1365 BC, and proved to be a fierce, ambitious and powerful ruler.
Assyrian pressure from the southeast and Hittite pressure from the north-west,
enabled Ashur-Uballit I to break Mitanni power. He met and decisively defeated
Shuttarna II, the Mitanni king in battle, making Assyria once more an imperial
power at the expense of not only the Mitanni themselves, but also Kassite
Babylonia, the Hurrians and the Hittites; and a time came when the Kassite king
in Babylon was glad to marry Muballiṭat-Šērūa, the daughter of Ashur-Uballit, whose
letters to Akhenaten of Egypt form part of the Amarna letters.
Enlil-Nirari (1329–1308 BC) succeeded Ashur-Uballit I. He described
himself as a "Great-King" (Sharru rabû) in letters to the Hittite
kings. He was immediately attacked by Kurigalzu II of Babylon who had been
installed by his father, but succeeded in defeating him, repelling Babylonian
attempts to invade Assyria, counterattacking and appropriating Babylonian
territory in the process, thus further expanding Assyria. The successor of
Enlil-Nirari, Arik-Den-Ili (c. 1307–1296 BC), consolidated Assyrian
power, and successfully campaigned in the Zagros Mountains to the
east, subjugating the Lullubi and Gutians. In Syria, he defeated Semitic tribes
of the so-called Ahlamu group, who were possibly predecessors of the
Arameans or an Aramean tribe. He was followed by Adad-Nirari I (1295–1275
BC) who made Kalhu (Biblical Calah/Nimrud) his capital, and
continued expansion to the northwest, mainly at the expense of the Hittites and
Hurrians, conquering Hittite territories such as Carchemish and
beyond. Adad-Nirari's inscriptions are more detailed than any of his
predecessors. He declares that the gods of Mesopotamia called him to war, a
statement used by most subsequent Assyrian kings. He referred to himself again
as Sharru Rabi (meaning "The Great King" in the Akkadian
language) and conducted extensive building projects in Ashur and the provinces.
In 1274 BC, Shalmaneser I (1274–1244 BC) ascended the throne.
He proved to be a great warrior king. During his reign he conquered the Hurrian
kingdom of Urartu that would have encompassed most of Eastern
Anatolia and the Caucasus Mountains in the 9th century BC, and the fierce
Gutians of the Zagros. He then attacked the Mitanni-Hurrians, defeating both
King Shattuara and his Hittite and Aramaean allies, finally destroying
the Hurri-Mitanni kingdom in the process. Shalmaneser's son and
successor, Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1207 BC), won a major victory
against the Hittites and their king Tudhaliya IV at the Battle
of Nihriya and took thousands of prisoners. He then conquered Babylonia,
taking Kashtiliash IV as a captive and ruled there himself as king
for seven years, taking on the old title "King of Sumer and Akkad"
first used by Sargon of Akkad. Tukulti-Ninurta I thus became the first Akkadian
speaking native Mesopotamian to rule the state of Babylonia, its founders
having been foreign Amorites, succeeded by equally foreign Kassites.
Ashur-Dan I (1179–1133 BC) brought stability to the internal unrest
in Assyria during his unusually long reign. During the twilight years of the
Kassite dynasty in Babylonia, he records that he seized northern
Babylonia, including the cities of Zaban, Irriya and Ugar-Sallu during the
reigns of Marduk-Apla-Iddina I and Zababa-Shuma-Iddin,
plundering them and "taking their vast booty to Assyria." However,
the conquest of northern Babylonia brought Assyria into direct conflict with
Elam which had taken the remainder of Babylonia. The powerful Elamites, under
king Shutruk-Nahhunte, fresh from sacking Babylon, entered into a protracted
war with Assyria, they briefly took the Assyrian city of Arrapkha, which
Ashur-Dan I then retook, eventually defeating the Elamites and forcing a treaty
upon them in the process. A third brother, Ashur-resh-ishi
I (1133–1116 BC) took the throne. This was to lead to a renewed period of
Assyrian expansion and empire. As the Hittite empire collapsed from the
onslaught of the Indo-European Phrygians (called Mushki in
Assyrian annals), Babylon and Assyria began to vie for Aramaean regions (in modern
Syria), formerly under firm Hittite control. When their forces encountered one
another in this region, the Assyrian king Ashur-resh-ishi I met and
defeated Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon on several occasions. Assyria
then invaded and annexed Hittite-controlled lands in Asia Minor, Aram (Syria),
and Gutians and Kassite regions in the Zagros, marking an upsurge in imperial
expansion.
Tiglath-Pileser I (1115–1077 BC), vies with Shamshi-Adad
I and Ashur-Uballit I among historians as being regarded as the
founder of the first Assyrian empire. The son of Ashur-Resh-Ishi I, he ascended
to the throne upon his father's death, and became one of the greatest of
Assyrian conquerors during his 38-year reign. In a subsequent campaign, the
Assyrian forces penetrated Urartu, into the mountains south of Lake
Van and then turned westward to receive the submission of Malatia. In his
fifth year, Tiglath-Pileser again attacked Commagene, Cilicia and Cappadocia,
and placed a record of his victories engraved on copper plates in a fortress he
built to secure his Anatolian conquests. He was succeeded
by Asharid-Apal-Ekur (1076–1074 BC) who reigned for just two years.
His reign marked the elevation of the office of ummânu (royal
scribe) in importance. Ashur-bel-kala (1073–1056 BC) kept the vast empire
together, campaigning successfully against Urartu and Phrygia to the north and
the Arameans to the west.
He maintained friendly relations with Marduk-Shapik-Zeri of
Babylon, however upon the death of that king, he invaded Babylonia and deposed
the new ruler Kadašman-Buriaš, appointing Adad-Apla-Iddina as
his vassal in Babylon. He built some of the earliest examples of
both Zoological Gardens and Botanical Gardens in Ashur,
collecting all manner of animals and plants from his empire, and receiving a
collection of exotic animals as tributes from Egypt. Late in his reign, the
Middle Assyrian Empire erupted into civil war, when a rebellion was
orchestrated by Tukulti-Mer, a pretender to the throne of Assyria.
Ashur-Bel-Kala eventually crushed Tukulti-Mer and his allies, however the civil
war in Assyria had allowed hordes of Arameans to take advantage of the
situation, and press in on Assyrian controlled territory from the west.
Ashur-bel-kala counterattacked them, and conquered as far as Carchemish and the
source of the Khabur river, but by the end of his reign many of the areas
of Syria and Phoenicia-Canaan to the west of these regions as far as the
Mediterranean, previously under firm Assyrian control, were eventually lost by
the Assyrian Empire.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire (1000 BC – 600 BC) [911 BC – 609 BC]
The king Adad-Nirari II begins the expansion of the Assyrian Empire
through major conquests. Assyria again became a great power, overthrowing
the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt (Ending the Kushite Dynasty of
Egypt) and conquering the city-states
of Elam, Urartu, Media, Persia, Mannea, Gutium, Phoenicia/Canaan, Arabia, Israel, Judah, Philistia, Edom, Moab, Samarra, Cilicia, Cyprus, Chaldea, Nabatea, Commagene, Dilmun, Shutu and Neo-Hittites;
driving the Nubians, Kushites and Ethiopians from
Egypt; defeating the Cimmerians and Scythians; and exacting
tribute from Phrygia among others. Adad-nirari II and his successors
campaigned on an annual basis for part of every year with an exceptionally
well-organized army. He subjugated the areas previously under only nominal
Assyrian vassalage, conquering and deporting Aramean and Hurrian populations
in the north to far-off places. Adad-nirari II then twice attacked and
defeated Shamash-Mudammiq of Babylonia, annexing a large area of
land north of the Diyala river and the towns of Hit and Zanqu in
mid Mesopotamia. He made further gains over Babylonia under Nabu-Shuma-Ukin
I later in his reign. He was succeeded by Tukulti-Ninurta II in
891 BC, who further consolidated Assyria's position and expanded northwards
into Asia Minor and the Zagros Mountains during his short
reign.
The next king, Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC), embarked on a
vast program of expansion. During his rule, Assyria recovered much of
the territory that it had lost around 1100 BC at the end of the Middle Assyrian
period. Ashurnasirpal II also campaigned in the Zagros Mountains in
modern Iran, repressing a revolt against Assyrian rule by
the Lullubi and Gutians. The Assyrians began boasting in their
ruthlessness around this time. Ashurnasirpal II also moved his capital to the
city of Kalhu. The palaces, temples and other buildings raised by him bear
witness to a considerable development of wealth and art. Ashurnasirpal II
introduced a policy of mass deportation of conquered people, which continued on
a greatly increased scale under his son, Shalmaneser III.
Relief of king Ashurnasirpal II hunting a lion.
Statue of Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II.
Winged bull statue of king Ashurnasirpal II of his palace.
Ashurnasirpal's son, Shalmaneser III (859–824 BC), had a long
reign of 35 years, in which the capital was converted into an armed
camp. Babylon was occupied, and Babylonia reduced to vassalage.
He fought against Urartu and marched an army against an alliance of Aramean states
headed by Hadadezer of Damascus and including Ahab,
king of Israel, at the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. Shalmaneser
took the neo Hittite state of Carchemish in 849 BC, and in
842 BC, marched an army against Hazael, King of Damascus, besieging
the city and forcing tribute, but not taking it. In 841 BC, he also brought
under tribute Jehu of Israel, and
the Phoenician states of Tyre, and Sidon. His black
obelisk, discovered at Kalhu, records many military exploits of his reign. His
eldest son Ashur-Nadin-Aplu began a revolt against the government of his
father. The revolt was quashed with difficulty by Shamshi-Adad V,
Shalmaneser's second son, who succeeded him upon his death in 824 BC. The long
and bitter civil war had allowed the Babylonians to the south,
the Medes, Manneans, the Persians to the north and east,
the Arameans, and the Neo-Hittites in the west to largely shake off
Assyrian rule, and Shamshi-Adad V spent the remainder of his reign
reasserting control over those peoples.
The Black Obelisk of Assyrian king Shalmaneser III.
Detail of a relief in the Black Obelisk depicting king Jehuh of Judah kneeling before king Shalmaneser III in the left.
In 806 BC, Adad-Nirari III took the reins of power. He invaded
the Levant and subjugated
the Arameans, Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites,
Neo-Hittites and Edomites. Adad-Nirari III died prematurely in 783
BC, and this led to a period of true stagnation. Shalmaneser
IV (783-73 BC) seems to have wielded little authority, and a victory
over Argishti I, king of Urartu at Til Barsip, is
accredited to a general ('Turtanu') named Shamshi-Ilu who does not
even bother to mention his king. Ashur-dan III ascended the throne in
772 BC. He proved to be a largely ineffectual ruler who was beset by internal
rebellions in the cities of Ashur, Arrapkha, and Guzana. He
failed to make further gains in Babylonia and Aram (Syria). His reign
was also marred by Plague and an ominous Solar
Eclipse. Ashur-Nirari V became king in 754 BC, but his reign seems to
have been one of permanent revolution, and he appears to have barely left his
palace in Nineveh before he was deposed by Tiglath-Pileser III in 745
BC, bringing a resurgence to Assyria.
When Tiglath-Pileser III ascended the throne, Assyria was in
the throes of a revolution. Civil war and pestilence were
devastating the country, and many of Assyria's most northerly colonies in Asia
Minor had been wrested from it by Urartu. In 746 BC, the city of Kalhu joined
the rebels, but on the 13th of Iyyar in the following year, an
Assyrian general (Turtanu) named Pulu seized the crown under the name
of Tiglath-pileser III, and made sweeping changes to the Assyrian government,
considerably improving its efficiency and security. When Tiglath-Pileser III
had ascended the throne of Assyria, he invaded Babylonia, defeated its
king Nabonassar, and abducted the gods of Šapazza; these events are
recorded in the Assyrian-Babylonian Chronicle. After subjecting Babylon to
tribute, defeating Urartu and conquering the Medes, Persians
and Neo-Hittites, Tiglath-Pileser III directed his armies
into Aramea, of which large swathes had regained independence, and the
commercially successful Mediterranean seaports of Phoenicia. He
took Arpad near Aleppo in 740 BC after a siege of three
years, and razed Hamath. Azariah, king of Judah had been an
ally of the king of Hamath, and thus was compelled by Tiglath-Pileser to do him
homage and pay yearly tribute. Tiglath-Pileser III died in 727 BC, and was
succeeded by Shalmaneser V. However, King Hoshea of Israel
suspended paying tribute, and allied himself with Egypt against
Assyria in 725 BC. This led Shalmaneser to invade Syria and besiege Samaria
(capital city of Israel) for three years.
Relief of Assyrian king Tiglath Pileser III.
Alabaster relief scene of king Tiglath-Pileser III in his royal charriot.
The Sargonic Dynasty of Assyria began after the sudden death of
Shalmaneser V, initiated by Sargon II. Sargon II waged war in his second year
(721 BC) against the king of Elam, Humban-Nikash I, and his
ally Marduk-Apal-Iddina II, the Chaldean ruler of Babylon, who
had thrown off Assyrian rule, but Sargon was unable to dislodge him on
this occasion. In 710 BC, Sargon attacked Babylonia and defeated
Marduk-Apla-Iddina, who fled to his protectors in Elam. In 705 BC, Sargon was
killed in battle while driving out the Cimmerians, who had come down from
their homeland on the shores of the Black Sea and attacked the
Assyrian-ruled colonies and peoples in Iran, forcing its Persian subjects
southwards from their original lands around Urmia. He was succeeded by his
son Sennacherib, who moved the capital to Nineveh and made
the deported peoples work on improving Nineveh's system of irrigation canals.
His first task was to affirm his control over Cilicia, which was
attempting to rebel with Greek help. Sennacherib marched into Cilicia,
defeating the rebels and their Greek allies. He also reasserted Assyria's
mastery of Corduene in Asia Minor. Sennacherib attacked the rebels,
conquering Ascalon, Sidon and Ekron and defeating the Egyptians and driving
them from the region. He marched toward Jerusalem, destroying 46 towns and
villages. In 681 BC, Sennacherib was murdered while praying to the
god Nisroch by one or more of his own sons (allegedly named
Adremelech, Abimlech, and Sharezer), perhaps as retribution for his destruction
of Babylon.
Relief scene of Sargon II (right) and a dignitary (left) of his palace in Khorsabad.
Cuneiform clay prism with the chronicles of king Senacherib.
Sennacherib was succeeded by his son Esarhaddon, who had been
governor of Babylonia. As king of Assyria, Esarhaddon immediately had Babylon
rebuilt, and made it one of his capitals. Defeating
the Scythians, Cimmerians and Medes (again penetrating
to Mt. Bikni), he then turned his attention westward to Phoenicia—now
allying itself with the Nubian/Kushite rulers
of Egypt against him—and sacked Sidon in 677 BC. He also
captured King Manasseh of Judah and kept him prisoner for
some time in Babylon. Having had enough of Egyptian meddling, Esarhaddon raided
Egypt in 673 BC. Two years later he launched a full invasion and conquered
Egypt, chasing the Pharaoh Taharqa back to Nubia, thus bringing
to an end Nubian-Kushite rule in Egypt, and destroying the Kushite Dynasty which
had begun in 760 BC. A new campaign was launched by Esarhaddon in 669 BC.
However, he became ill on the way and died. His elder
son Shamash-Shum-Ukin became king of Babylon and his
son Ashurbanipal became king of Assyria, with Ashurbanipal holding
the senior position and Babylon subject to Nineveh. Bel and the gods
of Babylonia returned from their exile in Assur to Babylon in the first year of
Shamash-Shum-Ukin's reign.
On the left is the Stela of king Esarhaddon; on the right is a basalt prism with cuneiform scripts about the restoration of Babylon by the king Esarhaddon.
Ashurbanipal, or "Ashur-Bani-Apli" (Ashurbanapli, Asnapper),
succeeded his father Esarhaddon to the throne. He continued to
campaign in and to dominate Egypt, when not distracted by having to deal with
pressures from the Medes to the east,
and Cimmerians and Scythians to the north of Assyria. He
installed a native Egyptian Pharaoh, Psamtik, as a vassal king in 664
BC. Shamash-Shum-Ukin attempted to raise a huge rebellion encompassing many
vassal peoples against Ashurbanipal; however, this largely failed. This
rebellion lasted until 648 BC, when Babylon was sacked, and Shamash-Shum-Ukin
set fire to the palace, killing himself. Ashurbanipal had promoted art and
culture, and had built a vast library of cuneiform tablets at Nineveh. After
the crushing of the Babylonian revolt Ashurbanipal appeared master of all he
surveyed.
Upon Ashurbanipal's death in 627 BC, the empire began to disintegrate
rapidly after a series of bitter civil wars broke out involving several claimants
to the throne. Ashur-Etil-Ilani succeeded Ashurbanipal, but was
immediately embroiled in a civil war with one of his own
generals, Sin-Shumu-Lishir, who seized control of Babylonia and
then briefly took the throne of Assyria itself. He in turn was deposed
by Sinsharishkun. After finally defeating his rivals, Sinsharishkun faced
a much larger threat. His Babylonian vassal state had taken advantage of the
upheavals in Assyria and rebelled under the previously
unknown Nabopolassar, a member of the Chaldean tribe, in 625 BC.
What followed was a long war fought in the Babylonian heartland. Nabopolassar
tried to capture Nippur, the main Assyrian center of power in Babylonia,
but was defeated by Sinsharishkun. However Nabopolassar did take the actual
city of Babylon after a popular uprising there, and was crowned king of the
city in 625 BC.
Tablet V of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh found in the Assyrian city of Nineveh where was the Library of Ashurbanipal.
Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh that contain the story of the Deluge caused by the god Enlil to punish the mankind, but Utnapishtim made an ark with instructions of the god Enki to survive the Great Flood. Utnapishtim earned immortality from the Annunaki after his survival.
In 620 BC Nabopolassar finally captured Nippur, becoming master of
Babylonia. While these events were unfolding, the Medes had also
freed themselves from Assyrian domination and consolidated power in what was to
become Persia. In 616 BC Cyaxares, the Median king, made an alliance
with Nabopolassar and with the help of
the Scythians and Cimmerians attacked Assyria. Assyria now
faced overwhelming odds, and after four years of bitter fighting, the coalition
destroyed Nineveh in 612 BC after a long siege, followed by house-to-house
fighting. In 609 BC at the Battle of Megiddo, an Egyptian force defeated
a Judean force under king Josiah and managed to reach the
last remnants of the Assyrian army. In a final battle at Harran in 609
BC the Babylonians and Medes defeated the Assyrian-Egyptian alliance,
after which Assyria ceased to exist as an independent state. In the mid-6th
century BC, Babylonia and Assyria became provinces of
the Persian Empire. In 482 BC, Assyria made a final attempt to regain
independence with a large-scale rebellion against the Achaemenid Empire,
which was suppressed by king Darius II.
The Neo-Babylonian Period (1000 BC – 540 BC) [626 BC – 539 BC]
After the fall of Assyria as an Empire, Babylonia became independent by
the hands of Nabopolassar, the Chaldean. An Assyrian
general, Sin-Shumu-Lishir, revolted in 626 BC and declared himself king of
Assyria and Babylon, but was promptly ousted by the Assyrian Army loyal to
king Ashur-etil-ilani in 625 BC. Babylon was then taken by another
son of Ashurbanipal Sin-Shar-Ishkun, who proclaimed himself king. His rule
did not last long however, and the Babylonians revolted. Nabopolassar seized
the throne amid the confusion, and the Neo-Babylonian dynasty was born.
Babylonia as a whole then became a battle ground between
king Ashur-Etil-Ilani and his brother Sin-Shar-Ishkun who
fought to and from over the region. This anarchic situation allowed
Nabopolassar to stay on the throne of the city of Babylon itself, spending the
next three years undisturbed, consolidating his position in the city.
Nabopolassar too then made active alliances with other former subjects of
Assyria; the Medes, Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians.
After the final conquest of the alliance with Babylonia consolidated by
Nabopolassar, the Dynasty of Neo-Babylonians was established. The son of
Nabopolassar and his successor was Nebuchadnezzar II. Nebuchadnezzar was a
patron of the cities and a spectacular builder. He rebuilt all of Babylonia's
major cities on a lavish scale. His building activity at Babylon was what
turned it into the immense and beautiful city of legend. His city of Babylon
covered more than three square miles, surrounded by moats and ringed by a
double circuit of walls. The Euphrates flowed through the center of
the city, spanned by a beautiful stone bridge. At the center of the city rose
the giant ziggurat called Etemenanki, "House of the Frontier
Between Heaven and Earth," which lay next to the Temple of Marduk. In
601 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II was involved in a major, but inconclusive, battle
against the Egyptians. In 599 BC, he invaded Arabia and routed
the Arabs at Qedar. In 597 BC, he invaded Judah and
captured Jerusalem and deposed its king Jehoiachin. Egyptian and
Babylonian armies fought each other for control of the near east throughout
much of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and this encouraged king Zedekiah of
Judah to revolt. After an 18-month siege, Jerusalem was captured in 587 BC, and
thousands of Jews were deported to Babylon, and Solomon's Temple was
razed to the ground. By 572 Nebuchadnezzar was in full control of Babylonia,
Assyria, Phoenicia, Israel, Philistia, northern Arabia, and parts of Asia
Minor.
The restored Gate of Ishtar, the entry to the great city of Babylon.
Artistic reconstruction of the city of Babylon during the Chaldean Dynasty. The 91 m heigh ziggurat Etemenanki, dedicated to the patron god Marduk, is evidenced encircled by a wall.
Amel-Marduk was the son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar II. He
reigned only two years (562–560 BC). Allegedly, because Amel-Marduk tried to
modify his father's policies, he was murdered by Neriglissar, his
brother-in-law. Neriglissar (560 BC – 556 BC) appears to have been a more
stable ruler, conducting a number of public works, restoring temples etc. He
conducted successful military campaigns against Cilicia, which had
threatened Babylonian interests. Neriglissar however reigned for only four
years, being succeeded by the youthful Labashi-Marduk. It is unclear if
Neriglissar was himself a member of the Chaldean tribe, or a native of the city
of Babylon. Labashi-Marduk was a king of Babylon (556 BC), and
son of Neriglissar. The next king was a commoner from Assyria called
Nabonidus. He took an interest in Babylon's past, excavating ancient buildings
and displaying his archeological discoveries in a museum. In most ancient
accounts, he is depicted as a royal anomaly.
Nabonidus is supposed to have worshiped the moon-god Sîn beyond all the
other gods, to have paid special devotion to Sîn's temple in Harran, where his
mother was a priestess, and to have neglected the Babylonian primary
god, Marduk. He left the capital and travelled to the desert city of Tayma in
Arabia early in his reign, from which he only returned after many years. In the
meantime, his son Belshazzar ruled from Babylon. In 549 BC Cyrus
the Great, the Achaemenid king of Persia, revolted against his
suzerain Astyages, king of Media, at Ecbatana. Astyages' army betrayed him
to his enemy, and Cyrus established himself as ruler of all
the Iranic peoples, as well as the
pre-Iranian Elamites and Gutians. In 539 BC, Cyrus
invaded Babylonia. Nabonidus sent his son Belshazzar to head off
the huge Persian army; however, already massively outnumbered, Belshazzar was
betrayed by Gobryas, governor of Assyria, who switched his forces over to
the Persian side. The Babylonian forces were overwhelmed at the battle
of Opis. Nabonidus fled to Borsippa, and on 12 October, after Cyrus'
engineers had diverted the waters of the Euphrates, "the soldiers of Cyrus
entered Babylon without fighting." Belshazzar, according to
historian Xenophon, is reported to have been killed, but his account
is not held to be reliable here. Nabonidus surrendered and was
deported. Babylon, like Assyria, became a colony of Achaemenid Persia.
Cuneiform tablet containing the chronicles of Babylonian king Nabonidus.
The Persian Achaemenid Empire (540 BC – 330 BC)
The Persian Empire was based in Western Asia, founded
by Cyrus the Great. Ranging at its greatest extent from
the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west to
the Indus Valley in the east, it was larger than any
previous empire in history, spanning 5.5 million square kilometers.
Incorporating various peoples of different origins and faiths, it is estimated
to be the largest state in history by share of population. According to
historian Herodotus: “The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed
here. ... : the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon
which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most
distinguished; they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid
kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii,
all of which are attached to the soil, the remainder
-the Dai, Mardi, Dropici, Sagarti, being nomadic.”
The Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The name
"Persia" is a Greek and Latin pronunciation of the native
word referring to the country of the people originating
from Persis (Old Persian: Pārsa), their home territory
located north of the Persian Gulf in southwestern Iran. The
Persians from whom Cyrus hailed were originally nomadic
pastoralists in the western Iranian Plateau and by 850 BC were calling
themselves the Parsa and their constantly shifting territory Parsua,
for the most part localized around Persis. As Persians gained power, they
developed the infrastructure to support their growing influence, including
creation of a capital named Pasargadae and an opulent city
named Persepolis.
Cyrus the Great respected the customs and religions of the lands he
conquered. This became a very successful model for centralized administration
and establishing a government working to the advantage and profit of its
subjects. In fact, the administration of the empire
through satraps and the vital principle of forming a government
at Pasargadae were the works of Cyrus. What is sometimes referred to
as the Edict of Restoration (actually two edicts) described in the
Bible as being made by Cyrus the Great left a lasting legacy on the Jewish religion,
where, because of his policies in Babylonia, he is referred to by
the Jewish Bible as messiah (lit. "His anointed one")
(Isaiah 45:1), and is the only non-Jew figure in the Bible to be
called so.
Drawing of a relief in a stone pillar in the Persian city of Parsagadae depicting Cyrus the Great as a Mesopotamian winged god with the composed atef Egyptian crown.
Cyrus the Great is well recognized for his achievements in human
rights, politics, and military strategy, as well as his influence on
both Eastern and Western civilizations. Having originated
from Persis, roughly corresponding to the modern Iranian province of
Fars, Cyrus has played a crucial role in defining the national identity of
modern Iran. Cyrus and, indeed, the Achaemenid influence in the ancient
world also extended as far as Athens, where many Athenians adopted aspects
of the Achaemenid Persian culture as their own, in a reciprocal cultural exchange.
One of the few surviving sources of information that can be dated directly to
Cyrus's time is the Cyrus Cylinder, a document in the form of a clay
cylinder inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform. It had been placed in the
foundations of the Esagila (the temple
of Marduk in Babylon) as a foundation
deposit following the Persian conquest in 539 BC. It was discovered in
1879 and is kept today in the British Museum in London. The text of
the cylinder denounces the deposed Babylonian king Nabonidus as
impious and portrays Cyrus as pleasing to the chief god Marduk. It goes on
to describe how Cyrus had improved the lives of the citizens of
Babylonia, repatriated displaced peoples and restored temples and
cult sanctuaries.
Cuneiform clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great with an account of his activities in the restoration of the religion and culture of exiled peoples in the Mesopotamia including the liberation of the Jews from their Babylonian Exile.
Following Cyrus the Great's conquest of the Near
East and Central Asia, Cambyses II further expanded the empire
into Egypt during the Late Period by defeating the Egyptian
Pharaoh Psamtik III during the battle of Pelusium in
525 BC. After the Egyptian campaign and the truce with Libya,
Cambyses invaded the Kingdom of Kush (located in what is now
the Sudan) but with little success. When Cyrus the
Great conquered Babylon in 539 BC, Cambyses was employed in
leading religious ceremonies. In the cylinder which contains
Cyrus' proclamation to the Babylonians, Cambyses' name is joined to his
father's in the prayers to Marduk. On a tablet dated from the first year
of Cyrus, Cambyses is called king of Babylon, although his authority seems to
have been ephemeral. Only in 530 BC, when Cyrus set out on his last
expedition into the East, did Cyrus associate Cambyses with the throne.
Numerous Babylonian tablets of the time date from the accession and the first
year of Cambyses, when Cyrus was "king of the countries" (i.e., of
the world). After the death of his father in 530 BC, Cambyses became sole king.
The tablets dating from his reign in Babylonia run to the end of his eighth
year, in 522 BC. The kings of the Persian Empire were Cyrus the Great, Cambyses
II, Bardiya (Gaumata), Darius I, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, Xerxes II, Sogdianus,
Darius II, Artaxerxes II, Artaxerxes III, Artaxerxes IV, Darius III, and
Artaxerxes V.
Limestone outcrop with reliefs at Behistun, in modern country of
Iran, a monument made by the Persians depicting defeated peoples before Persian
king Darius I (left). The Behistun cuneiform inscriptions contain three
different languages - Persian, Elamite and Akkadian (Babylonian dialect), of
the same text. These inscriptions was the key to decipher the cuneiform writing
system. The Behistun inscriptions are the analogue of the Rosette Stone for
deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. Beginning in 1843 the works of translation of
the cuneiform texts were made by the researchers Grotefend, Rawlinson, Hincks,
Oppert, and Talbot starting the research field of Assyriology, the study of the
cuneiform writing systems and cultures.
From 334 BC to 331 BC, Alexander the Great, also
known in the Zoroastrian as Arda Wiraz Nâmag ("the accursed
Alexander"), defeated Darius III in the battles
of Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, swiftly conquering the
Persian Empire by 331 BC. Alexander's empire broke up shortly after his death,
and Alexander's general, Seleucus I Nicator, tried to take control of
Iran, Mesopotamia, and later Syria and Anatolia. His empire
was the Seleucid Empire. He was killed in 281 BC by Ptolemy Keraunos.
The
Seleucid Period (330 BC – 63 BC)
Following division of Alexander's empire, Seleucus I Nicator,
one of Alexander’s generals, received Babylonia. From there, he
created a new empire which expanded to include much of Alexander's near
eastern territories. At the height of its power, it included
central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia,
today's Turkmenistan, Pamir, and parts of Pakistan. It included
a diverse population estimated at fifty to sixty million
people. Under Antiochus I (c. 324/3 – 261 BC), however, the
unwieldy empire was already beginning to shed
territories. Pergamum broke away under Eumenes I who
defeated a Seleucid army sent against him. The kingdoms of Cappadocia, Bithynia
and Pontus were all practically independent by this time as well. Like the Ptolemies, Antiochus
I established a dynastic religious cult, deifying his father Seleucus
I. Seleucus, officially said to be descended from Apollo, had his own priests
and monthly sacrifices. The erosion of the empire continued under Seleucus
II, who was forced to fight a civil war (239-236) against his
brother Antiochus Hierax and was unable to
keep Bactria, Sogdiana and Parthia from breaking away.
Hierax carved off most of Seleucid Anatolia for himself, but was defeated,
along with his Galatian allies, by Attalus I of Pergamon who now also
claimed kingship.
Tetradrachm silver coin of Seleucus I Nicator.
This 'Greco-Macedonian' population (which also
included the sons of settlers who had married local women) could make up a
phalanx of 35,000 men (out of a total Seleucid army of 80,000) during the reign
of Antiochus III. After the death of Ptolemy IV (204 BC), Antiochus
took advantage of the weakness of Egypt to conquer Coele-Syria in the fifth
Syrian war. In the Treaty of Apamea which ended the war, Antiochus
lost all of his territories in Anatolia west of the Taurus and was forced to
pay a large indemnity of 15,000 talents. Much of the eastern part of the empire
was then conquered by the Parthians under Mithridates I of
Parthia in the mid-2nd century BC, yet the Seleucid kings continued to
rule a rump state from Syria until the invasion by
the Armenian king Tigranes the Great and their ultimate
overthrow by the Roman general Pompey.
The
Roman Period to the Muslim Conquest (63 BC – 630 AD)
Once Mithridates was defeated by Pompey in 63 BC, Pompey set
about the task of remaking the Hellenistic East, by creating new client
kingdoms and establishing provinces. While client nations
like Armenia and Judea were allowed to continue with some
degree of autonomy under local kings, Pompey saw the Seleucids as too
troublesome to continue; doing away with both rival Seleucid princes, he
made Syria into a Roman province. At the beginning of the 2nd
century AD, the Romans, led by emperor Trajan, invaded Parthia and
conquered Mesopotamia, making it an imperial province. It was returned to the
Parthians shortly after by Trajan's successor, Hadrian.
Christianity reached Mesopotamia in the 1st century AD, and Roman
Syria in particular became the center of Eastern
Rite Christianity and the Syriac literary
tradition. Mandeism is also believed to have either originated there
around this time or entered as Mandaeans sought refuge from Palestine.
Sumerian-Akkadian religious tradition disappeared during this period, as
did the last remnants of cuneiform literacy, although temples were
still being dedicated to the Assyrian national god Ashur in his home
city as late as the 4th century. In the 3rd century AD, the Parthians were in
turn succeeded by the Sassanid dynasty, which ruled Mesopotamia until the
7th century Islamic invasion. The Sassanids conquered the independent
Neo-Assyrian states of Adiabene, Osroene, Hatra and finally Assur during
the 3rd century. In the mid-6th century the Persian Empire under the Sassanid
dynasty was divided by Khosrow I into four quarters, of which the
western one, called Khvārvarān, included most of modern Iraq, and
subdivided to provinces of Mishān, Asuristān (Assyria), Adiabene (which
was for a time an independent Assyrian state) and Lower Media. The
term Iraq is widely used in the medieval Arabic sources for the area in the
center and south of the modern republic as a geographic rather than a political
term, implying no greater precision of boundaries than the term
"Mesopotamia" or, indeed, many of the names of modern states before
the 20th century.
There was a substantial influx of Arabs in the Sassanid
period. Upper Mesopotamia came to be known as Al-Jazirah in
Arabic (meaning "The Island" in reference to the "island"
between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), and Lower Mesopotamia came to be
known as ʿIrāq-i ʿArab, meaning "the escarpment of the Arabs"
(viz. to the south and east of "the island". Until 602, the desert
frontier of the Persian Empire had been guarded by the
Arab Lakhmid kings of Al-Hirah. In that
year, Shahanshah Khosrow II Aparviz abolished the Lakhmid
kingdom and laid the frontier open to nomad incursions. Farther north, the
western quarter was bounded by the Byzantine Empire. The first organized
conflict between local Arab tribes and Persian forces seems to have been in
634, when the Arabs were defeated at the Battle of the Bridge. There was a
force of some 5,000 Muslims under Abū `Ubayd ath-Thaqafī, which was routed
by the Persians.
This was followed by Khalid ibn al-Walid's successful campaign
which saw all of Iraq come under Arab rule within a year, except the Persian
Empire's capital, Ctesiphon. Around 636, a larger Arab Muslim force
under Sa`d ibn Abī Waqqās defeated the main Persian army at
the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah and moved on to capture the Persian
capital of Ctesiphon. By the end of 638, the Muslims had conquered all of the
Western Sassanid provinces (including modern Iraq), and the last Sassanid
Emperor, Yazdegerd III, had fled to central and then northern Persia,
where he was killed in 651. The Islamic expansions constituted the largest of
the Semitic expansions in history.
References:
Wolfram von Soden. The Ancient Orient: An Introduction to the Study of
the Ancient Near East. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; n edition
(February 1, 1994)
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
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