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Kaštiliašu , 28th King of the Kassites IV


Preferred Parents:
Father: Šagarakti-Šuriaš , 27th King of the Kassites, b. 1280 BC   d. 1244 BC
Mother: daughter of Kastiliash OF BABYLON,   

Family 1: bint Shalmaneser III de Assyria,      
  1. Adad-shuma-usur 32nd King of Babylon,     d. 1187 BC
Sources:
  1. Title: Wikiwand: Battle of Nihriya
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Battle_of_Nihriya;
    Note: The Battle of Niḫriya was the culminating point of the hostilities between the Hittites and the Assyrians for control over the remnants of the former empire of Mitanni. When Hittite king Šuppiluliuma I (r. c. 1344–1322 BC) conquered Mitanni, he created two provinces (Aleppo and Carchemish), and distributed the large part of territories of this kingdom between his allies. The rest of what had been the empire of Mitanni retained its independence as a Hittite vassal state called Ḫanigalbat. During the reign of the Hittite king Mursili III (better known as Urḫi-Tešub), Ḫanigalbat was conquered by the Assyria Empire and the Assyrians controlled the East bank of the Euphrates. When Ḫattusili III ousted his nephew Urḫi-Tešub and seized the Hittite throne, he had to be content with the permanent loss of Ḫanigalbat to the Assyrians despite its former status as a Hittite vassal state. The Assyrian involvement in Syria continued under the command of king Sulmanu-ašared I and precipitated a crisis with Ḫatti. The Hittites considered Assyrian involvement to be a clear attack on the frontiers of their empire and went into battle under their king: Tudḫalia IV, Ḫattusili's son and successor. This led to a major battle which is known today as the Battle of Niḫriya. A letter (RS 34.265) giving details of the campaign and its outcome was sent by Sulmanu-ašared to Ugarit. In addition information within Hittite document KBo IV 14 has been interpreted to show that the battle must have occurred around year 20 of Sulmanu-ašared. The former idea that Niḫriya was to be equated with Na’iri, along the Upper Tigris, has been shown to be wrong. As per the Mari and Dur-Katlimmu letters, Niḫriya was located in the Upper Balih region. Outcome The conflict between the two great powers took place in the neighborhood of Nihriya, with the Assyrians gaining a decisive victory. The Assyrian victory shook the Hittite state to its foundations as its king Tudhaliya IV faced several internal revolts against his reign. Tudhaliya IV would ultimately overcome all these challenges to his authority and retain the kingship of Hatti. Hostilities between Assyria and Ḫatti continued for some five years before a peace was negotiated and maintained.
  2. Title: Wikiwand: Assyria
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Assyria;
    Note: Assyria (/əˈsɪəriə/), also called the Assyrian Empire, was a Mesopotamian kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant that existed as a state from perhaps as early as the 25th century BC (in the form of the Assur city-state) until its collapse between 612 BC and 609 BC – spanning the periods of the Early to Middle Bronze Age through to the late Iron Age. From the end of the seventh century BC (when the Neo-Assyrian state fell) to the mid-seventh century AD, it survived as a geopolitical entity, for the most part ruled by foreign powers such as the Parthian and early Sasanian Empires between the mid-second century BC and late third century AD, the final part of which period saw Mesopotamia become a major center of Syriac Christianity and the birthplace of the Church of the East. A largely Semitic-speaking realm, Assyria was centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia. The Assyrians came to rule powerful empires in several periods. Making up a substantial part of the greater Mesopotamian "cradle of civilization," which included Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, and Babylonia, Assyria reached the height of technological, scientific and cultural achievements for its time. At its peak, the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911 to 609 BC stretched from eastern Libya and Cyprus in the East Mediterranean to Iran, and from present-day Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Transcaucasia to the Arabian Peninsula. The name "Assyria" originates with the Assyrian state's original capital, the ancient city of Aššur, which dates to c. 2600 BC – originally one of a number of Akkadian-speaking city-states in Mesopotamia. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders. From the late 24th century BC, the Assyrians became subject to Sargon of Akkad, who united all the Akkadian- and Sumerian-speaking peoples of Mesopotamia under the Akkadian Empire, which lasted from c. 2334 BC to 2154 BC. After the Assyrian Empire fell from power, the greater remaining part of Assyria formed a geopolitical region and province of other empires, although between the mid-2nd century BC and late 3rd century AD a patchwork of small independent Assyrian kingdoms arose in the form of Assur, Adiabene, Osroene, Beth Nuhadra, Beth Garmai and Hatra. The region of Assyria fell under the successive control of the Median Empire of 678 to 549 BC, the Achaemenid Empire of 550 to 330 BC, the Macedonian Empire (late 4th century BC), the Seleucid Empire of 312 to 63 BC, the Parthian Empire of 247 BC to 224 AD, the Roman Empire (from 116 to 118 AD) and the Sasanian Empire of 224 to 651 AD. The Arab Islamic conquest of the area in the mid-seventh century finally dissolved Assyria (Assuristan) as a single entity, after which the remnants of the Assyrian people (by now Christians) gradually became an ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious minority in the Assyrian homeland, surviving there to this day as an indigenous people of the region. Etymology Assyria was also sometimes known as Subartu and "Azuhinum" prior to the rise of the city-state of Ashur, after which it was Aššūrāyu, and after its fall, from 605 BC through to the late seventh century AD variously as Achaemenid Assyria, and also referenced as Atouria, Ator, Athor, and sometimes as "Syria," which etymologically derives from Assyria according to Strabo, "Syria"(Greek), "Assyria" (Latin) and Asōristān (Middle Persian). "Assyria" also can refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were (and still are) centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey and northwest Iran are the descendants of the ancient Assyrians (see Assyrian continuity). As Babylonia is called after the city of Babylon, Assyria means "land of Asshur." Etymologically, "Assyria" is connected to the name of "Syria,"with both being ultimately derived from the Akkadian "Aššur." Theodor Nöldeke in 1881 was the first to give philological support to the assumption that Syria and Assyria have the same etymology, a suggestion going back to John Selden (1617). A 21st-century discovery of the Çineköy inscription also confirmed that Syria, being a Greek corruption of the name Assyria, is ultimately derived from the Assyrian term "Aššūrāyu." Pre-history In prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria (and Subartu) was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in what will be Assyria were the Jarmo culture c. 7100 BC, the Halaf culture c. 6100 BC, and the Hassuna culture c. 6000 BC. The Akkadian-speaking people (the earliest historically-attested Semitic-speaking people) who would eventually found Assyria appear to have entered Mesopotamia at some point during the latter 4th millennium BC (c. 3500–3000 BC), eventually intermingling with the earlier Sumerian-speaking population, who came from northern Mesopotamia, with Akkadian names appearing in written record from as early as the 29th century BC. During the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian (a language isolate) on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a "sprachbund." Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere after the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate), although Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century AD, as did use of the Akkadian cuneiform. The cities of Assur, Nineveh, Gasur and Arbela together with a number of other towns and cities, existed since at least before the middle of the 3rd millennium BC (c. 2600 BC), although they appear to have been Sumerian-ruled administrative centers at this time, rather than independent states. Greco-Roman classical writers such as Julius Africanus, Marcus Velleius Paterculus and Diodorus Siculus dated the founding of Assyria to various dates between 2284 BC and 2057 BC, listing the earliest king as Belus or Ninus. According to the Biblical generations of Noah, which appears to have been largely compiled between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, the city of Aššur was allegedly founded by a biblical Ashur the son of Shem, who was deified by later generations as the city's patron god. However, the much older attested Assyrian tradition itself lists the first king of Assyria as the 25th century BC Tudiya, and an early urbanized Assyrian king named Ushpia (c. 2050 BC) as having dedicated the first temple to the god Ashur in the city in the mid-21st century BC. It is highly likely that the city was named in honor of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. History Further information: Timeline of the Assyrian Empire Early Period, 2600–2025 BC Main article: Early Period (Assyria) The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, seem to have been established by 2600 BC. However it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centers. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, mentions "smiting Subartu" (Subartu being the Sumerian name for Assyria). Similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known. In the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid-25th century BC, i.e., c. 2450 BC. In archaeological reports from Ebla, it appeared that Tudiya's activities were confirmed with the discovery of a tablet where he concluded a treaty for the operation of a "karum" (trading colony) in Eblaite territory, with "king" Ibrium of Ebla (who now is known to have been the vizier of Ebla for king Ishar-Damu). Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name "Adam," and then a further thirteen rulers (Yangi, Suhlamu, Harharu, Mandaru, Imsu, Harsu, Didanu, Hanu, Zuabu, Nuabu, Abazu, Belus and Azarah). Nothing concrete is yet known about these names, although it has been noted that a much later Babylonian tablet listing the ancestral lineage of Hammurabi, the Amorite king of Babylon, seems to have copied the same names from Tudiya through Nuabu, though in a heavily corrupted form. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as "kings who lived in tents," were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers. These kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Aššur in the mid 21st-century BC. Akkadian Empire and Neo-Sumerian Empires, 2334–2050 BC Further information: Akkadian Empire and Neo-Sumerian Empire During the Akkadian Empire (2334–2154 BC), the Assyrians, like all the Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamians (and also the Sumerians), became subject to the dynasty of the city-state of Akkad, centered in central Mesopotamia. The Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding "four quarters." The region of Assyria, north of the seat of the empire in central Mesopotamia, had also been known as Subartu by the Sumerians, and the name Azuhinum in Akkadian records also seems to refer to Assyria proper. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) population. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became a regional administrative center of the Empire, implicated by the Nuzi tablets. During this period, the Akka..
  3. Title: Wikiwand: Marduk
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Marduk#/The_Marduk_Prophecy;
    Note: Marduk (Cuneiform: 𒀭𒀫𒌓 AMAR.UTU; Sumerian: "amar utu.k," "calf of the sun; solar calf"; Greek Μαρδοχαῖος, "Mardochaios"; Hebrew: מְרֹדַךְ, Modern: "Mərōdaḵ," Tiberian: "Merōḏaḵ") was a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi (18th century BC), he slowly started to rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acquired by the second half of the second millennium BC. In the city of Babylon, Marduk was worshiped in the temple Esagila. Marduk is associated with the divine weapon Imhullu. His symbolic animal and servant, whom Marduk once vanquished, is the dragon Mušḫuššu. "Marduk" is the Babylonian form of his name. The name "Marduk" probably was pronounced "Marutuk." The etymology of the name "Marduk" is conjectured as derived from "amar-Utu" ("immortal son of Utu" or "bull calf of the sun god Utu"). The origin of Marduk's name may reflect an earlier genealogy, or have had cultural ties to the ancient city of Sippar (whose god was Utu), dating to the third millennium BC. By the Hammurabi period, Marduk had become astrologically associated with the planet Jupiter. Background Neo-Assyrian texts had become more critical of the Mesopotamian kings. The location of Marduk's statue, whether in Babylon or not, was related to the relationship between foreign kingship and traditional Babylonian religion. In the 12th-century, during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I, the statue of Marduk (previously captured by Elamites) was restored to Babylon. "The Marduk Prophecy" is a prophetic text discussing three occasions on which Babylon is abandoned by Marduk. Some of the details are obscured by a lacuna. The reference to Marduk's reign in Hatti is believed to correspond to the Hittite king Mursili I's capture of Marduk's statue (later returned to Babylon by Kassite king Agum II). Marduk blesses and lives in Assur, a reference to another conflict - this time between the Assyrian king and the Kassite king Kastilias IV, that ended with Marduk's statue being moved from Babylon to Assyria. According to the text Babylon falls into a chaos while Marduk is in Elam, referring to Babylon's defeat at the hands of the Elamite king. It says a new king will arise to renew the temple Ekursagila, most likely a reference to Nebuchadnezzar I's victory over Elam and restoration of Marduk's statue to Babylon. Marduk's original character is obscure but he was later associated with water, vegetation, judgment, and magic.[9] His consort was the goddess Sarpanit. He was also regarded as the son of Ea (Sumerian Enki) and Damkina, and the heir of Anu, but whatever special traits Marduk may have had were overshadowed by political developments in the Euphrates valley which led to people of the time imbuing him with traits belonging to gods who in an earlier period were recognized as the heads of the pantheon. There are particularly two gods—Ea and Enlil—whose powers and attributes pass over to Marduk. In the case of Ea, the transfer proceeded peacefully and without effacing the older god. Marduk took over the identity of Asarluhi, the son of Ea and god of magic, and was thus integrated into the pantheon of Eridu, where both Ea and Asarluhi originated. Ea, Marduk's father, voluntarily recognized the superiority of the son and handed over to him the control of humanity. This association of Marduk and Ea, while indicating primarily the passing to Babylon of the religious and political supremacy once enjoyed by Eridu, may also reflect an early dependence of Babylon upon Eridu, not necessarily of a political character but, in view of the spread of culture in the Euphrates valley from the south to the north, the recognition of Eridu as the older centre on the part of the younger one. Late Bronze Age While the relationship between Ea and Marduk is marked by harmony and an amicable abdication on the part of the father in favour of his son, Marduk's absorption of the power and prerogatives of Enlil of Nippur came at the expense of the latter's prestige. Babylon became independent in the early 19th century BC, and was initially a small city state, overshadowed by older and more powerful Mesopotamian states such as Isin, Larsa and Assyria. The rise of "Marduk is closely connected with the political rise of Babylon from city-state to the capital of an empire." Marduk became the supreme god after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I in the twelfth century, replacing Enlil. Although Nippur and the cult of Enlil enjoyed a period of renaissance during the more than four centuries of Kassite control in Babylonia (c. 1595 BC–1157 BC), the definite and permanent triumph of Marduk over Enlil became felt within Babylonia. During the Kassite reign, the Babylonians were attacked by the Assyrians, who captured the statue of Marduk. Aššur (Ashur), the supreme god in the north, was considered to be the only rival of Marduk, who reigned supreme in the South. While the statue was brought back to Babylon, the Kassite dynasty with a weakened defense fell to the Elamites (1157 BC), and the statue of Marduk was taken to Susa, the Elam capital. Assyria remained an enemy of the Babylonians until the reign of Marduk-nadin-ahhe (1082-1070 BC). The deity of Marduk results in the "Enûma Elish," which tells the story of Marduk's birth, heroic deeds and becoming the ruler of the gods. The purpose of this creation myth was to explain how Marduk came to power. This can be viewed as a form of Mesopotamian apologetics. Also included in this document are the fifty names of Marduk that represent everything Marduk symbolizes. In "Enûma Elish," a civil war between the gods was growing to a climactic battle. The Anunnaki gods gathered together to find one god who could defeat the gods rising against them. Marduk, a very young god, answered the call and was promised the position of head god. To prepare for battle, he makes a bow, fletches arrows, grabs a mace, throws lightning before him, fills his body with flame, makes a net to encircle Tiamat within it, gathers the four winds so that no part of her could escape, creates seven nasty new winds such as the whirlwind and tornado, and raises up his mightiest weapon, the rain-flood. Then he sets out for battle, mounting his storm-chariot drawn by four horses with poison in their mouths. In his lips he holds a spell and in one hand he grasps a herb to counter poison. First, he challenges the leader of the Anunnaki gods, the dragon of the primordial sea Tiamat, to single combat and defeats her by trapping her with his net, blowing her up with his winds, and piercing her belly with an arrow. Then, he proceeds to defeat Kingu, who Tiamat put in charge of the army and wore the Tablets of Destiny on his breast, "wrested from him the Tablets of Destiny, wrongfully his," and assumed his new position. Under his reign, humans were created to bear the burdens of life so the gods could be at leisure; the lowly creatures built Marduk a temple called Ba-Bel ("Gate of God"). Marduk was depicted as a human, often with his symbol the snake-dragon which he had taken over from the god Tishpak. Another symbol that stood for Marduk was the spade. Babylonian texts talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, "the holy city, the dwelling of their [the other gods'] delight." However, Eridu was founded in the 5th millennium BC and Marduk's ascendancy only occurred in the second millennium BC, so this is clearly a revisionist back-dating to inflate the prestige of Marduk. The fifty names of Marduk Leonard W. King in "The Seven Tablets of Creation" (1902) included fragments of god lists that he considered essential for the reconstruction of the meaning of Marduk's name. Franz Bohl in his 1936 study of the fifty names also referred to King's list. Richard Litke (1958) noticed a similarity between Marduk's names in the An:Anum list and those of the Enuma elish, albeit in a different arrangement. The connection between the An:Anum list and the list in Enuma Elish were established by Walther Sommerfeld (1982), who used the correspondence to argue for a Kassite period composition date of the Enuma elish, although the direct derivation of the Enuma elish list from the An:Anum one was disputed in a review by Wilfred Lambert (1984). Marduk Prophecy The Marduk Prophecy is a "vaticinium ex eventu" text describing the travels of the Marduk cult statue from Babylon. It relates his visit to the land of Ḫatti, corresponding to the statue's seizure during the sack of the city by Mursilis I in 1531 BC, Assyria, and when Tukulti-Ninurta I overthrew Kashtiliash IV, taking the image to Assur and Elam in 1225 BC. Kudur-nahhunte then ransacked the city and pilfered the statue around 1160 BC. Kudur-nahhunte addresses an assembly of the gods. The first two sojourns are described in glowing terms as good for both Babylon and the other places Marduk has graciously agreed to visit. The episode in Elam, however, is a disaster, where the gods have followed Marduk and abandoned Babylon to famine and pestilence. Marduk prophesies that he will return once more to Babylon to a messianic new king, who will bring salvation to the city and who will wreak a terrible revenge on the Elamites. This king is understood to be Nabu-kudurri-uṣur I, 1125-1103 BC. Thereafter the text lists various sacrifices. A copy was discovered in The House of Exorcist in the city of Assur and was written between 713-612 BC. It is closely related thematically to another vaticinium ex eventu text called the Shulgi prophecy, which probably followed it in a sequence of tablets. Both compositions present a favorable view of Assyria. Bel During the first millennium BC, the Babylonians worshipped a deity under the title "Bel," meaning "lord," who was a syncretization of Marduk, Enlil, and the dying god Dumuzid. Bel held all the cultic titles of ..
  4. Title: Wikiwand: Nippur
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nippur;
    Note: Nippur (Sumerian: "Nibru," often logographically recorded as 𒂗𒆤𒆠, EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;" Akkadian: "Nibbur") was among the most ancient of Sumerian cities. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind," ruler of the cosmos, subject to An alone. Nippur was located in modern Nuffar in Afak, Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq. History Nippur never enjoyed political hegemony in its own right, but its control was crucial, as it was considered capable of conferring the overall "kingship" on monarchs from other city-states. It was distinctively a sacred city, important from the possession of the famous shrine of Enlil. According to the "Tummal Chronicle," Enmebaragesi, an early ruler of Kish, was the first to build up this temple. His influence over Nippur has also been detected archaeologically. The "Chronicle" lists successive early Sumerian rulers who kept up intermittent ceremonies at the temple: Aga of Kish, son of Enmebaragesi; Mesannepada of Ur; his son Meskiang-nunna; Gilgamesh of Uruk; his son Ur-Nungal; Nanni of Ur and his son Meskiang-nanna. It also indicates that the practice was revived in Neo-Sumerian times by Ur-Nammu of Ur, and continued until Ibbi-Sin appointed Enmegalana high priest in Uruk (c. 1950 BC). Inscriptions of Lugal-Zage-Si and Lugal-kigub-nidudu, kings of Uruk and Ur respectively, and of other early pre-non-Semitic rulers, on door-sockets and stone vases, show the veneration in which the ancient shrine was then held, and the importance attached to its possession, as giving a certain stamp of legitimacy. On their votive offerings, some of these rulers designate themselves as ensis, or governors. Pre-Sargonic era Originally a village of reed huts in the marshes, Nippur was especially prone to devastation by flooding or fire. For some reason, settlement persisted at the same spot, and gradually the site rose above the marshes – partly from the accumulation of debris, and partly through the efforts of the inhabitants. As the inhabitants began to develop in civilization, they substituted, at least in the case of their shrine, mud-brick buildings instead of reed huts. The earliest age of civilization, the "clay age," is marked by crude, hand-made pottery and thumb-marked bricks – flat on one side, concave on the other, gradually developing through several fairly marked stages. The exact form of the sanctuary at that period cannot be determined, but it seems to have been connected with the burning of the dead, and extensive remains of such cremation are found in all the earlier, pre-Sargonic strata. There is evidence of the succession on the site of different peoples, varying somewhat in their degrees of civilization. One stratum is marked by painted pottery of good make, similar to that found in a corresponding stratum in Susa, and resembling early Aegean pottery more closely than any later pottery found in Sumer. This people gave way in time to another, markedly inferior in the manufacture of pottery, but apparently superior as builders. In one of these earlier strata, of very great antiquity, there was discovered, in connection with the shrine, a conduit built of bricks in the form of an arch. At some point, Sumerian inscriptions began to be written on clay, in an almost linear script. The shrine at this time stood on a raised platform, and apparently contained a ziggurat. Akkadian, Ur III, and Old Babylonian periods Late in the 3rd millennium BC, Nippur was conquered and occupied by the Semitic rulers of Akkad, or Agade, and numerous votive objects of Sargon, Rimush, and Naram-Sin testify to the veneration in which they also held this sanctuary. Naram-Sin rebuilt both the Ekur temple and the city walls, and in the accumulation of debris now marking the ancient site, his remains are found about half way from the top to the bottom. One of the few instances of Nippur being recorded as having its own ruler comes from a tablet depicting a revolt of several Mesopotamian cities against Naram-Sin, including Nippur under Amar-enlila. The tablet goes on to relate that Naram-Sin defeated these rebel cities in nine battles, and brought them back under his control. The Weidner tablet (ABC 19) suggests that the Akkadian Empire fell as divine retribution, because of Sargon's initiating the transfer of "holy city" status from Nippur to Babylon. This Akkadian occupation was succeeded by an occupation during the third dynasty of Ur, and the constructions of Ur-Nammu, the great builder of temples, are superimposed immediately upon those of Naram-Sin. Ur-Nammu gave the temple its final characteristic form. Partly razing the constructions of his predecessors, he erected a terrace of bricks, some 12 m high, covering a space of about 32,000 m2. Near the northwestern edge, towards the western corner, he built a ziggurat of three stages of dry brick, faced with kiln-fired bricks laid in bitumen. On the summit stood, as at Ur and Eridu, a small chamber, the special shrine or abode of the god. Access to the stages of the ziggurat, from the court beneath, was by an inclined plane on the south-east side. To the north-east of the ziggurat stood, apparently, the House of Bel, and in the courts below the ziggurat stood various other buildings, shrines, treasure chambers, and the like. The whole structure was oriented with the corners toward the cardinal points of the compass. Ur-Nammu also rebuilt the walls of the city on the line of Naram-Sin's walls. The restoration of the general features of the temple of this, and the immediately succeeding periods, has been facilitated greatly by the discovery of a sketch map on a fragment of a clay tablet. This sketch map represents a quarter of the city to the east of the Shatt-en-Nil canal. This quarter was enclosed within its own walls, a city within a city, forming an irregular square, with sides roughly 820 m long, separated from the other quarters, and from the country to the north and east, by canals on all sides, with broad quays along the walls. A smaller canal divided this quarter of the city itself into two parts. In the south-eastern part, in the middle of its southeast side, stood the temple, while in the northwest part, along the Shatt-en-Nil, two great storehouses are indicated. The temple proper, according to this plan, consisted of an outer and inner court, each covering approximately 8 acres (32,000 m2), surrounded by double walls, with a ziggurat on the north-western edge of the latter. The temple continued to be built upon or rebuilt by kings of various succeeding dynasties, as shown by bricks and votive objects bearing the inscriptions of the kings of various dynasties of Ur and Isin. It seems to have suffered severely in some manner at or about the time the Elamites invaded, as shown by broken fragments of statuary, votive vases and the like, from that period. At the same time it seems to have won recognition from the Elamite conquerors, so that Rim-Sin I, the Elamite king of Larsa, styles himself "shepherd of the land of Nippur." With the establishment of the Babylonian empire, under Hammurabi, early in the 2nd millennium BC, the religious as well as the political centre of influence was transferred to Babylon, Marduk became lord of the pantheon, many of Enlil's attributes were transferred to him, and Ekur, Enlil's temple, was to some extent neglected. Later history Under the succeeding Kassite dynasty, shortly after the middle of the 2nd millennium, Ekur was restored once more to its former splendor, several monarchs of that dynasty built upon and adorned it, and thousands of inscriptions, dating from the time of those rulers, have been discovered in its archives. After the middle of the 12th century BC follows another long period of comparative neglect, but with the conquest of Babylonia by the Assyrian king Sargon II, at the close of the 8th century BC, we meet again with building inscriptions, and under Ashurbanipal, about the middle of the 7th century BC, we find Ekur restored with a splendor greater than ever before, the ziggurat of that period being 58 by 39 m. After the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire Ekur appears to have fallen gradually into decay, until finally, in the Seleucid period, the ancient temple was turned into a fortress (Greek: "Νιππούρ," "Nippoúr"). Huge walls were erected at the edges of the ancient terrace, the courts of the temple were filled with houses and streets, and the ziggurat itself was curiously built over in a cruciform shape, and converted into an acropolis for the fortress. This fortress was occupied and further built upon until the close of the Parthian period, about 250 AD; but under the succeeding rule of the Sassanids it in its turn fell into decay, and the ancient sanctuary became, to a considerable extent, a mere place of sepulture, only a small village of mud huts huddled about the ancient ziggurat continuing to be inhabited. It appears that the city was the seat of an Assyrian Church of the East Christian bishopric as late as the 8th century AD. Archaeology Nippur was situated on both sides of the Shatt-en-Nil canal, one of the earliest courses of the Euphrates, between the present bed of that river and the Tigris, almost 160 km southeast of Baghdad. It is represented by the great complex of ruin mounds known to the Arabs as "Nuffar," written by the earlier explorers "Niffer," divided into two main parts by the dry bed of the old Shatt-en-Nil (Arakhat). The highest point of these ruins, a conical hill rising about 30 m above the level of the surrounding plain, northeast of the canal bed, is called by the Arabs "Bint el-Amiror," "prince's daughter." Nippur was excavated first, briefly, by Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1851. Full-scale digging was begun by an expedition from the University of Pennsylvania. The work involved four seasons of excavation between 1889 and 1900 and was led by John Punnett Peters, John Henry Haynes, and Hermann Volrath Hilprecht. Nippur was e..
  5. Title: Wikiwand: Urartu
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Urartu;
    Note: Urartu (/ʊˈrɑːrtuː/) is a geographical region commonly used as the exonym for the Iron Age kingdom also known by the modern rendition of its endonym, the Kingdom of Van, centered around Lake Van in the historic Armenian Highlands (present-day eastern Anatolia). The kingdom rose to power in the mid-9th century BC, but went into gradual decline and was eventually conquered by the Iranian Medes in the early 6th century BC. The geopolitical region would re-emerge as Armenia shortly after. The peoples of Urartu are the earliest identifiable ancestors of the Armenians. Names and etymology Various names were given to the geographic region and the polity that emerged in the region.
  6. Title: Wikiwand: Hittites
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hittites;
    Note: The Hittites (/ˈhɪtaɪts/) were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1600 BC. This empire reached its height during the mid-14th century BC under Suppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included most of Anatolia as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC, the Empire of Hattusa, conventionally called the Hittite Empire, came into conflict with the Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire and the empire of the Mitanni for control of the Near East. The Assyrians eventually emerged as the dominant power and annexed much of the Hittite empire, while the remainder was sacked by Phrygian newcomers to the region. After c. 1180 BC, during the Bronze Age collapse, the Hittites splintered into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived until the 8th century BC before succumbing to the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Hittite language was a distinct member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, and along with the related Luwian language, is the oldest historically attested Indo-European language, referred to by its speakers as "nešili" "in the language of Nesa." The Hittites called their country the "Kingdom of Hattusa" (Hatti in Akkadian), a name received from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the region until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC and spoke an unrelated language known as Hattic. The conventional name "Hittites" is due to their initial identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in the area of their kingdom, and from diplomatic and commercial correspondence found in various archives in Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt and the Middle East, the decipherment of which was also a key event in the history of Indo-European linguistics. The Hittite military made successful use of chariots. The development of iron smelting once was attributed to the Hittites of Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age, with their success largely based on the advantages of a monopoly on ironworking at the time. But the view of such a "Hittite monopoly" has come under scrutiny and is no longer a scholarly consensus. As part of the Late-Bronze-Age/Early-Iron-Age, the Bronze Age collapse saw the slow, comparatively continuous spread of iron-working technology in the region. While there are some iron objects from Bronze Age Anatolia, the number is comparable to iron objects found in Egypt and other places during the period; and only a small number of these objects are weapons. Hittites did not use smelted iron, but rather meteorites. In classical times, ethnic Hittite dynasties survived in small kingdoms scattered around modern Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Lacking a unifying continuity, their descendants scattered and ultimately merged into the modern populations of the Levant, Turkey and Mesopotamia. During the 1920s, interest in the Hittites increased with the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey and attracted the attention of Turkish archaeologists such as Halet Çambel and Tahsin Özgüç. During this period, the new field of Hittitology also influenced the naming of Turkish institutions, such as the state-owned "Etibank" ("Hittite bank"), and the foundation of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, 200 kilometers west of the Hittite capital and housing the most comprehensive exhibition of Hittite art and artifacts in the world. Archaeological discovery Biblical background See also: Biblical Hittites Before the archeological discoveries that revealed the Hittite civilization, the only source of information about the Hittites had been the Old Testament. Francis William Newman expressed the critical view, common in the early 19th century, that, "no Hittite king could have compared in power to the King of Judah...". As the discoveries in the second half of the 19th century revealed the scale of the Hittite kingdom, Archibald Sayce asserted that, rather than being compared to Judah, the Anatolian civilization "[was] worthy of comparison to the divided Kingdom of Egypt," and was "infinitely more powerful than that of Judah." Sayce and other scholars also noted that Judah and the Hittites were never enemies in the Hebrew texts; in the Book of Kings, they supplied the Israelites with cedar, chariots, and horses, and in the Book of Genesis were friends and allies to Abraham. Uriah the Hittite was a captain in King David's army and counted as one of his "mighty men" in 1 Chronicles 11. Initial discoveries French scholar Charles Texier found the first Hittite ruins in 1834 but did not identify them as such. The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the "karum" of Kanesh (now called Kültepe), containing records of trade between Assyrian merchants and a certain "land of 'Hatti.'" Some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European. The script on a monument at Boğazkale by a "People of Hattusas" discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo and Hama in Northern Syria. In 1887, excavations at Amarna in Egypt uncovered the diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son, Akhenaten. Two of the letters from a "kingdom of 'Kheta'"—apparently located in the same general region as the Mesopotamian references to "land of 'Hatti'"—were written in standard Akkadian cuneiform, but in an unknown language; although scholars could interpret its sounds, no one could understand it. Shortly after this, Sayce proposed that "Hatti" or "Khatti" in Anatolia was identical with the "kingdom of 'Kheta'" mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites. Others, such as Max Müller, agreed that "Khatti" was probably "Kheta," but proposed connecting it with Biblical Kittim rather than with the Biblical Hittites. Sayce's identification came to be widely accepted over the course of the early 20th century; and the name "Hittite" has become attached to the civilization uncovered at Boğazköy. During sporadic excavations at Boğazköy (Hattusa) that began in 1906, the archaeologist Hugo Winckler found a royal archive with 10,000 tablets, inscribed in cuneiform Akkadian and the same unknown language as the Egyptian letters from Kheta—thus confirming the identity of the two names. He also proved that the ruins at Boğazköy were the remains of the capital of an empire that, at one point, controlled northern Syria. Under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute, excavations at Hattusa have been under way since 1907, with interruptions during the world wars. Kültepe was successfully excavated by Professor Tahsin Özgüç from 1948 until his death in 2005. Smaller scale excavations have also been carried out in the immediate surroundings of Hattusa, including the rock sanctuary of Yazılıkaya, which contains numerous rock reliefs portraying the Hittite rulers and the gods of the Hittite pantheon. Writings The Hittites used a variation of cuneiform called Hittite cuneiform. Archaeological expeditions to Hattusa have discovered entire sets of royal archives on cuneiform tablets, written either in Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the time, or in the various dialects of the Hittite confederation. Museums The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey houses the richest collection of Hittite and Anatolian artifacts. Geography Main article: Hittite sites The Hittite kingdom was centered on the lands surrounding Hattusa and Neša (Kültepe), known as "the land Hatti" (URUHa-at-ti). After Hattusa was made capital, the area encompassed by the bend of the Kızılırmak River (Hittite "Marassantiya") was considered the core of the Empire, and some Hittite laws make a distinction between "this side of the river" and "that side of the river." For example, the reward for the capture of an escaped slave after he managed to flee beyond the Halys is higher than that for a slave caught before he could reach the river. To the west and south of the core territory lay the region known as "Luwiya" in the earliest Hittite texts. This terminology was replaced by the names Arzawa and Kizzuwatna with the rise of those kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Hittites continued to refer to the language that originated in these areas as Luwian. Prior to the rise of Kizzuwatna, the heart of that territory in Cilicia was first referred to by the Hittites as Adaniya. Upon its revolt from the Hittites during the reign of Ammuna, it assumed the name of Kizzuwatna and successfully expanded northward to encompass the lower Anti-Taurus Mountains as well. To the north, lived the mountainous people called the Kaskians. To the southeast of the Hittites lay the Hurrian empire of Mitanni. At its peak, during the reign of Muršili II, the Hittite empire stretched from Arzawa in the west to Mitanni in the east, many of the Kaskian territories to the north including Hayasa-Azzi in the far north-east, and on south into Canaan approximately as far as the southern border of Lebanon, incorporating all of these territories within its domain. History Origins It generally is assumed that the Hittites came into Anatolia some time before 2000 BC. While their earlier location is disputed, it has been speculated by scholars for more than a century that the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, in present-day Ukraine, around the Sea of Azov, spoke an early Indo-European language during the third and fourth millennia BC. The arrival of the Hittites in Anatolia in the Bronze Age was one of a superstrate imposing itself on a native culture (in this case over the pre-existing Hattians and Hurrians), either by means of conquest or by gradual assimilation. In archaeological terms, relationships of the Hittites to the Ezero culture of the B..
  7. Title: Wikiwand: Kassites
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kassites;
    Note: The Kassites (/ˈkæsaɪts/) were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology). The endonym of the Kassites was probably Galzu, although they have also been referred to by the names Kaššu, Kassi, Kasi or Kashi. They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of the city in 1595 BC (i.e. 1531 BC per the short chronology), and established a dynasty based first in Babylon and later in Dur-Kurigalzu. The Kassites were members of a small military aristocracy but were efficient rulers and not locally unpopular, and their 500-year reign laid an essential groundwork for the development of subsequent Babylonian culture. The chariot and the horse, which the Kassites worshiped, first came into use in Babylonia at this time. The Kassite language has not been classified. What is known is that their language was not related to either the Indo-European language group, nor to Semitic or other Afro-Asiatic languages, and is most likely to have been a language isolate although some linguists have proposed a link to the Hurro-Urartian languages of Asia Minor. However, the arrival of the Kassites has been connected to the contemporary migrations of Indo-European peoples. Several Kassite leaders and deities bore Indo-European names, and it is possible that they were dominated by an Indo-European elite similar to the Mitanni, who ruled over the Hurro-Urartian-speaking Hurrians of Asia Minor. History Late Bronze Age The original homeland of the Kassites is not well-known, but appears to have been located in the Zagros Mountains, in what is now the Lorestan Province of Iran. However, the Kassites were—like the Elamites, Gutians and Manneans who preceded them—linguistically unrelated to the Iranian-speaking peoples who came to dominate the region a millennium later. They first appeared in the annals of history in the 18th century BC when they attacked Babylonia in the 9th year of the reign of Samsu-iluna (reigned c. 1749–1712 BC), the son of Hammurabi. 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. 1520 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. No inscription or document in the Kassite language has been preserved, an absence that cannot be purely accidental, suggesting a severe regression of literacy in official circles. Babylon under Kassite rulers, who renamed the city Karanduniash, re-emerged as a political and military power in Mesopotamia. A newly built capital city Dur-Kurigalzu was named in honor of Kurigalzu I (ca. early 14th century BC). Their success was built upon the relative political stability that the Kassite monarchs achieved. They ruled Babylonia practically without interruption for almost four hundred years—the longest rule by any dynasty in Babylonian history. 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. Puzur-Ashur III of Assyria and Burna-Buriash I signed a treaty agreeing the border between the two states in the mid-16th century BC, Egypt, Elam, and the Hittites, and the Kassite royal house intermarried with their royal families. There were foreign merchants in Babylon and other cities, and Babylonian merchants were active from Egypt (a major source of Nubian gold) to Assyria and Anatolia. Kassite weights and seals, the packet-identifying and measuring tools of commerce, have been found in as far afield as Thebes in Greece, in southern Armenia, and even in the Uluburun shipwreck off the southern coast of today's Turkey. A further treaty between Kurigalzu I and Ashur-bel-nisheshu of Assyria was agreed in the mid-15th century BC. However, Babylonia found itself under attack and domination from Assyria for much of the next few centuries after the accession of Ashur-uballit I in 1365 BC who made Assyria (along with the Hittites and Egyptians) the major power in the Near East. Babylon was sacked by the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I (1365–1330 BC)) in the 1360s after the Kassite king in Babylon who was married to the daughter of Ashur-uballit was murdered. Ashur-uballit promptly marched into Babylonia and avenged his son-in-law, deposing the king and installing Kurigalzu II of the royal Kassite line as king there. His successor Enlil-nirari (1330–1319 BC) also attacked Babylonia and his great grandson Adad-nirari I (1307–1275 BC) annexed Babylonian territory when he became king. Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208 BC) not content with merely dominating Babylonia went further, conquering Babylonia, deposing Kashtiliash IV and ruling there for eight years in person from 1235 BC to 1227 BC. The Kassite kings maintained 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. In fact, under the Kassite government, the governor of Nippur, who took the Sumerian-derived title of Guennakku, ruled as a sort of secondary and lesser king. The prestige of Nippur was enough for a series of 13th-century BC Kassite kings to reassume the title "governor of Nippur" for themselves. Other important centers during the Kassite period were Larsa, Sippar and Susa. After the Kassite dynasty was overthrown in 1155 BC, the system of provincial administration continued and the country remained united under the succeeding rule, the Second Dynasty of Isin. 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), private votive inscriptions, and even a literary text (usually identified as a fragment of a historical epic). "Kassite rulers in Babylon were also scrupulous to follow existing forms of expression, and the public and private patterns of behavior "and even went beyond that—as zealous neophytes do, or outsiders, who take up a superior civilization—by favoring an extremely conservative attitude, at least in palace circles." (Oppenheim 1964, p. 62). 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. Iron Age 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. Kassites survived as a distinct ethnic group in the mountains of Lorestan (Luristan) long after the Kassite state collapsed. Babylonian records describe how the Assyrian king Sennacherib on his eastern campaign of 702 BC subdued the Kassites in a battle near Hulwan, Iran. Herodotus and other ancient Greek writers sometimes referred to the region around Susa as "Cissia," a variant of the Kassite name. However, it is not clear if Kassites were actually living in that region so late. During the later Achaemenid period, the Kassites, referred to as "Kossaei," lived in the mountains to the east of Media and were one of several "predatory" mountain tribes that regularly extracted "gifts" from the Achaemenid Persians, according to a citation of Nearchus by Strabo (13.3.6). But Kassites again fought on the Persian side in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC, in which the Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great, according to Diodorus Siculus (17.59) (who called them "Kossaei") and Curtius Rufus (4.12) (who called them "inhabitants of the Cossaean mountains"). According to Strabo's citation of Nearchus, Alexander later separately attacked the Kassites "in the winter," after which they stopped their tribute-seeking raids. Strabo also wrote that the "Kossaei" contributed 13,000 archers to the army of Elymais in a war against Susa and Babylon. This statement is hard to understand, as Babylon had lost importance under Seleucid rule by the time Elymais emerged around 160 BC. If "Babylon" is understood to mean the Seleucids, then this battle would have occurred sometime between the emergence of Elymais and Strabo's death around 25 AD. If "Elymais" is understood to mean Elam, then the battle probably occurred in the 6th century BC. Note that Susa was the capital of Elam and later of Elymais, so Strabo's statement implies that the Kassites intervened to support a particular group within Elam or Elymais against their own capital, which at that moment was apparently allied with or subject to Babylon or the Seleucids. The latest evidence of Kassite culture is a reference by the 2nd-century geographer Ptolemy, who described "Kossaei" as living in the Susa region, adjacent to the "Elymeans". This could represent one of many cases where Ptolemy relied on out-of-date sources. It is believed that the name of the Kassites is preserved in the name of the Kashgan River, in Lorestan. Kassite dynasty of Babylon (short chronology) Ruler Reigned Comments Agum II or ..
  8. Title: Wikiwand: Kashtiliash IV
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kashtiliash_IV;
    Note: Kaštiliašu IV was the twenty-eighth Kassite king of Babylon and the kingdom contemporarily known as Kar-Duniaš, c. 1232–1225 BC (short chronology). He succeeded Šagarakti-Šuriaš, who could have been his father, ruled for eight years, and went on to wage war against Assyria resulting in the catastrophic invasion of his homeland and his abject defeat. He may have ruled from the Palace of the Stag and the Palace of the Mountain Sheep, in the city of Dur-Kurigalzu, as these are referenced in a jeweler's archive from this period. Despite his short reign there are at least 177 economic texts dated to him, on subjects as diverse as various items for a chariot, issue of flour, dates, oil and salt for offerings, receipt of butter and oil at the expense of the šandabakku (the governor of Nippur), i.e. his shopping receipt, and baskets received by Rimutum from Hunnubi. War with Assyria According to his eponymous epic, Tukulti-Ninurta I, king of Assyria, was provoked into war by Kaštiliašu's dastardly preemptive attack on his territory, thereby breaching an earlier treaty between their ancestors Adad-nīrāri I and Kadašman-Turgu. But trouble may have been brewing for some time. Tudḫaliya, king of the Hittites, himself reeling from defeat by the Assyrians at the Battle of Nihriya, refers to the Babylonian king as his equal, in his treaty with his vassal, Šaušgamuwa of Amurru, hinting at the possible existence of an alliance or at least a tacit understanding between them. It reads: "The kings who are equal to me (are) the king of Egypt, the king of Karanduniya (Babylon), the king of Assyria . And if the king of Karanduniya is My Majesty's friend, he shall also be your friend; but if he is My Majesty's enemy, he shall also be your enemy. Since the king of Assyria is My Majesty's enemy he shall also be your enemy. Your merchant shall not enter into Assyria and you shall not allow his merchant into your land. He shall not pass through your land. But if he enters into your land, you should seize him and send him off to My Majesty." — "Treaty between Tudḫaliya and Šaušgamuwa," Tablet A, column IV, lines 1-18 edited Also, Kaštiliašu had granted land and presumably asylum to a Hurrian, a fugitive from Assyria's vassal Ḫanigalbat, commemorated on the Tablet of Akaptaḫa. He also reconfirmed a large gift of land on a kudurru that had been provided to Uzub-Šiḫu or -Šipak by the Kassite king, Kurigalzu II (c. 1332-1308 BC) in grateful recognition of his service in an earlier war against Assyria. Tukulti-Ninurta petitioned the god Šamaš before beginning his counter offensive. Kaštiliašu was captured, single-handed by Tukulti-Ninurta according to his account, who "trod with my feet upon his lordly neck as though it were a footstool" and deported him ignominiously in chains to Assyria. The victorious Assyrian demolished the walls of Babylon, massacred many of the inhabitants, pillaged and plundered his way across the city to the Esagila temple, where he made off with the statue of Marduk. He then proclaimed himself "king of Karduniash, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of Sippar and Babylon, king of Tilmun and Meluhha." Middle Assyrian texts recovered at modern Tell Sheikh Hamad, ancient Dūr-Katlimmu, which was the regional capital of the vassal Ḫanigalbat, include a letter from Tukulti-Ninurta to his grand vizier, Aššur-iddin advising him of the approach of Šulman-mušabši escorting a Babylonian king, who may have been Kaštiliašu, his wife, and his retinue which incorporated a large number of women, on his way to exile after his defeat. The journey to Dūr-Katlimmu seems to have traveled via Jezireh. The conflict, and its outcome, is recorded in the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic, a poetic "victory song," which has been recovered in several lengthy fragments, somewhat reminiscent of the earlier account of Adad-nīrāri's victory over Nazi-Maruttaš. It would lend its form to later Assyrian epics such as that of Shalmaneser III, concerning his campaign in Ararat. Written strictly from the Assyrian point of view, it provides a strongly biased narrative. Tukulti-Ninurta is portrayed as an innocent victim of the invidious Kaštiliašu, who is contrasted as "the transgressor of an oath," and who has so vexed the gods that they have abandoned their sanctuaries. More succinct accounts of these events are also inscribed on five large limestone tablets which were imbedded in Tukulti-Ninurta's construction projects as foundation stones, for example the "Annals of Tukulti-Ninurta," carved on a slab which was buried in or under the wall of his purpose-built capital, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. Relations with Elam There is no extant evidence of conflict between Elam and Babylon during his reign. The ruling families had been joined through intermarriage in the past, but the countries had resorted to war to settle their differences under the reigns of Kurigalzu I and possibly Nazi-Maruttaš. However, the sequence of kings of Elam during this period is very confused, with several names suspiciously appearing over again some in shuffled sequences, such as Napirisha-Untash and Untash-Napirisha, making it hard to make sense of the chronology. After Kaštiliašu's overthrow, however, Kidin-Hutran III, the king of Elam, certainly led two successive incursions into Babylonia, which have been explained as either indicative of his loyalty to the fallen Kassite dynasty or alternatively raiding with impunity to exploit the weakness of the over-extended Assyrians. Babylon under Assyrian Governorship The "Chronicle P" records that Tukulti-Ninurta ruled through his appointed governors for seven years, where the term šaknūtīšu could include appointees or prefects. Alternative reconstructions of these events have been proposed whereby Tukulti Ninurta ruled for seven years and then three successive Kassite kings took power before the original dynasty was reinstated or that his own rule followed these kings. It has been suggested that the Šulgi Prophecy, a prophecy dated to after the events, might refer to the events during one of these reigns. Enlil-nādin-šumi may be the subject of Column V of the Šulgi prophetic speech. It is preserved in heavily damaged late-period tablets, in which Šulgi (2112–2004 BC), the second and most famous king of the third dynasty of Ur, and founder of Nippur, summarizes his achievements. He predicts that Babylon will submit to Assyria, Nippur will be "cast down," Enlil will remove the king, another king will make a messianic appearance, restore the shrines and Nippur will rise from its ashes. With the collapse of Tukulti-Ninurta's regime in Babylonia, some years before his assassination, the Kassite rabûti (important men, noblemen, officers?) rebelled and installed Kaštiliašu's son, Adad-šuma-ušur, on the throne. In literature Kashtiliash is a significant character in S. M. Stirling's "Against the Tide of Years and On the Oceans of Eternity," the second and final novels of his Nantucket series. Inscriptions 1. ^ "Kinglist A," BM 33332, column 2, lines 7-10. 2. ^ Tablets BM 17678, 17712, 17687, 17740. 3. ^ Kudurru of Kaštiliašu, Sb 30 in the Musée du Louvre. 4. ^ "Chronicle P" (ABC 22), BM 92701, column 4, lines 7 and 8, 14-16, 17-20.
  9. Title: Wikiwand: Šandabakku
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/%C5%A0andabakku;
    Note: The office of šandabakku, inscribed 𒇽𒄘𒂗𒈾 (LÚGÚ.EN.NA) or sometimes as 𒂷𒁾𒁀𒀀 𒂗𒆤𒆠 (GÁ.DUB.BA.A EN.LÍLKI), the latter designation perhaps meaning "archivist of (the god) Enlil," was the name of the position of governor of the Mesopotamian city of Nippur from the Kassite period (mid second millennium BC) onward. Enlil, as the tutelary deity of Nippur, had been elevated in prominence and was shown special veneration by the Kassite monarchs, it being the most common theophoric element in their names. This caused the position of the "šandabakku" to become very prestigious and the holders of the office seem to have wielded influence second only to the king. The office The term "šandabakku" first appears in texts from Mari, where it seems to represent a high-ranking administrative official, but it is not until the Kassite period that it became synonymous with the city of Nippur. Nippur had been depopulated sometime towards the end of the reign of Samsu-iluna (ca. 1686–1648 BC, short chronology) and remained abandoned until the end of the fifteenth century when the Kassites began a program of restoration of cultic centers. The earliest inscriptions of this restoration belong to Kurigalzu I. The office may be related in some manner to that of the "nišakku" (𒇽𒉡𒀊, LÚNU.ÈŠ) of Enlil, probably the senior priestly or dignitary position of the Ekur. Whether the post was held concurrently with that of the "šandabakku," or at some, perhaps, earlier stage in the career of the prospective governor, has yet to be determined, but it is clear that Enlil-kidinni and his immediate successors, all held both offices, and Amil-Marduk and Enlil-šuma-imbī were similarly honored. Only during the reign of Nazi-Maruttaš, were they held by separate individuals, with Nūr-Delebat and his son Ninurta-rēṣušu assuming the nišakku-priest position, the latter of whom naming Enlil-kidinni’s father Enlil-bānī and Amīlatum as ancestors, on his clay quadrangular prism, a votive dedication to the storm-god Adad. The most prominent of the "šandabakku" officials were - Enlil-kidinni, who corresponded and exchanged gifts with the Assyrian crown prince Enlil-nirari, if his name has been correctly restored, and, Amil-Marduk around a hundred years later, under whose rule Nippur experienced significant restoration work undertaken by servile laborers whose purchase documents and ration lists make up much of the so-called "governor's library." In the later Achaemenid period, from the reign of Xerxes I, the title was replaced by that of the paqdu. List of "šandabakku" officials at Nippur The "šandabakkus" who held office during the Kassite period: . Amīlatum, father of Enlil-bāni (uncertain date) . Uššur-ana-Marduk, son of Usi-ana-nuri-? (uncertain position in sequence, but early) . Ninurta-nādin-aḫḫē, son of Enlil-bānī (from Kadašman-Enlil I until Burna-Buriaš, 1359–1333 BC) . Enlil-kidinni, son of Ninurta-nādin-aḫḫē (from Burna-Buriaš, through Kurigalzu II, 1332–1308 BC, until early Nazi-Maruttaš, 1307–1282 BC) . Enlil-alsa, son of Enlil-kidinna (attested in Nazi-Maruttaš year 8, 1300 BC) . Uzi-Šu[gab] (during Nazi-Maruttaš’ reign) . Nazi-Enlil (during Nazi-Maruttaš’ reign) . Ninurta-apla-idinna, son of Nazi-Enlil (Nazi-Maruttaš or later, Kadašman-Turgu, 1281–1264 BC, Kadašman-Enlil, 1263–1255 BC) . Amil-Marduk (from Kudur-Enlil, 1254–1246 BC, until Šagarakti-Šuriaš’ reign, 1245–1233 BC) . Enlil-zākir-šumi (during the reign of Adad-šuma-iddina, 1222–1217 BC) . Enlil-šuma-imbī, son of Daian-Marduk (during the reign of Adad-šuma-uṣur, 1216–1187 BC) The officials with this title in the post-Kassite period: . Nusku-zêra-iddina (Nabû-šumu-libūr year 1 or 1033 BC) . Nazi-Enlil (during Marduk-zâkir-šumi’s reign, 855-819 BC) . Enlil-apla-uṣur, son of Nazi-Enlil (during the reign of Marduk-balāssu-iqbi, 819–813 BC) . Kudurru (during the reigns of Nabu-naṣir, 747–732 BC, and Nabû-mukin-zēri, 731–729 BC) . Ēṭeru and Ērešu (around the time of Kudurru) . ? Šuma-idinna (executed by Esarhaddon in his sixth year, 675 BC) . Enlil-bāni, Šamaš-šum-ukin's seventh year, c. 660 BC . Enlil-šāpik-zēri (apparently of Ṣurru near Uruk and not actually Nippur, during the reign of Nabû-kudurri-uṣur II, 634-562 BC) . Nabû-šumu-ēreš (during the reign of Nabû-naʾid, 556-539 BC) . Širiktu-Ninurta (from last year of Nabû-naʾid [539 BC] until the accession year of Darius I [522 BC]) Inscriptions 1. ^ Lexical lists such as IM 77106, 12 N 129 OIP 122 text 119, obv.4. 2. ^ BM 92699, votive prism. 3. ^ Tablet CBS 19796, BE XVII no. 91. 4. ^ Cylinder seal of Uballissu-Marduk BM 122696. 5. ^ Tablet UM 29-15-653. 6. ^ CBS 12914, BE 14, no. 39, line 1. 7. ^ The Estate of Takil-ana-ilīšu kudurru, BM 90827. 8. ^ Legal tablet BM 139424. 9. ^ Kudurru AO 6684 in the Louvre, published as RA 16 (1919) 125–126. 10. ^ 4 N-T 3:11'.
  10. Title: Wikiwand: Utu
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Utu;
    Note: Utu, later worshipped by East Semitic peoples as Shamash, was the ancient Mesopotamian Sun god - god of justice, morality, and truth, and the twin of the goddess Inanna, the Queen of Heaven. His main temples were in the cities of Sippar and Larsa. He was believed to ride through the heavens in his sun chariot and see all things that happened in the day. He was the enforcer of divine justice and was thought to aid those in distress. According to Sumerian mythology, he helped protect Dumuzid when the galla demons tried to drag him to the Underworld and he appeared to the hero Ziusudra after the Great Flood. In the "Epic of Gilgamesh," he helps Gilgamesh defeat the ogre Humbaba. Family Utu was the twin brother of Inanna, the Queen of Heaven, whose domain encompassed a broad variety of different powers. In Sumerian texts, Inanna and Utu are shown as extremely close; in fact, their relationship frequently borders on incestuous. Utu is usually the son of Nanna, the god of the moon, and his wife, Ningal, but is sometimes also described as the son of An or Enlil. His wife was the goddess Sherida, later known in Akkadian as Aya. Sherida was a goddess of beauty, fertility, and sexual love, possibly because light was seen as inherently beautiful, or because of the sun's role in promoting agricultural fertility. They were believed to have two offspring: the goddess Kittu, whose name means "Truth," and the god Misharu, whose name means "Justice." By the time of the Old Babylonian Period (c. 1830 – c. 1531 BC), Sherida, and consequently Utu, was associated with nadītu, an order of cloistered women who devoted their lives to the gods. Utu's charioteer Bunene is sometimes described as his son. Bunene was worshipped independently from Utu as a god of justice in Sippar and Uruk during the Old Babylonian Period and, in later times, he was also worshipped at Assur. Worship Utu was worshipped in Sumer from the very earliest times. The oldest documents mentioning him date to around 3500 BC, during the first stages of Sumerian writing. His main temples, which were both known as E-babbar ("White House"), were located in Sippar and in Larsa. Utu continued to be venerated until the end of Mesopotamian culture and was worshipped for well over 3,000 years. Utu's main personality characteristics are his kindness and generosity, but, like all other Mesopotamian deities, he was not above refusing a request which inconvenienced him. In the Hurro-Akkadian bilingual Weidner god list, Utu is equated with the Hurrian sun-god Šimigi. In the Ugaritic trilingual version of the Weidner god list, Šimigi and Utu are both equated with Lugalbanda. Iconography In Sumerian texts, Utu is described as "bearded" and "long-armed." In art, he is shown as an old man with a long beard. He was believed to emerge from the doors of Heaven every day at dawn and ride across the sky in his chariot before returning to the "interior of heaven" through a set of doors in the far west every evening. Utu's charioteer was named Bunene. Cylinder seals often show two gods holding the doors open for him as he wields his weapon, the pruning-saw, a double-edged arch-shaped saw with large, jagged teeth, representing his role as the god of justice. Utu's main symbol was the solar disc, a circle with four points in each of the cardinal directions and four wavy, diagonal lines emanating from the circle between each point. This symbol represented the light, warmth, and power of the sun. Mythology The Sumerians believed that, as he rode through heaven, Utu saw everything that happened in the world. Alongside his sister Inanna, Utu was the enforcer of divine justice.[7] At night, Utu was believed to travel through the Underworld as he journeyed to the east in preparation for the sunrise. One Sumerian literary work refers to Utu illuminating the Underworld and dispensing judgement there and Shamash Hymn 31 (BWL 126) states that Utu serves as a judge of the dead in the Underworld alongside the malku, kusu, and the Anunnaki. On his way through the Underworld, Utu was believed to pass through the garden of the sun-god, which contained trees that bore precious gems as fruit. Utu was believed to take an active role in human affairs, and was thought to aid those in distress. In one of his earliest appearances in literature, in the "Myth of Etana," written before the conquest of Sargon of Akkad (c. 2334–2284 BC), the hero Etana invokes Utu to help his wife conceive a child. In the Sumerian poem "The Dream of Dumuzid," Utu intervenes to rescue Inanna's husband Dumuzid from the "galla" demons who are hunting him. In the Sumerian flood myth, Utu emerges after the flood waters begin to subside, causing Ziusudra, the hero of the story, to throw open a window on his boat and fall down prostrate before him. Ziusudra sacrifices a sheep and an ox to Utu for delivering him to salvation. In the Sumerian King List, one of the early kings of Uruk is described as "the son of Utu" and Utu seems to have served as a special protector to several of that city's later kings. In the Sumerian poem of "Gilgamesh and Huwawa," the hero Gilgamesh asks Utu to assist him in his journey to the Cedar Mountain. In this version, Gilgamesh asks Utu's help because Utu is associated with the Cedar Mountain, which is implied to be located in the far east, the land where the sun rises. Utu is initially reluctant to help, but, after Gilgamesh explains that he is doing this because he intends to establish his name, because he knows he will eventually die, Utu agrees. Once Gilgamesh reaches the Cedar Mountain, Utu helps him defeat the ogre Huwawa, who lives there. In the standard Babylonian "Epic of Gilgamesh," Gilgamesh's plan to visit the Cedar Mountain is still his own idea and he goes to Shamash for aid. In this version, however, the Cedar Mountain is explicitly stated to be located in the northwest, in Lebanon. Shamash helps Gilgamesh defeat Humbaba (the East Semitic name for Huwawa). Jeffrey H. Tigay suggests that Lugalbanda's association with the sun-god in the Old Babylonian version of the epic strengthened "the impression that at one point in the history of the tradition the sun-god was also invoked as an ancestor"." In the Sumerian version, Gilgamesh's initial quest is to visit the Cedar Mountain and Humbaba is merely an obstacle that Gilgamesh and Enkidu encounter once they have already arrived there, but, in the Babylonian version, defeating Humbaba is the initial quest on which the heroes embark. In a late version of the Gilgamesh story, Shamash becomes the instigator of the quest, the one who instructs Gilgamesh to go slay Humbaba to begin with. Tigay describes this as the "final and logical development of [Shamash's] role." Later influence The authors of the Hebrew Bible generally attempt to portray the sun in a non-anthropomorphic manner, sometimes using it as a symbol of Yahweh's power. The Hebrew word for "sun," "šapaš" or "šemeš," often is substituted for euphemisms, such as the word or, meaning "light." These authors appear to have made a conscious effort to avoid implications of sun worship, even of a Yahwistic variety, at all costs. Specifically, God creates the "greater light," the "lesser light," and the stars. According to Victor Hamilton, most scholars agree that the choice of "greater light" and "lesser light," rather than the more explicit "Sun" and "Moon," is anti-mythological rhetoric intended to contradict widespread contemporary beliefs that the Sun and the Moon were deities themselves. However, the Woman of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, may directly allude to ancient Near Eastern sun goddesses.
  11. Title: Wikiwand: Karduniaš
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kardunia%C5%A1;
    Note: Karduniaš, also transcribed Karduniash, Karaduniyaš or Karaduniše), is a Kassite term used for the kingdom centered on Babylonia and founded by the Kassite dynasty. It is used in the 1350-1335 BC Amarna letters correspondence, and is also used frequently in Middle-Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian texts to refer to the kingdom of Babylon. The name Karaduniyaš is mainly used in the letters written between Kadashman-Enlil I, or Burna-Buriash, the Kings of Babylon, and the Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt-(called: Mizri), letters EA 1-EA 11, a subcorpus of letters, (EA for 'el Amarna'). Much later, a version of the name was used in the Babylonian Talmud as Kardunya referring to similar locations. There are two additional letters in the 382–letter Amarna corpus that reference Karaduniyaš. The first is a damaged, and partial letter, EA 200, (with no author), regarding "Ahlameans," (similar to the Suteans); the title is: "About Ahlameans." The second letter is complete and undamaged, a letter from one of the sons of Labaya, namely Mutbaal-(Mut-Bahli, or Mut-Ba'lu), letter EA 255. Two example letters of "Karaduniyaš" EA 255, Mutbaal letter no. 1 of 2, title: "No destination too far" Letter 255 by Mutbaal, about caravans, seems to imply that his location in western Jordan, (as "Mayor of Pihilu"-(modern Pella, Jordan)), was an important trade route to the east to Babylonia, or north to Mittani. "Say [t]o the king, [my] lord and my Sun: Thus Mut-Bahl[u], your servant, the dirt at your feet, the mire you tread on. I fall at the feet of the king, my lord, 7 times and 7 times. The king, my lord, sent Haaya to me to say, "A caravan to Hanagalbat-(Mitanni), is this (man) to send on, and (all of you) send it on!" Who am I that I would not send on a caravan of the king, my lord, seeing that [La]b 'ayu, my father, [used to ser]ve the king, his lord, [and] he [himself] used to send on [all the carav]ans [that] the king [would se]nd to Hanagalbat. Let the king, my lord, send a caravan even to Karaduniyaš. I will personally conduct it under very heavy guard." -EA 255, lines 1-25 (complete) EA 9, Burna-Buriash letter no. 4 of 6, title: "Ancient loyalties, new request" (Para I, 1-6) "Say- (qabu (qí-bil-ma)) to Nibhurrereya, the king of Egy[pt-(Mizri), my brother ]: '(message)-Thus'-(um-ma), Thus, the king of Karad[un]iyaš, your brother. For me all goes well. For you, your household, your wives, your sons, your country, your ma[g]nates, your horses, your chariots, may all go very well." (Para II, 7-18) "From the time my ancestors and your ancestors made a mutual declaration of friendship, they sen[t] beautiful greeting-gifts to each other, and refused no request for anything beautiful. My brother has now sent me 2–minas of gold as my greeting-gift. Now, (i)f gold is plentiful, overflowing, send me as much as your ancestors (sent), but if it is scarce, send me half of what your ancestors (sent). Why have you sent me 2–minas of gold? At the moment my work on a temple is extensive, and I am quite busy with carrying it out. Send me much gold. And you for your part, whatever you want from my country, write me so that it may be taken to you." (Para III, 19-38) "In the time of Kurigalzu, my ancestor, all the Canaanites wrote here to him, saying, 'C[om]e to the border of the country so we can revolt and be allied [wi]th you!' My ancestor sent them this (reply), saying, 'Forget about being allied with me. If you become enemies of the king of Egypt, and are allied with anyone else—will I not then come and plunder you? How can there be an alliance with me?' – For the sake of your ancestor, my ancestor did not listen to them. Now, as for my Assyrian vassals-(i.e. Ashur-uballit I, king), I was not the one who sent them to you. Why on their own authority have they come to your country? If you love me, they will conduct no business whatsoever. Send them off to me empty–handed. I send to you as your greeting-gift 3–minas of genuine lapis lazuli, and 5–teams of horses for 5–wooden chariots." -EA 9, lines 1-38 (3 paragraphs) (complete)
  12. Title: Jstor: LITERATURE AS POLITICS: THE TUKULTI-NINURTA EPIC AND THE BIBLE
    Note: Peter Machinist The Catholic Biblical Quarterly Vol. 38, No. 4 (OCTOBER 1976), pp. 455-482 Published by: Catholic Biblical Association https://www.jstor.org/stable/43714404 Page Count: 28
  13. Title: Wikiwand: Mitanni
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Mitanni;
    Note: Mitanni (/mɪˈtæni/; Hittite cuneiform "KUR URUMi-ta-an-ni"; Mittani "Mi-it-ta-ni"), also called Hanigalbat ("Hanigalbat," "Khanigalbat," cuneiform "Ḫa-ni-gal-bat") in Assyrian or Naharin in Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia from c. 1500 to 1300 BC. Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Amorite Babylon and a series of ineffectual Assyrian kings created a power vacuum in Mesopotamia. At the beginning of its history, Mitanni's major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. However, with the ascent of the Hittite Empire, Mitanni and Egypt struck an alliance to protect their mutual interests from the threat of Hittite domination. At the height of its power, during the 14th century BC, Mitanni had outposts centered on its capital, Washukanni, whose location has been determined by archaeologists to be on the headwaters of the Khabur River. The Mitanni dynasty ruled over the northern Euphrates-Tigris region between c. 1475 and c. 1275 BC. Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite and later Assyrian attacks and was reduced to the status of a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire. While the Mitanni kings were Indo-Aryan, they used the language of the local people, which was at that time a non-Indo-European language, Hurrian. Their sphere of influence is shown in Hurrian place names, personal names and the spread through Syria and the Levant of a distinct pottery type. Geography The Mitanni controlled trade routes down the Khabur to Mari and up the Euphrates from there to Carchemish. For a time they also controlled the Assyrian territories of the upper Tigris and its headwaters at Nineveh, Erbil, Assur and Nuzi. Their allies included Kizuwatna in southeastern Anatolia; Mukish, which stretched between Ugarit and Quatna west of the Orontes to the sea; and the Niya, which controlled the east bank of the Orontes from Alalah down through Aleppo, Ebla and Hama to Qatna and Kadesh. To the east, they had good relations with the Kassites. The land of Mitanni in northern Syria extended from the Taurus mountains to its west and as far east as Nuzi (modern Kirkuk) and the river Tigris in the east. In the south, it extended from Aleppo across ("Nuhasse") to Mari on the Euphrates in the east. Its center was in the Khabur River valley, with two capitals: Taite and Washukanni, called "Taidu" and "Ussukana" respectively in Assyrian sources. The whole area supported agriculture without artificial irrigation and cattle, sheep and goats were raised. It is very similar to Assyria in climate, and was settled by both indigenous Hurrian and Amoritic-speaking ("Amurru") populations. Name The Mitanni kingdom was referred to as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni by the Egyptians, the Hurri by the Hittites, and the Hanigalbat by the Assyrians. The different names seem to have referred to the same kingdom and were used interchangeably, according to Michael C. Astour. Hittite annals mention a people called "Hurri" ("Ḫu-ur-ri"), located in northeastern Syria. A Hittite fragment, probably from the time of Mursili I, mentions a "King of the Hurri." The Assyro-Akkadian version of the text renders "Hurri" as "Hanigalbat." Tushratta, who styles himself "King of Mitanni" in his Akkadian Amarna letters, refers to his kingdom as Hanigalbat. Egyptian sources call Mitanni "nhrn," which usually is pronounced "Naharin(a)," from the Assyro-Akkadian word for "river," cf. "Aram-Naharaim." The name "Mitanni" is first found in the "memoirs" of the Syrian wars (c. 1480 BC) of the official astronomer and clockmaker Amenemhet, who returned from the "foreign country called 'Me-ta-ni'" at the time of Thutmose I. The expedition to the Naharina announced by Thutmosis I at the beginning of his reign actually may have taken place during the long previous reign of Amenhotep I. Helck believes that this was the expedition mentioned by Amenhotep II. People The ethnicity of the people of Mitanni is difficult to ascertain. A treatise on the training of chariot horses by Kikkuli, a Mitanni writer, contains a number of Indo-Aryan glosses. Kammenhuber [de] suggested that this vocabulary was derived from the still undivided Indo-Iranian language, but Mayrhofer has shown that specifically Indo-Aryan features are present. The names of the Mitanni aristocracy frequently are of Indo-Aryan origin, and their deities also show Indo-Aryan roots (Mitra, Varuna, Indra, Nasatya), though some think that they are more immediately related to the Kassites. The common people's language, the Hurrian language, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic. Hurrian is related to Urartian, the language of Urartu, both belonging to the Hurro-Urartian language family. It had been held that nothing more can be deduced from current evidence. A Hurrian passage in the Amarna letters – usually composed in Akkadian, the "lingua franca" of the day – indicates that the royal family of Mitanni was by then speaking Hurrian as well. Bearers of names in the Hurrian language are attested in wide areas of Syria and the northern Levant that are clearly outside the area of the political entity known to Assyria as "Hanilgalbat." There is no indication that these persons owed allegiance to the political entity of Mitanni; although the German term "Auslandshurriter" ("Hurrian expatriates") has been used by some authors. In the 14th century BC numerous city-states in northern Syria and Canaan were ruled by persons with Hurrian and some Indo-Aryan names. If this can be taken to mean that the population of these states was Hurrian as well, then it is possible that these entities were a part of a larger polity with a shared Hurrian identity. This is often assumed, but without a critical examination of the sources. Differences in dialect and regionally different pantheons ("Hepat/Shawushka," "Sharruma/Tilla," etc.) point to the existence of several groups of Hurrian speakers. History No native sources for the history of Mitanni have been found so far. The account is mainly based on Assyrian, Hittite, and Egyptian sources, as well as inscriptions from nearby places in Syria. Often it is not even possible to establish synchronicity between the rulers of different countries and cities, let alone give uncontested absolute dates. The definition and history of Mitanni is further beset by a lack of differentiation between linguistic, ethnic and political groups. Summary It is believed that the warring Hurrian tribes and city states became united under one dynasty after the collapse of Babylon due to its sacking by Hittite king Mursili I, and the Kassite invasion. The Hittite conquest of Aleppo (Yamhad), the weak middle Assyrian kings who succeeded Puzur-Ashur III, and the internal strife of the Hittites had created a power vacuum in upper Mesopotamia. This led to the formation of the kingdom of Mitanni. King Barattarna of Mitanni expanded the kingdom west to Aleppo and made the Canaanite King Idrimi of Alalakh his vassal. The state of Kizzuwatna in the west also shifted its allegiance to Mitanni, and Assyria in the east had become largely a Mitannian vassal state by the mid-15th century BC. The nation grew stronger during the reign of Shaushtatar, but the Hurrians were keen to keep the Hittites inside the Anatolian highland. Kizzuwatna in the west and Ishuwa in the north were important allies against the hostile Hittites. After a few successful clashes with the Egyptians over the control of Syria, Mitanni sought peace with them, and an alliance was formed. During the reign of Shuttarna, in the early 14th century BC, the relationship was very amicable, and he sent his daughter Gilu-Hepa to Egypt for a marriage with Pharaoh Amenhotep III. Mitanni was now at its peak of power. However, by the reign of Eriba-Adad I (1390–1366 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 II, who called himself king of the Hurri while seeking support from the Assyrians. A pro-Hurri/Assyria faction appeared at the royal Mitanni court. Eriba-Adad I had thus loosened Mitanni influence over Assyria, and in turn had now made Assyria an influence over Mitanni affairs. King Ashur-Uballit I (1365–1330 BC) of Assyria attacked Shuttarna and annexed Mitanni territory in the middle of the 14th century BC, making Assyria once more a great power. At the death of Shuttarna, Mitanni was ravaged by a war of succession. Eventually Tushratta, a son of Shuttarna, ascended the throne, but the kingdom had been weakened considerably and both the Hittite and Assyrian threats increased. At the same time, the diplomatic relationship with Egypt went cold, the Egyptians fearing the growing power of the Hittites and Assyrians. The Hittite king Suppiluliuma I invaded the Mitanni vassal states in northern Syria and replaced them with loyal subjects. In the capital Washukanni, a new power struggle broke out. The Hittites and the Assyrians supported different pretenders to the throne. Finally a Hittite army conquered the capital Washukanni and installed Shattiwaza, the son of Tushratta, as their vassal king of Mitanni in the late 14th century BC. The kingdom had by now been reduced to the Khabur Valley. The Assyrians had not given up their claim on Mitanni, and in the 13th century BC, Shalmaneser I annexed the kingdom. Early kingdom As early as Akkadian times, Hurrians are known to have lived east of the river Tigris on the northern rim of Mesopotamia, and in the Khabur Valley. The group which became Mitanni gradually moved south into Mesopotamia before the 17th century BC. Hurrians are mentioned in the private Nuzi texts, in Ugarit, and the Hittite archives in Hattusa (Boğazköy). Cuneiform texts from Mari mention rulers of city-states in upper Mesopotamia with both Amurru (Amorite) and Hurrian names. Rulers with Hurrian names are also attested for Urshum and Hassum, and t..
  14. Title: Wikiwand: Adad-nirari I
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Adad-nirari_I;
    Note: Adad-nārārī I, rendered in all but two inscriptions ideographically as "adad-"ZAB+DAḪ, meaning "Adad (is) my helper," (1307–1275 BC or 1295–1263 BC short chronology) was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire. He is the earliest Assyrian king whose annals survive in any detail. Adad-nārārī I achieved major military victories that further strengthened Assyria. In his inscriptions from Assur he calls himself son of Arik-den-ili, the same filiations being recorded in the Nassouhi kinglist. He is recorded as a son of lIlil-nerari in the Khorsabad kinglist and the SDAS kinglist, probably in error. Biography He boasted that he was the "defeater of the heroic armies of the Kassites (their Babylonian neighbors to the south), Qutu (their eastern Gutean neighbors), Lullumu (the Lullubi tribesmen of Ancient Iran immediately east of Assyria) and Shubaru ("northerners in Asia Minor"). Pacifier of all enemies above and below." The defeat of Nazi-Maruttaš’ Kassite forces must have been particularly sweet as his father "could not rectify the calamities inflicted by the king of the Kassite lands," during his reign. It took place at the town of Kār Ištar in the province of Ugarsulu and victory was assured when Adad Nirari's army fell on the Kassite camp "like a devastating flood," as described gloatingly by Tukulti-Ninurta I in his eponymous epic, plundering and carrying off his royal standard. This triumph resulted in a border realignment with Assyria extending its territory south, into Pilasqu, the city of Arman in Ugarsallu and Lullumu. Nazi-Maruttaš’ successor, Kadašman-Turgu was motivated sufficiently to secure peace that he seems to have agreed to a humiliating treaty with Adad Nirari where "he pardoned his (Nazi-Maruttaš’) son of the crime," twice. This allowed the Assyrians to turn their attention to the conquest of the Mitanni. Under Shattiwaza, Hanigalbat (a remnant of the Mitanni empire) had become a vassal state of the Hittite empire, celebrated with a treaty, as a buffer to the ascendant Assyrians. But treaties were between individual kings during the late bronze age as nation states had yet to emerge and with the accession of Shattuara I in Hanigalbat and Urhi Teššup as Mursili III of the Hittites and a waning of Hittite engagement in international affairs, the former may have sought to adopt a more independent position. According to Adad-nārārī, conflict was triggered by Shattuara’s preemptive attack which resulted in the defeat and capture of the Mitanni king Shattuara, who was taken to Aššur and forced to swear fealty as a vassal of the Assyrians, apparently without the intervention of the Hittites, providing regular tribute for the remainder of his reign. Bolstered by his military victories, Adad-nārārī pronounced himself "šar kiššati," "king of the universe," in imitation of his ancient predecessor Shamshi-Adad I, and impertinently greeted his Hittite counterpart on equal terms as a fellow "great king." He invited himself to visit Amman Mountain (Amanus, a cult center perhaps?) in his "brother’s" territory, drawing a scathing put down from Hittite king Urhi Teššup, "So you’ve become a 'Great King,' have you? But why do you still continue to speak about 'brotherhood' and about coming to Mt. Ammana?... For what reason should I call you 'brother'?…Do those who are not on familiar terms with each other call each other 'brother'? Why then should I call you 'brother'? Were you and I born of the same mother? As my grandfather and my father did not call the King of Assyria 'brother,' you should not keep writing to me (about) 'coming' and 'Great King-ship.' It displeases me." By the time Hittite king Hattušili (c. 1267–1237 BC) overthrew Urhi Teššup, the conquest was a fait accomplishment and a sheepish Hattušili was to request that Adad-nārārī intervene to curb the incursions of the people of Turira, a Hanigalbat frontier town, against those of Carchemish, still a loyal Hittite vassal, "If Turira is yours, smash it!... If Turira is not yours, write to me so that I may smash it. The possessions of your troops who are dwelling in the city shall not be claimed." Hattušili's main complaint, however, was the breach in protocol caused when Adad-nārārī snubbed his inauguration: "It is the custom that when kings assume kingship, the kings, his equals in rank, send him appropriate [gifts of greeting]. Clothing befitting kingship, and fine [oil] for his anointing. But you did not do this today." Hattušili was at great pains to placate his Assyrian counterpart following the "sad experiences" encountered by his envoys in their dealings with his predecessor and call on Adad-nārārī to confirm with his own envoy, Bel-qarrad, that he had been treated well by Hattušili. Although still in the Bronze Age, iron was not unknown and Hattušili goes on to discuss Adad-nārārī's request for the metal: "In regard to the good iron about which you wrote to me – good iron is not available in my armory in the city of Kizzuwatna. I have written that it is a bad time for making iron. They will make good iron, but they have not yet finished it. When they finish it, I will send it to you. For the moment, I have sent you a dagger blade of iron." Conflict with Hanigalbat resumed when Shattuara's son, Wasashatta, rebelled and engaged with the Hittites for support. Adad-nārārī was later to gloat that the Hittites took his gifts but gave nothing in return when he (Adad-nārārī) counterattacked, sacking and plundering the cities of Amasaku, Kahat, Shuru, Nabula, Hurra, Irridu, Shuduhu and Washshukanu, places largely as yet unidentified, destroying the city of Taida and sowing kudimmus over it. The denouement took place at Irridu (Ordi?) where Wasashatta was captured and, along with his extended family and court, deported in fetters to Aššur where he vanished from history. Adad-nārārī annexed the kingdom of Hanigalbat, enslaved its people, and appointed a governor drawn from the Assyrian aristocracy. While the name of this individual is unknown, one of his successors, during the later reign of Šulmanu-ašaredu, was Qibi Assur who founded a short dynasty of Assyrian viceroys ruling over this region. The seat of Assyrian governance was possibly Wasashatta's former capital, Taida, because his monumental steles recounted that it "had become dilapidated and (he) removed its debris. (He) restored it," rebuilding the palace replete with a suitably boastful commemorative inscription prepared but never installed as it was found in the ruins of Assur. His building restorations in the city of Assur were celebrated in monumental inscriptions and include the Step Gate of the temple of the god Ashur, various of the city's walls, its quay along the river Tigris, the temple of Ishtar and the storehouses of the gate of An and Adad. His reign lasted for 31 years, but only around 12 Limmu officials, from the Assyrian Eponym dating system have been identified, primarily from monumental inscriptions, and these include Shulmanu-qarradu, Andarasina, Ashur-eresh, variant Ashur-erish (son of Abattu), Ana-Ashur-qalla (officer of the palace), Iti-ili-ashamshu, Sha-Adad-ninu, Qarrad-Ashur, Assur-dammiq, Sin-n[a....], Ninurta-emuqaya, Bābu-aḫa-iddina and Adad-šumu-lesir, the eponym in whose year he died. Bābu-aḫa-iddina was a high-ranking official, some sources say "chancellor," son of Ibassi-ili, who served under Adad-nārārī and his two successors. He celebrated his eponym year towards the end of Adad-nārārī's reign as attested in texts relating the activities of Assur-kasid son of Sin-apla-eris at Billa. His archive, called "archive 14410," consisting of 60 tablets was found in a tomb under a house in Assur. A bronze sword of Adad-nārārī I can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Adad-nārārī epic This historical epic is extant in four fragments and concerns the conflict between Adad-nārārī and his Babylonian contemporary Nazi-Maruttash, with whom he clashes and ultimately vanquishes in battle. The surviving pieces do not allow for a detailed narrative to be reconstructed. They do, however, suggest a sequence of events, where Adad-nārārī harks back to the setbacks faced by his father, "the seed of the men has disappeared forever," his petitioning of the god Šamaš, "O Šamaš you are the true judge," in preparation for his denouement with "the unjust Kassite king," and so on. Inscriptions 1. ^ Nassouhi kinglist, iii 23. 2. ^ Khorsabad kinglist iii 17. 3. ^ SDAS kinglist, iii 8. 4. ^ Axe blade, AO 29146. 5. ^ "Tukulti-Ninurta Epic," extant in several fragments, for example BM 98496, BM 98730, BM 98731 and BM 121033 in the British Museum. 6. ^ "Synchronistic Chronicle" (ABC 21) tablet C, column 1, lines 24 to 31. 7. ^ Tablet VAT 15420. 8. ^ a b BM 115687 dark grey stone in the British Museum, inscribed on all six sides. 9. ^ Tablet 7499, text KUB 23:102, Urhi Teššup letter to Adad-nārārī, see Bryce (2003), p. 87 note 21 for summary of provenance. 10. ^ Tablet KBo I:14 Hattušili letter to Adad-Nirari. 11. ^ Assur 5764 and 9309. 12. ^ Tablet KAJ 262, Urad-serua #23 corn loan. 13. ^ Tablet KAJ 77, Urad-serua #53 corn loan. 14. ^ Tablet KAJ 76, Urad-serua #11 corn loan. 15. ^ Tablets Rm 293, in the Rassum siglum in the British Museum and VAT 10084, VAT 9820 and VAT 10889 in the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin.
  15. Title: Wikiwand: Kadashman-Turgu
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kadashman-Turgu;
    Note: Kadašman-Turgu, inscribed "Ka-da-aš-ma-an Túr-gu" and meaning "he believes in Turgu," a Kassite deity, (1281–1264 BC short chronology) was the 24th king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty of Babylon. He succeeded his father, Nazi-Maruttaš, continuing the tradition of proclaiming himself "king of the world" and went on to reign for eighteen years. He was a contemporary of the Hittite king Ḫattušili III, with whom he concluded a formal treaty of friendship and mutual assistance, and also Ramesses II with whom he consequently severed diplomatic relations. Kadašman-Turgu reigned during momentous times, but seems to have played only a peripheral role. Ḫattušili III, in a letter to his son and successor Kadašman-Enlil II, said of him, "they used to call [your father] a king who prepares for war but then stays at home." His personal seal included suckling animals in two registers, allegorically symbolizing his care for his subjects. The continued employment of the extinct Sumerian language in royal votive inscriptions was in decline and the Babylonian calendar was under revision with the introduction of the Akkadian term: "Šanat rēš šarrūti," “accession year." Relations with Assyria Early in his reign, he brokered a treaty with the Assyrian king Adad-Nīrāri, preserved on a fragmentary clay tablet where the phrase "he pardoned his son of the crime" appears twice. Kadašman-Enlil’s father, Nazi-Maruttaš had been engaged in a protracted war with both Adad-Nīrāri and his father Arik-den-ili which had reached its dénouement in a battle at "Kār-Ištar of Ugarsallu." This settlement perhaps explains why there were no reports of any conflict between the Babylonians and Assyrians during this time. It also freed the Assyrians to turn their attention to conquering their westerly neighbor and former overlord the Mitanni. The Hittite succession He would no doubt have been aware of the Battle of Kadesh, in 1274, the dramatic climax of the Hittite conflict with Egypt and probably the largest chariot battle ever fought. The Hittite king Muwatalli II died around 1272 and was succeeded by his son, Urḫi-Teššup, who took the name Mursili III, and reigned for seven years. But he found himself increasingly at odds with his uncle, Ḫattušili III, the heroic general of Kadesh, who eventually overthrew him. In the first instance, Urḫi-Teššup seems to have appealed to Kadašman-Turgu for support, before turning to the Assyrians and finally seeking asylum at the court of Ramesses. First, Ḫattušili demanded the handover of the fugitive. Then he sought support from Kadašman-Turgu complaining of the pharaoh's lack of complicity. Kadašman-Turgu was apparently sympathetic and willing to recognize the usurper as Hatti's legitimate king, motivated perhaps more by the need for a strong alliance with the Hittites to counter the threat of the Assyrians and maintain the uneasy peace. He promised to provide Ḫattušili with military support in any conflict with Egypt and "kept the messenger of the king of Egypt at bay," i.e., terminated diplomatic links. According to Ḫattušili, they agreed that "the survivor shall protect the children of the one who goes first to his fate." Relations must have warmed for at least a short time, before Kadašman-Turgu died, because Ḫattušili records in a letter to Kadašman-Enlil that his father loaned to the Hittite the services of a sculptor, who was subsequently returned. He had earlier loaned a physician named Rabâ-ša-Marduk and an exorcist to Ḫattušili’s brother Muwatalli II ("as for the exorcist about whom my brother wrote me, saying 'the exorcist whom my brother wrote me has arrived […] and has begun the ritual'" but these experts were never returned ("perhaps the exorcist has died"). Domestic affairs His construction efforts are witnessed at the E’igi-kalama ziggurat of the tutelary deity Lugalmarada, in the city of Marad, and also in the ziggurat area at Nippur. The eighteen-year reign is confirmed by progression of date formulae appearing on more than a hundred economic texts, such as those of Irîmshu-Ninurta, a prominent official in Nippur, who recorded ten storehouse transactions, from Kadašman-Turgu’s reign, to that of his successor, his son Kadašman-Enlil II, in which he receives incoming taxes, he grants loans, and pays salaries to other officers. Chronological problems An economic text, first published in 1982 by Veysel Donbaz, has presented a chronological dilemma regarding the sequence of succession from Kadašman-Turgu to Kadašman-Enlil as it seems to place Kadašman-Enlil’s succession year in the past whilst describing events too recent to be explained by harking back to the earlier monarch, Kadašman-Enlil I, whose reign ended 90 years before the date (1270 BC) on this document. It describes the exchange of goods and real estate between Kidin-Gula and his son Martuku with Arad-Marduk. It provides the following heading at the start and a similar summary at the end: "From the month Tašrītu of the accession year of Kadašman-Enlil to the twelfth year of Kadašman-Turgu, king." — A.1998, lines 2–4 Brinkman argues that the evidence for the traditional sequence, i.e. votive inscriptions of Kadašman-Enlil, son of Kadašman-Turgu and other contemporary documents, "is too strong simply to set aside." In contrast, Boese suggests another Kadašman-Enlil may have briefly preceded the pair. The text comes from the archive of Itti-Ezida-lummir in Babylon (Pedersén M8) which also contains a text that may be from the 10th year of Kadašman-Ḫarbe II, a king recorded as having only reigned for less than 2 years, and, for this reason, Werner Nahm suggests they are both ancient fabrications. The title to real estate pledged as security to debt valued in copper, rather than the gold or silver citations of the period, reflects a later era after 1175 BC, when the trade routes for these precious metals had been compromised and supports doubts about its authenticity. Inscriptions 1. ^ AO 4633 Small horse-head figure with blue glaze inscribed "Ka-da-aš-ma-an Túr-gu, LUGAL ŠÁR." 2. ^ According to the Kinglist A tablet, BM 33332, column 2, line 3, in the British Museum, but note the name is mostly obliterated. 3. ^ "Letter from Ḫattušili III to Kadašman-Enlil II," Bo 1802 KBo 1:10 r52: "šarru ša giš.tukul.hi.a.iššaknūma [uššabu]," “A king who sat home when there is a war.” 4. ^ VAT 9672 tablet with seal impression recovered from Assur. 5. ^ Tablet Ni.435 from Nippur 6. ^ Tablet VAT 15420. 7. ^ Fragment VAT 14400 copy of VAT 15420: mar-šu i-na hi-ti u-zak-ki, “he pardoned his son for the crime.” 8. ^ "Aynchronistic Chronicle" (ABC 21) tablet C, column 1, lines 24 to 31 9. ^ " Apology of Ḫattušili III" §11, “I submitted for seven years”. 10. ^ "Apology of Ḫattušili III," §12, IV 34–5, “He would have plotted another plot, and driven to the land of Babylon, but when I heard the matter, I seized him, and I sent him to the sea coast.” 11. ^ Kadašman-Turgu letter to Ḫattušili III (tablet Bo 6358 / KUB 3:71 / CTH 174) (Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin) 12. ^ Tablet A.1998 A. (= Bab 39031): "ul-tu ITI.DU6.KÙ ša MU.SAG NAM.LUGAL Ka-daš-man-dEN-LÍL a-di" MU.12.KÁM "Ka-daš-man-Túr-gu" LUGAL. 13. ^ Bab 39045.
  16. Title: Wikiwand: Kurigalzu II
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kurigalzu_II;
    Note: Kurigalzu II (c. 1332–1308 BC short chronology) was the 22nd king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty that ruled over Babylon. In more than twelve inscriptions, Kurigalzu names Burna-Buriaš II as his father. Kurigalzu II was placed on the Kassite throne by the Assyrian king Aššur-Uballiṭ I, reigned during a period of weakness and instability for twenty five years, eventually turning on his former allies and quite possibly defeating them at the battle of Sugagu. He was once thought to have been the conqueror of the Elamites but this now tends to be assigned to the earlier king of this name, together with the "Chronicle P" account.
  17. Title: Wikiwand: Tudḫaliya IV
    Author: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Tud%E1%B8%ABaliya_IV
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Tud%E1%B8%ABaliya_IV;
    Note: Tudhaliya IV was a king of the Hittite Empire (New kingdom), and the younger son of Hattusili III. He reigned c. 1237–1209 BCE. His mother was the great queen, Puduhepa. Biography Tudhaliya likely was born in his father's court in Hattusa, after his brother and crown prince Nerikkaili, but still while their father was governing on his brother Muwatalli II's behalf. He was a good friend of Muwatalli's son, Kurunta, and Hattusili ordered that they stay on good terms. Tudhaliya was likely born in his father's court in Hattusa, after his brother and crown prince Nerikkaili, but still while their father was governing on his brother Muwatalli II's behalf. He was a good friend of Muwatalli's son, Kurunta, and Hattusili ordered that they stay on good terms. After Hattusili as King wrote up a treaty with "Ulmi-Tessup" which confirmed Kurunta's rule over Tarhuntassa, Hattusili elevated Tudhaliya over his older brother to be his crown prince. Tudhaliya as king drew up a bronze tablet treaty confirming the links between him and Kurunta. During his reign, 13 dams were built after a severe drought, one of which still survives to this day at Alacahöyük. He suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria in the Battle of Nihriya, c. 1230 BCE. Tudhaliya had a sister, queen Maathorneferure of Egypt. He had two sons, who were the last two kings of the Hittites before their empire fell due to the Sea People. Hittite New Kingdom royal family tree Himuili? Tudhaliya I/II Nikkalmati Arnuwanda I Asmunikal Hattusili II? Tudhaliya III Daduhepa Zida Tudhaliya the Young Henti (1) Šuppiluliuma I (2) Tawananna Arnuwanda II Telipinu Sarri-Kusuh Zannanza Gassulawiya (1) Mursili II (2) Tanuhepa Talmi-Sarruma Sahurunuwa Muwatalli II Halpasulupi Massanauzzi Hattusili III Puduhepa Ini-Tesub Urhi-Tesub Kurunta Nerikkaili numerous daughters and sons Tudhaliya IV Talmi-Tesub Hartapu Arnuwanda III Suppiluliuma II Kuzi-Tesub
  18. Title: Wikiwand: Sumer
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Sumer;
    Note: Sumer (/ˈsuːmər/) is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq), during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Ages, and one of the first civilizations in the world, along with Ancient Egypt, Norte Chico, Ancient China and the Indus Valley. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus from which enabled them to form urban settlements. Prehistoric proto-writing dates back before 3000 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, and date to between roughly c. 3500 and c. 3000 BC. Name The term "Sumerian" is the common name given to the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of Mesopotamia by the East Semitic-speaking Akkadians. The Sumerians referred to themselves as "ùĝ saĝ gíg ga" (cuneiform: "𒌦 𒊕 𒈪 𒂵"), phonetically /uŋ saŋ ɡi ɡa/, or "sang-ngiga," literally meaning "the black-headed people," and to their land as "ki-en-gi(-r)" (cuneiform: "𒆠𒂗𒄀") ('place' + 'lords' + 'noble'), meaning "place of the noble lords." The Akkadians also called the Sumerians "black-headed people," or "tsalmat-qaqqadi," in the Semitic Akkadian language. The Akkadian word "Shumer" may represent the geographical name in dialect, but the phonological development leading to the Akkadian term "šumerû" is uncertain. Hebrew "Shinar," Egyptian "Sngr," and Hittite "Šanhar(a)," all referring to southern Mesopotamia, could be western variants of "Sumer." Origins Most historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc., as evidence), a non-Semitic and non-Indo-European agglutinative language isolate. In contrast to its Semitic neighbors, it was not an inflected language. Others have suggested that the Sumerians were a North African people who migrated from the Green Sahara into the Middle East and were responsible for the spread of farming in the Middle East. Although not specifically discussing Sumerians, Lazaridis et al. 2016 have suggested a North African origin for the pre-Semitic cultures of the Middle East, particularly Natufians, after testing the genomes of Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture-bearers. Alternatively, recent genetic analysis of ancient Mesopotamian skeletal DNA tends to suggest an association of the Sumerians with India, possibly as a result of ancient Indus-Mesopotamia relations: Sumerians, or at least some of them, may have been related to the original Dravidian population of India. These prehistoric people are now called "proto-Euphrateans" or "Ubaidians," and are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia. The Ubaidians, though never mentioned by the Sumerians themselves, are assumed by modern-day scholars to have been the first civilizing force in Sumer. They drained the marshes for agriculture, developed trade, and established industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery. Some scholars contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language; they think the Sumerian language may originally have been that of the hunting and fishing peoples who lived in the marshland and the Eastern Arabia littoral region and were part of the Arabian bifacial culture. Reliable historical records begin much later; there are none in Sumer of any kind that have been dated before Enmebaragesi (c. 26th century BC). Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians lived along the coast of Eastern Arabia, today's Persian Gulf region, before it was flooded at the end of the Ice Age. Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period (4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. During the 3rd millennium BC, a close cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians, who spoke a language isolate, and Akkadians, which gave rise to widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and "vice versa") is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a "Sprachbund." The Sumerians progressively lost control to Semitic states from the northwest. Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC (short chronology), but Sumerian continued as a sacred language. Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about a century in the Third Dynasty of Ur at approximately 2100–2000 BC, but the Akkadian language also remained in use for some time. The Sumerian city of Eridu, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, is considered to have been one of the oldest cities, where three separate cultures may have fused: that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in mud-brick huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic Semitic pastoralists living in black tents and following herds of sheep and goats; and that of fisher folk, living in reed huts in the marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerians. City-states in Mesopotamia Further information: Cities of the Ancient Near East and Geography of Mesopotamia In the late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into many independent city-states, which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a temple dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city and ruled over by a priestly governor (ensi) or by a king (lugal) who was intimately tied to the city's religious rites. The five "first" cities, said to have exercised pre-dynastic kingship "before the flood": 1. Eridu ("Tell Abu Shahrain") 2. Bad-tibira (probably "Tell al-Madain") 3. Larsa ("Tell as-Senkereh") 4. Sippar ("Tell Abu Habbah") 5. Shuruppak ("Tell Fara") Other principal cities: 6. Uruk ("Warka") 7. Kish ("Tell Uheimir and Ingharra") 8. Ur ("Tell al-Muqayyar") 9. Nippur ("Afak") 10. Lagash ("Tell al-Hiba") 11. Girsu ("Tello or Tell") 12. Umma ("Tell Jokha") 13. Hamazi 14. Adab ("Tell Bismaya") 15. Mari ("Tell Hariri") 16. Akshak 17. Akkad 18. Isin ("Ishan al-Bahriyat") (location uncertain) (an outlying city in northern Mesopotamia) Minor cities (from south to north): 1. Kuara ("Tell al-Lahm") 2. Zabala ("Tell Ibzeikh") 3. Kisurra ("Tell Abu Hatab") 4. Marad ("Tell Wannat es-Sadum") 5. Dilbat ("Tell ed-Duleim") 6. Borsippa ("Birs Nimrud") 7. Kutha ("Tell Ibrahim") 8. Der ("al-Badra") 9. Eshnunna ("Tell Asmar") 10. Nagar ("Tell Brak") (an outlying city in northern Mesopotamia) Apart from Mari, which lies full 330 kilometers (205 miles) northwest of Agade, but which is credited in the king list as having "exercised kingship" in the Early Dynastic II period, and Nagar, an outpost, these cities are all in the Euphrates-Tigris alluvial plain, south of Baghdad in what are now the Bābil, Diyala, Wāsit, Dhi Qar, Basra, Al-Muthannā and Al-Qādisiyyah governorates of Iraq. History Main article: History of Sumer The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods. Sumerian written history reaches back to the 27th century BC and before, but the historical record remains obscure until the Early Dynastic III period, c. the 23rd century BC, when a now deciphered syllabary writing system was developed, which has allowed archaeologists to read contemporary records and inscriptions. Classical Sumer ends with the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 23rd century BC. Following the Gutian period, there was a brief Sumerian Renaissance in the 21st century BC, cut short in the 20th century BC by invasions by the Amorites. The Amorite "dynasty of Isin" persisted until c. 1700 BC, when Mesopotamia was united under Babylonian rule. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) population. . Ubaid period: 6500–4100 BC (Pottery Neolithic to Chalcolithic) . Uruk period: 4100–2900 BC (Late Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age I) . Uruk XIV-V: 4100–3300 BC . Uruk IV period: 3300–3100 BC . Jemdet Nasr period (Uruk III): 3100–2900 BC . Early Dynastic period (Early Bronze Age II–IV) . Early Dynastic I period: 2900–2800 BC . Early Dynastic II period: 2800–2600 BC (Gilgamesh) . Early Dynastic IIIa period: 2600–2500 BC . Early Dynastic IIIb period: c. 2500–2334 BC . Akkadian Empire period: c. 2334–2218 BC (Sargon) . Gutian period: c. 2218–2047 BC (Early Bronze Age IV) . Ur III period: c. 2047–1940 BC Ubaid period Main article: Ubaid period The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery that spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. During this time, the first settlement in southern Mesopotamia was established at Eridu (Cuneiform: "nun.ki," "𒉣 𒆠"), c. 6500 BC, by farmers who brought with them the Hadji Muhammed culture, which first pioneered irrigation agriculture. It appears that this culture was derived from the Samarran culture from northern Mesopotamia. It is not known whether or not these were the actual Sumerians who are identified with the later Uruk culture. The rise of the city of Uruk may be reflected in the story of the passing of the gifts of civilization ("me") to Inanna, goddess of Uruk and of love and war, by Enki, god of wisdom and chief god of Eridu, may reflect the transition from Eridu to Uruk. Uruk period Main article: Uruk period The archaeological transition from the Ubaid period to the Uruk period is marked by a gradual shift from painted pottery domestically produced on a slow wheel to a great variety of unpainted pottery mass-produced by specialists on fast wheels. The Uruk period is a continuation and an outgrowth of Ubaid with pottery being the main visible change. By the time of the Uruk period (c. 4100–2900 BC calibrated), the volume of trade goods transported along the canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facil..
  19. Title: Wikiwand: Nazi-Maruttash
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nazi-Maruttash;
    Note: Nazi-Maruttaš, typically inscribed "Na-zi-Ma-ru-ut-ta-aš" or "Na-zi-Múru-taš," "Maruttaš" (a Kassite god synonymous with Ninurta) "protects him," was a Kassite king of Babylon c. 1307–1282 BC (short chronology) and self-proclaimed "šar kiššati," or "King of the World," according to the votive inscription pictured. He was the 23rd of the dynasty, the son and successor of Kurigalzu II, and reigned for twenty six years. His reign can be seen as the peak of the Kassite Dynasty's prominence and subsequently Kassite culture declined, exemplified by his successful military campaigns against Assyria and Elam, the glyptic style of cylinder seals, the literature inspired by him (Hemerology for Nazi-Maruttaš) and his appearance in the period piece Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, which was set during his reign. Conflict with Assyria Nazi-Maruttaš faced a growing threat from the ascendancy of Assyria under Arik-den-ili and his successor Adad-Nīrāri I. The containment of Assyria was conducted through a strategy of flank attacks supported by his agents, eastern hillmen such as the Gutians, in a protracted war, avoiding a full frontal assault. Under Arik-den-ili, he seems to have had the upper hand, because Adad-Nīrāri, who styles himself "King of the Universe," later recounts that "my father could not rectify the calamities inflicted by the army of the king of the Kassite land" in a contemporary Assyrian epic. . e is mentioned in the "Synchronistic Chronicle" as having fought a battle with Adad-Nīrāri's forces at "Kār-Ištar of Ugarsallu." However, the Assyrians won a complete victory over the Babylonians in this battle, plundering their camp and seizing the royal standards, thereby acquiring territory from them and causing the Assyro-Babylonian boundary to be adjusted southward. The conflict is fondly remembered in the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic, in its recounting of past Assyro-Babylonian conflicts, where he says, "And like Adad – I will send a devastating flood upon your camp!" Other conflicts There is evidence of a successful attack on Elam, because texts of this period concerning ration lists and foreign prisoners of war, mentions Nazi-Maruttaš in sections concerning Elamites. A historical letter detailed his campaign in Mat Namri, a Hurrian region, and possibly his conquest of its twelve cities. A fragment of a tablet relates that "Marduk ca[used] all the lands [to bow down] at his feet." A treasury list catalogues more than 125 precious artifacts and their move from Dūr-Kurigalzu and Nippur to Ardi-Bêlit during his 5th year, possibly for safe keeping. Building works He is known to have made at least three Kudurru boundary stones, although the one pictured is a later stone copy made during the reign of Marduk-apla-iddina I to replace the clay original ("narū ša haṣbi"), which was crushed by a falling temple wall. A shrine to Gula was uncovered in 1946 in an eroded building with a pavement of much damaged kiln-baked bricks, some inscribed for Nazi-Maruttaš. This was located in the palace area at the Kassite capital, Dūr-Kurigalzu. Work was also undertaken at Nippur, and excavations have yielded various tablets. He was also active in building as far south as Uruk, the cella of the Eḫiliana of Nanâ, as attested to by a later inscription by Esarhaddon. Other cities formerly abandoned such as Larsa, Ur, Adab, and Isin show evidence of revival in his reign. There are nearly 400 economic texts dated to years up to the twenty fourth of his reign, detailing things as mundane as the receipt of barley and malt, the issuing of grain, goats, hides, sheep and oil. A tablet found in Tell Kirbasi, on the south side of the central Hor al-Hammar 30 km west of Basra, lists 47 head of cattle in the sixteenth year of Nazi-Maruttaš, showing the extent of trade. The Hemerology for Nazi-Maruttaš A single standard hemerology, or "uttuku," was collated during his time. Its colophon reads, "Dies fas according to the seven a[pkallī?] originals from Sippar, Nippur, Babylon, Ur, Larsa, Uruk and Eridu. The scholars excerpted, selected, and gave to Nazi-Maruttaš, king of the world." This was a sort of almanac stating which days of each month were favorable, unfavorable, or dangerous for activities of interest to the king, such as those propitious for begetting children, or setting taxes. It was typically used by scribes, temple administrators, priests, cultic singers and exorcists and provided detailed instructions for "auspicious days." Five extant examples have been found, including a bilingual copy in Dur-Kurigalzu, another found in the house of "LÚ.NAR.GAL," "cultic singers" in Aššur and a third in the house of Kiṣir-Aššur, exorcist of the temple of Aššur during the reign of Aššurbanipal. Lambert has argued that "Ludlul bēl nēmeqi" was composed during his reign based upon the identification of the protagonist Šubši-mašrâ-Šakkan with that of a character in a fragment of an epic of the Kassite times, and to the governor, or lúgar kur, of Ur during his 16th regnal year. Nazi-Maruttaš’ name appears on the reverse of a literary text fragment known as KAR 116 that Lambert identified as belonging to this work. The prominent physician, or "asû," from Nippur, Rabâ-ša-Marduk, began his lengthy, well-attested career during Nazi-Maruttaš’ reign.
  20. Title: Wikiwand: Dilmun
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Dilmun;
    Note: Dilmun, or Telmun, (Sumerian: later 𒉌𒌇(𒆠), ni.tukki = DILMUNki; Arabic: دلمون‎) was an ancient Semitic-speaking polity in Arabia mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards. Based on textual evidence, it was located in the Persian Gulf, on a trade route between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization, close to the sea and to artesian springs. A number of scholars have suggested that Dilmun originally designated the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, notably linked with the major Dilmunite settlements of Umm an-Nussi and Umm ar-Ramadh in the interior and Tarout on the coast. Dilmun encompassed Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the eastern portion regions of Saudi Arabia. This area is certainly what is meant by references to "Dilmun" among the lands conquered by King Sargon of Akkad and his descendants. The great commercial and trading connections between Mesopotamia and Dilmun were strong and profound to the point where Dilmun was a central figure to the Sumerian creation myth. Dilmun was described in the saga of Enki and Ninhursag as pre-existing in paradisiacal state, where predators don't kill, pain and diseases are absent, and people do not get old. Dilmun was an important trading center. At the height of its power, it controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. According to some modern theories, the Sumerians regarded Dilmun as a sacred place, but that is never stated in any known ancient text. Dilmun was mentioned by the Mesopotamians as a trade partner, a source of copper, and a trade entrepôt. The Sumerian tale of the garden paradise of Dilmun may have been an inspiration for the Garden of Eden story. History Dilmun was an important trading center from the late fourth millennium to 800 BC. At the height of its power, Dilmun controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. Dilmun was very prosperous during the first 300 years of the second millennium. Dilmun's commercial power began to decline between 1000 BC and 800 BC because piracy flourished in the Persian Gulf. In 600 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and later the Persian Empire, ruled Dilmun. The Dilmun civilization was the center of commercial activities linking traditional agriculture of the land—then utterly fertile due to artesian wells that have dried since, and due to a much wetter climate—with maritime trade between diverse regions such as the Meluhha (suspected to be Indus Valley Civilization), Magan (Oman), and Mesopotamia. The Dilmun civilization is mentioned first in Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets dated to the late third millennium BC, found in the temple of goddess Inanna, in the city of Uruk. The adjective Dilmun is used to describe a type of axe and one specific official; in addition there are lists of rations of wool issued to people connected with Dilmun. One of the earliest inscriptions mentioning Dilmun is that of king Ur-Nanshe of Lagash (c. 2300 BC) found in a door-socket: "The ships of Dilmun brought him wood as tribute from foreign lands." Kingdom of Dilmun From about 2050 BC onward Dilmun seems to had its heyday. Qal'at al-Bahrain was most likely the capital. From texts found at Isin it becomes clear that Dilmun became an independent kingdom. Royal gifts to Dilmun are mentioned. Contacts with the Syrian city Mari are attested. In about this time the largest royal burial mounds were erected. From about 1780 BC come several inscriptions on stone vessels naming two kings of Dilmun. King Yagli-El and his father Rimum. The inscriptions were found in huge tumuli evidently the burial places of these kings. Rimum was already known to archaeology from the Durand Stone, discovered in 1879. From about 1720 BC a decline is visible. Many settlements were no longer used and the building of royal mounts stopped. The Barbar Temple felt into ruins. From about 1650 BC there is recovering period detectable. New royal burial mounts were built and at Qal'at al-Bahrain there is evidence for increased building activity. To this period belongs a further inscription on a seal found at Failaka and preserving a king's name. The short text readsː "[La]'ù-la Panipa, daughter of Sumu-lěl, the servant of Inzak of Akarum." Sumu-lěl was evidently a third king of Dilmun belonging to about this period. "Servant of Inzak of Akarum" was the king's title in Dilmun. The names of these rulers are Amoritic. Dilmun under foreign rule It seems that Dilmun was after 1500 BC under the rule of the Sealand Dynasty. The Sealand-Dynasty king Ea-gamil is mentioned in a text found at Qal'at al-Bahrain. Ea-gamil was the last ruler of the Sealand.-Dynasty. After his reign Dilmun came under the rule of the Babylonian Kassite dynasty, as they also took over the Sealand Dynasty area. Dilmun was mentioned in two letters dated to the reign of Burna-Buriash II (c. 1370 BC) recovered from Nippur, during the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. These letters were from a provincial official, Ilī-ippašra, in Dilmun to his friend Enlil-kidinni, the governor of Nippur. The names referred to are Akkadian. These letters and other documents, hint at an administrative relationship between Dilmun and Babylon at that time. Following the collapse of the Kassite dynasty, Mesopotamian documents make no mention of Dilmun with the exception of Assyrian inscriptions dated to 1250 BC which proclaimed the Assyrian king to be king of Dilmun and Meluhha, as well as Lower Sea and Upper Sea. Assyrian inscriptions recorded tribute from Dilmun. There are other Assyrian inscriptions from the first millennium BC indicating Assyrian sovereignty over Dilmun. One of the early sites discovered in Bahrain suggests that Sennacherib, king of Assyria (707–681 BC), attacked northeast Arabia and captured the Bahraini islands. The most recent reference to Dilmun came during the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Neo-Babylonian administrative records, dated 567 BC, stated that Dilmun was controlled by the king of Babylon. The name of Dilmun fell from use after the collapse of Babylon in 538 BC. The "Persian Gulf" types of circular, stamped (rather than rolled) seals known from Dilmun, that appear at Lothal in Gujarat, India, and Failaka, as well as in Mesopotamia, are convincing corroboration of the long-distance sea trade. What the commerce consisted of is less known: timber and precious woods, ivory, lapis lazuli, gold, and luxury goods such as carnelian and glazed stone beads, pearls from the Persian Gulf, shell and bone inlays, were among the goods sent to Mesopotamia in exchange for silver, tin, woolen textiles, olive oil and grains. Copper ingots from Oman and bitumen that occurred naturally in Mesopotamia may have been exchanged for cotton textiles and domestic fowl, major products of the Indus region that are not native to Mesopotamia. Instances of all of these trade goods have been found. The importance of this trade is shown by the fact that the weights and measures used at Dilmun were in fact identical to those used by the Indus, and were not those used in Southern Mesopotamia. In regard to copper mining and smelting, the Umm al-Nar Culture and Dalma in the United Arab Emirates, and Ibri in Oman were particularly important. Some Meluhhan vessels may have sailed directly to Mesopotamian ports, but by the Isin-Larsa Period, Dilmun monopolized the trade. The Bahrain National Museum assesses that its "Golden Age" lasted ca. 2200–1600 BC. Discoveries of ruins under the Persian Gulf may be of Dilmun. People, language and religion The population was Semitic with an Amorite presence; they used the Sumerian cuneiform, and spoke a language that was either an Akkadian dialect, close to it or greatly influenced by it. Dilmun's main deity was named Inzak and his spouse was Panipa. Mythology In the early epic "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta," the main events, which center on Enmerkar's construction of the ziggurats in Uruk and Eridu, are described as taking place at a time "before Dilmun had yet been settled." Dilmun, sometimes described as "the place where the sun rises" and "the Land of the Living," is the scene of some versions of the Sumerian creation myth, and the place where the deified Sumerian hero of the flood, Utnapishtim (Ziusudra), was taken by the gods to live forever. Thorkild Jacobsen's translation of the Eridu Genesis calls it "Mount Dilmun," which he locates as a "faraway, half-mythical place." Dilmun also is described in the epic story of Enki and Ninhursag as the site at which the Creation occurred. The later Babylonian "Enuma Elish" speaks of the creation site as the place where the mixture of salt water, personified as Tiamat met and mingled with the fresh water of Abzu. Bahrein in Arabic means "the twin waters," where the fresh water of the Arabian aquifer mingles with the salt waters of the Persian Gulf. The promise of Enki to Ninhursag, the Earth Mother: "For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives." Ninlil, the Sumerian goddess of air and south wind had her home in Dilmun. However, it is also speculated that Gilgamesh had to pass through Mount Mashu to reach Dilmun in the "Epic of Gilgamesh," which usually is identified with the whole of the parallel Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges, with the narrow gap between these mountains constituting the tunnel. Location In 1987, Theresa Howard-Carter proposed that Dilmun of this era might be a still unidentified tell near the Arvand Rud (Shatt al-Arab in Arabic) between modern-day Qurnah and Basra in modern-day Iraq. In favor of Howard-Carter's proposal, it has been noted that this area does lie to the east of Sumer ("where the sun rises"), and the riverbank where Dilmun's maidens would have been accosted aligns with the Shat al-Arab which is in the midst of marshes. The "mouth of the rivers" where Dilmun was said to lie is for her the union of the Tigris and Euphrates at Qurnah. As of 2008, archaeologists have failed..
  21. Title: Wikiwand: Amurru kingdom
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Amurru_kingdom;
    Note: Amurru was an Amorite kingdom established c. 2000 BC, in a region spanning present-day western and north-western Syria and northern Lebanon. The first documented leader of Amurru was Abdi-Ashirta, under whose leadership Amurru was part of the Egyptian empire. His son Aziru made contact with the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I, and eventually defected to the Hittites. The Amurru kingdom was destroyed by the Sea Peoples around 1200 B.C.
  22. Title: Wikiwand: Shalmaneser III
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Shalmaneser_III;
    Note: Shalmaneser III ("Šulmānu-ašarēdu," "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of Assyria (859–824 BC), and son of the previous ruler, Ashurnasirpal II. His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations of Mesopotamia and Syria, as well as Kizzuwadna and Urartu. His armies penetrated to Lake Van and the Taurus Mountains; the Neo-Hittites of Carchemish were compelled to pay tribute, and the kingdoms of Hamath and Aram Damascus were subdued. It is in the annals of Shalmaneser III from the 850s BC that the Arabs and Chaldeans first appear in recorded history. Reign Campaigns Shalmaneser began a campaign against Urartian Kingdom and reported that in 858 BC he demolished the city of Sugunia and then in 853 BC also Araškun. Both cities are assumed to have been capitals of the Kingdom before Tushpa became a center for the Urartians. In 853 BC, a coalition was formed by 11 states, mainly by Hadadezer (Hadad-ezer) the Aramean king of Damascus, Irhuleni king of Hamath, Ahab king of Israel, Gindibu king of the Arabs, and some other rulers who fought the Assyrian king at the Battle of Qarqar. The result of the battle was not decisive, and Shalmaneser III had to fight his enemies several times again in the coming years, which eventually resulted in the occupation of The Levant (modern Syria and Lebanon) and Arabia by the Assyrian empire. In 851, following a rebellion in Babylon, Shalmaneser led a campaign against Marduk-bēl-ušate younger brother of the king, Marduk-zakir-shumi I, who was an ally of Shalmaneser's. In the second year of the campaign, Marduk-bēl-ušate was forced to retreat and was killed. A record of these events was made on the Black Obelisk: "In the eighth year of my reign, Marduk-bêl-usâte, the younger brother, revolted against Marduk-zâkir-šumi, king of Karduniaš, and they divided the land in its entirety. In order to avenge Marduk-zâkir-šumi, I marched out and captured Mê-Turnat. In the ninth year of my reign, I marched against Akkad a second time. I besieged Ganannate. As for Marduk-bêl-usâte, the terrifying splendor of Assur and Marduk overcame him and he went up into the mountains to save his life. I pursued him. I cut down with the sword Marduk-bêl-usâte and the rebel army officers who were with him." — Shalmaneser III, Black Obelisk Against Israel In 841 BC, Shalmaneser campaigned against Hadadezer's successor Hazael, forcing him to take refuge within the walls of his capital. While Shalmaneser was unable to capture Damascus, he devastated its territory, and Jehu of Israel (whose ambassadors are represented on the Black Obelisk now in the British Museum), together with the Phoenician cities, prudently sent tribute to him in perhaps 841 BC. Babylonia had already been conquered, including the areas occupied by migrant Chaldaean, Sutean and Aramean tribes, and the Babylonian king had been put to death. Against Tibareni In 836 BC, Shalmaneser sent an expedition against the Tibareni (Tabal) which was followed by one against Cappadocia, and in 832 BC came another campaign against Urartu. In the following year, age required the king to hand over the command of his armies to the Tartan ("turtānu," commander-in-chief) Dayyan-Assur, and six years later, Nineveh and other cities revolted against him under his rebel son Assur-danin-pal. Civil war continued for two years; but the rebellion was at last crushed by Shamshi-Adad V, another son of Shalmaneser. Shalmaneser died soon afterwards. Later campaigns Despite the rebellion later in his reign, Shalmanesar had proven capable of expanding the frontiers of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, stabilizing its hold over the Khabur and Mountainous frontier region of the Zagros, contested with Urartu. His reign saw the first appearance in history of the camel-mounted Arabs. In Biblical studies His reign is significant to Biblical studies because two of his monuments name rulers from Hebrew Bible. The Black Obelisk names Jehu son of Omri (although Jehu was misidentified as a son of Omri). The Kurkh Monolith names king Ahab, in reference to the Battle of Qarqar. Russell Gmirkin argues in a 2019 book chapter that the mythology built around Solomon and his empire was drawn from reports of Shalmaneser III. Construction and the Black Obelisk Main article: Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III He had built a palace at Kalhu (Biblical Calah, modern Nimrud), and left several editions of the royal annals recording his military campaigns, the last of which is engraved on the Black Obelisk from Calah. The Black Obelisk is a significant artifact from his reign. It is a black limestone, bas-relief sculpture from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), in northern Iraq. It is the most complete Assyrian obelisk yet discovered, and is historically significant because it displays the earliest ancient depiction of an Israelite. On the top and the bottom of the reliefs there is a long cuneiform inscription recording the annals of Shalmaneser III. It lists the military campaigns which the king and his commander-in-chief headed every year, until the thirty-first year of reign. Some features might suggest that the work had been commissioned by the commander-in-chief, Dayyan-Ashur. The second register from the top includes the earliest surviving picture of an Israelite: the Biblical Jehu, king of Israel. Jehu severed Israel's alliances with Phoenicia and Judah, and became subject to Assyria. It describes how Jehu brought or sent his tribute in or around 841 BC. The caption above the scene, written in Assyrian cuneiform, can be translated: "The tribute of Jehu, son of Omri: I received from him silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden vase with pointed bottom, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king [and] spears." It was erected as a public monument in 825 BC at a time of civil war. It was discovered by archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1846.
  23. Title: Wikiwand: Short chronology
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Short_chronology;
    Note: The short chronology is one of the chronologies of the Near Eastern Bronze and Early Iron Age, which fixes the reign of Hammurabi to 1728–1686 BC and the sack of Babylon to 1531 BC. The absolute 2nd millennium BC dates resulting from these reference points have very little academic support, and have essentially been disproved by recent dendrochronology research. The "middle chronology" (reign of Hammurabi 1792–1750 BC) is more commonly accepted in academic literature. For much of the period in question, middle chronology dates can be calculated by adding 64 years to the corresponding short chronology date (e.g. 1728 BC in short chronology corresponds to 1792 in middle chronology). After the so-called "dark age" between the fall of Babylon and the rise of the Kassite dynasty in Babylonia, absolute dating becomes less uncertain. While exact dates are still not agreed upon, the 64-year middle/short chronology gap ceases from the beginning of the Third Babylon Dynasty onward. Early Bronze Age Estimation of absolute dates becomes possible for the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. For the first half of the 3rd millennium, only very rough chronological matching of archaeological dates with written records is possible. Kings of Ebla Main article: Ebla The city-states of Ebla and Mari (in modern Syria) competed for power at this time. Eventually, under Irkab-Damu, Ebla defeated Mari for control of the region just in time to face the rise of Uruk and Akkad. After years of back and forth, Ebla was destroyed by the Akkadian Empire. Pottery seals of the Egyptian pharaoh Pepi I have been found in the wreckage of the city. Ruler Proposed reign Notes Igrish-Halam c. 2300 BC Irkab-Damu Contemporary of Iblul-Il of Mari Ar-Ennum or Reshi-Ennum Ibrium or Ebrium Contemporary of Tudiya of Assyria (treaty) Ibbi-Sipish or Ibbi-Zikir Son of Ibrium Dubuhu-Ada Ebla destroyed by Naram-Sin of Akkad or Sargon of Akkad Sumer Further information: Sumerian king list Third Dynasty of Uruk Further information: Uruk Lugal-zage-si of Umma rules from Uruk after defeating Lagash, eventually falling to the emerging Akkadian Empire. Ruler Proposed reign Notes Lugal-zage-si 2295–2271 BC Defeats Urukagina of Lagash and is in turn defeated by Sargon of Akkad Dynasty of Akkad Further information: Akkad Since Akkad (or Agade), the capital of the Akkadian Empire, has not yet been found, available chronological data comes from outlying locations like Ebla, Tell Brak, Nippur, Susa and Tell Leilan. Clearly, the expansion of Akkad came under the rules of Sargon and Naram-sin. Its last king, Shar-kali-sharri barely held the empire together, but upon his death, it fragmented. Finally, the city of Akkad itself was destroyed by the Guti. Ruler Proposed reign Notes Sargon 2270–2215 BC Rimush 2214–2206 BC Son of Sargon Man-ishtishu 2205–2191 BC Son of Sargon Naram-sin 2190–2154 BC Grandson of Sargon Shar-kali-sharri 2153–2129 BC Son of Naram-sin Irgigi Nanum Imi Ilulu Dudu 2125–2104 BC Shu-Durul 2104–2083 BC City of Akkad falls to the Guti Gutian Kings Further information: Gutian dynasty of Sumer First appearing in the area during the reign of Sargon of Akkad, the Guti became a regional power after the decline of the Akkadian Empire following Shar-kali-sharri. The dynasty ends with the defeat of the last king, Tirigan, by Uruk. Only a handful of the Guti kings are attested to by inscriptions, aside from the Sumerian king list. Ruler Proposed reign Notes Erridupizir 2141–2138 BC Royal inscription at Nippur Imta or Nibia (There is no king for 3 or 5 years) 2138–2135 BC Inkishush 2135–2129 BC First Gutian ruler on the Sumerian king list Sarlagab 2129–2126 BC Shulme 2126–2120 BC Elulmesh or Silulumesh 2120–2114 BC Inimabakesh 2114–2109 BC Igeshaush or Igeaus 2109–2103 BC Yarlagab or Yarlaqaba 2103–2088 BC Ibate 2088–2085 BC Yarlangab or Yarla 2085–2082 BC Kurum 2082–2081 BC Apilkin or Habil-kin or Apil-kin 2081–2078 BC La-erabum 2078–2076 BC Mace head inscription Irarum 2076–2074 BC Ibranum 2074–2073 BC Hablum 2073–2071 BC Puzur-Suen 2071–2064 BC Son of Hablum Yarlaganda 2064–2057 BC Foundation inscription at Umma Si-um or Si-u 2057–2050 BC Foundation inscription at Umma Tirigan 2050–2050 BC Contemporary of Utu-hengal of Uruk Second Dynasty of Lagash Further information: Lagash Following the collapse of the Akkadian Empire after Shar-kali-sharri of Akkad under pressure from the invading Gutians, Lagash gradually regained prominence. As a client state to the Gutian Kings, Lagash was extremely successful, peaking under the rule of Gudea. After the last Gutian king, Tirigan, was defeated, by Utu-hengal, Lagash came under the control of Ur under Ur-Namma. Note that there is some indication that the order of the last two rulers of Lagash should be reversed. Ruler Proposed reign Notes Lugalushumgal ca. 2140 ruled under Gutian kings Puzer-Mama Ur-Utu Ur-Mama Lu-Baba Lugula Kaku or Kakug ended 2093 Ur-Bau or Ur-baba 2093–2080 BC Gudea 2080–2060 BC Son-in-law of Ur-baba Ur-Ningirsu 2060–2055 BC Son of Gudea Pirigme or Ugme 2055–2053 BC Grandson of Gudea Ur-gar 2053–2049 BC Nammahani 2049–2046 BC Grandson of Kaku, defeated by Ur-Namma Fifth Dynasty of Uruk Further information: Uruk Uniting various Sumerian city-states, Utu-hengal frees the region from the Gutians. Note that the Sumerian king list records a preceding 4th Dynasty of Uruk which is as yet unattested. Ruler Proposed reign Notes Utu-hengal 2055–2048 BC Appoints Ur-Namma as governor of Ur Third Dynasty of Ur (Sumerian Renaissance) Main article: Third Dynasty of Ur In an apparently peaceful transition, Ur came to power after the end of the reign of Utu-hengal of Uruk, with the first king, Ur-Namma, solidifying his power with the defeat of Lagash. By the dynasty's end with the destruction of Ur by Elamites and Shimashki, the dynasty included little more than the area around Ur. Ruler Proposed reign Notes Ur-Namma or Ur-Engur 2047–2030 BC Defeated Nammahani of Lagash; Contemporary of Utu-hengal of Uruk Shulgi 2029–1982 BC Possible lunar/solar eclipse 2005 BC Amar-Suena 1981–1973 BC Son of Shulgi Shu-Suen 1972–1964 BC Ibbi-Suen 1963–1940 BC Son of Shu-Suen Middle Bronze Age The Old Assyrian / Old Babylonian period (20th to 15th centuries) First Dynasty of Isin Further information: Isin After Ishbi-Erra of Isin breaks away from the declining Third Dynasty of Ur under Ibbi-Suen, Isin reaches its peak under Ishme-Dagan. Weakened by attacks from the upstart Babylonians, Isin eventually falls to its rival Larsa under Rim-Sin I. Ruler Proposed reign Notes Ishbi-Erra 1953–1921 BC Contemporary of Ibbi-Suen of Ur III Šu-ilišu 1920–1911 BC Son of Ishbi-Erra Iddin-Dagan 1910–1890 BC Son of Shu-ilishu Ishme-Dagan 1889–1871 BC Son of Iddin-Dagan Lipit-Eshtar 1870–1860 BC Contemporary of Gungunum of Larsa Ur-Ninurta 1859–1832 BC Contemporary of Abisare of Larsa Bur-Suen 1831–1811 BC Son of Ur-Ninurta Lipit-Enlil 1810–1806 BC Son of Bur-Suen Erra-Imittī or Ura-imitti 1805–1799 BC Enlil-bāni 1798–1775 BC Contemporary of Sumu-la-El of Babylon Zambīia 1774–1772 BC Contemporary of Sin-Iqisham of Larsa Iter-piša 1771–1768 BC Ur-du-kuga 1767–1764 BC Suen-magir 1763–1753 BC Damiq-ilishu 1752–1730 BC Son of Suen-magir Kings of Larsa Further information: Larsa The chronology of the Kingdom of Larsa is based mainly on the Larsa King List (Larsa Dynastic List), the Larsa Date Lists, and a number of royal inscriptions and commercial records. The Larsa King List was compiled in Babylon during the reign of Hammurabi, conqueror of Larsa. It is suspected that the list elevated the first several Amorite Isinite governors of Larsa to kingship so as to legitimize the rule of the Amorite Babylonians over Larsa. After a period of Babylonian occupation, Larsa briefly breaks free in a revolt ended by the death of the last king, Rim-Sin II. Ruler Proposed reign Notes Naplanum 1961–1940 BC Contemporary of Ibbi-Suen of Ur III Emisum 1940–1912 BC Samium 1912–1877 BC Zabaia 1877–1868 BC Son of Samium, First royal inscription Gungunum 1868–1841 BC Gained independence from Lipit-Eshtar of Isin Abisare 1841–1830 BC Sumuel 1830–1801 BC Nur-Adad 1801–1785 BC Contemporary of Sumu-la-El of Babylon Sin-Iddinam 1785–1778 BC Son of Nur-Adad Sin-Eribam 1778–1776 BC Sin-Iqisham 1776–1771 BC Contemporary of Zambiya of Isin, Son of Sin-Eribam Silli-Adad 1771–1770 BC Warad-Sin 1770–1758 BC Possible co-regency with Kudur-Mabuk his father Rim-Sin I 1758–1699 BC Contemporary of Irdanene of Uruk, Defeated by Hammurabi of Babylon, Brother of Warad-Sin Hammurabi of Babylon 1699–1686 BC Official Babylonian rule Samsu-iluna of Babylon 1686–1678 BC Official Babylonian rule Rim-Sin II 1678–1674 BC Killed in revolt against Babylon First Babylonian dynasty (Dynasty I) Main article: First Babylonian dynasty Following the fall of the Ur III Dynasty, the resultant power vacuum was contested by Isin and Larsa, with Babylon and Assyria later joining the fray. In the second half of the reign of Hammurabi, Babylon became the preeminent power, a position it largely maintained until the sack by Mursili I in 1531 BC. Note that there are no contemporary accounts of the sack of Babylon. It is inferred from much later documents. Ruler Proposed reign Notes Sumu-abum or Su-abu 1830–1817 BC Contemporary of Ilushuma of Assyria Sumu-la-El 1817–1781 BC Contemporary of Erishum I of Assyria Sabium or Sabum 1781–1767 BC Son of Sumu-la-El Apil-Sin 1767–1749 BC Son of Sabium Sin-muballit 1748–1729 BC Son of Apil-Sin Hammurabi 1728–1686 BC Contemporary of Zimri-Lim of Mari, Siwe-palar-huppak of Elam and Shamshi-Adad I Samsu-iluna 1686–1648 BC Son of Hammurabi Abi-eshuh or Abieshu 1648–1620 BC Son of Samsu-iluna Ammi-ditana 1620–1583 BC Son of Abi-eshuh Ammi-saduqa or Ammisaduqa 1582–1562 BC Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa Samsu-Ditana 1562–1531 BC Sack of Babylon 1st Sealand Dynasty (2nd Dynasty of Babylon) Main article: Sea..
  24. Title: Wikiwand: Babylon
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Babylon;
    Note: Babylon was the capital city of Babylonia, a kingdom in ancient Mesopotamia, between the 18th and 6th centuries BC. It was built along the left and right banks of the Euphrates river with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods. Babylon was originally a small Akkadian town dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c. 2300 BC. The town became part of a small independent city-state with the rise of the First Babylonian dynasty in the 19th century BC. The Amorite king Hammurabi created a short-lived empire in the 18th century BC. He built Babylon into a major city and declared himself its king. Southern Mesopotamia became known as Babylonia and Babylon eclipsed Nippur as its holy city. The empire waned under Hammurabi's son Samsu-iluna and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. After being destroyed and then rebuilt by the Assyrians, Babylon became the capital of the short-lived Neo-Babylonian Empire from 609 to 539 BC. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city came under the rule of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, and Sassanid empires. It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world c. 1770 – c. 1670 BC, and again c. 612 – c. 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000. Estimates for the maximum extent of its area range from 890[3] to 900 hectares (2,200 acres). The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (53 mi) south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. The main sources of information about Babylon—excavation of the site itself, references in cuneiform texts found elsewhere in Mesopotamia, references in the Bible, descriptions in classical writing (especially by Herodotus), and second-hand descriptions (citing the work of Ctesias and Berossus)—present an incomplete and sometimes contradictory picture of the ancient city, even at its peak in the sixth century BC. Name The spelling "Babylon" is the Latin representation of Greek "Babulṓn" (Βαβυλών), derived from the native (Babylonian) "Bābilim," meaning "gate of the god(s)." The cuneiform spelling was 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 KA2.DIG̃IR.RAKI. This would correspond to the Sumerian phrase "kan diĝirak," "gate of the god." The 𒆍 KA2 is the ideograph for "gate," 𒀭 DIG̃IR is "god," and the 𒊏, "ra" is phonetic. The final 𒆠 KI is the determiner for a place name. Archibald Sayce, writing in the 1870s, postulated that the Semitic name was a loan-translation of the original Sumerian name. However, the "gate of god" interpretation is increasingly viewed as a Semitic folk etymology to explain an unknown original non-Semitic placename. I.J. Gelb in 1955 argued that the original name was "Babil" or "Babilla," of unknown meaning and origin, as there were other similarly-named places in Sumer, and there are no other examples of Sumerian place-names being replaced with Akkadian translations. He deduced that it later transformed into Akkadian "Bāb-ili(m)." The Sumerian name "Ka-dig̃irra" was loan translation of the Semitic folk etymology, and not the original name. The re-translation of the Semitic name into Sumerian would have taken place at the time of the "Neo-Sumerian" Third Dynasty of Ur. ("Bab-Il"). In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as "Babel" (Hebrew: בָּבֶל,‎" Bavel," Tib. בָּבֶל, "Bāḇel"; Classical Syriac: ܒܒܠ,‎ "Bāwēl," Aramaic: בבל,‎" Babel; in Arabic: بَابِل‎ Bābil), interpreted in the Book of Genesis to mean "confusion," from the verb "bilbél" (בלבל, "to confuse"). The modern English verb, "to babble" ("to speak meaningless words"), popularly is thought to derive from this name, but there is no direct connection. Ancient records in some situations use "Babylon" as a name for other cities, including cities like Borsippa within Babylon's sphere of influence, and Nineveh for a short period after the Assyrian sack of Babylon. Geography The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (53 mi) south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an area of about 2 by 1 kilometer (1.24 mi × 0.62 mi), oriented north to south, along the Euphrates to the west. Originally, the river roughly bisected the city, but the course of the river has since shifted so that most of the remains of the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Only a small portion of the ancient city (3% of the area within the inner walls; 1.5% of the area within the outer walls; 0.1% at the depth of Middle and Old Babylon) has been excavated. Known remains include: . Kasr – also called Palace or Castle, it is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki and lies in the center of the site. . Amran Ibn Ali – the highest of the mounds at 25 meters (82 ft) to the south. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu. . Homera – a reddish-colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here. . Babil – a mound about 22 meters (72 ft) high at the northern end of the site. Its bricks have been subject to looting since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar. Archaeologists have recovered few artifacts predating the Neo-Babylonian period. The water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries, and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Additionally, the Neo-Babylonians conducted significant rebuilding projects in the city, which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Babylon was pillaged numerous times after revolting against foreign rule, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium. Much of the western half of the city is now beneath the river, and other parts of the site have been mined for commercial building materials. Only the Koldewey expedition recovered artifacts from the Old Babylonian period. These included 967 clay tablets, stored in private houses, with Sumerian literature and lexical documents. Nearby ancient settlements are Kish, Borsippa, Dilbat, and Kutha. Marad and Sippar were 60 kilometers (37 mi) in either direction along the Euphrates. Sources Historical knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum. Information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some of the content was politically motivated, but these still provide useful information. Early references References to the city of Babylon can be found in Akkadian and Sumerian literature from the late third millennium BC. One of the earliest is a tablet describing the Akkadian king Šar-kali-šarri laying the foundations in Babylon of new temples for Annūnı̄tum and Ilaba. Babylon also appears in the administrative records of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which collected in-kind tax payments and appointed an ensi as local governor. The so-called Weidner Chronicle (also known as ABC 19) states that Sargon of Akkad (c. 23d century BC in the short chronology) had built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). A later chronicle states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad." (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad. Classical dating Ctesias, quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's "Chronographia," claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives that date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC, under the reign of its first king, Belus. A similar figure is found in the writings of Berossus, who according to Pliny, stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, indicating 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date given by Hellanicus of Lesbos for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would date Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC. All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with these classical (post-cuneiform) accounts. History By around the 19th century BC, much of southern Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Northwest Semitic speakers, unlike the native Akkadians of southern Mesopotamia and Assyria, who spoke East Semitic. The Amorites at first did not practice agriculture like more advanced Mesopotamians, preferring a semi-nomadic lifestyle, herding sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna, Lagash, and later, founding Babylon as a state. Old Babylonian period According to a Babylonian date list, Amorite rule in Babylon began (c. 19th or 18th century BC) with a chieftain named Sumu-abum, who declared independence from the neighboring city-state of Kazallu. Sumu-la-El, whose dates may be concurrent with those of Sumu-abum, is usually given as the progenitor of the First Babylonian dynasty. Both are credited with building the walls of Babylon. In any case, the records describe Sumu-la-El's military successes establishing a ..
  25. Title: Wikiwand: Dur-Kurigalzu
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Dur-Kurigalzu;
    Note: Dur-Kurigalzu (modern "`Aqar-Qūf," عقرقوف in Baghdad Governorate, Iraq) was a city in southern Mesopotamia, near the confluence of the Tigris and Diyala rivers, about 30 kilometers (19 mi) west of the center of Baghdad. It was founded by a Kassite king of Babylon, Kurigalzu I, some time in the 14th century BC, and was abandoned after the fall of the Kassite dynasty. The prefix "Dur-" is an Akkadian term meaning "fortress of," while the Kassite royal name "Kurigalzu," since it is repeated in the Kassite king list, may have a descriptive meaning as an epithet, such as "herder of the folk (or of the Kassites)." The city contained a ziggurat and temples dedicated to Sumerian gods, as well as a royal palace. The ziggurat was unusually well-preserved, standing to a height of about 52 meters (171 ft). History The town of Dur Kurigalzu was founded by the Kassite King Kurigalzu I in the late 15th or early 14th century BC and is situated along an east-west-trending limestone ridge between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Until the last century, the adjacent Aqar Quf depression would have been inundated with flood water part of the year. This site had access to fresh water from the Euphrates by means of the Isa Canal, known as the Patti-Enlil Canal in ancient times. The city functioned as the capital of Babylonia during the reign of Kurigalzu, and either as the capital or at least an important city during the period after. It was occupied continuously until the fall of the Kassite Dynasty in the 12th century BC, when it was largely abandoned. The temple area, at least, was known to be active in the 7th century BC and in the Neo-Babylonian period. Up until recently (mostly between the 9th and 14th centuries AD), there have been smaller occupations at parts of Aqar Quf, with areas of the site being used for burials and for Arab settlement. In Kassite times the area was defined by a large wall that enclosed about 225 hectares (560 acres). The shape of the city is elongated and features several mounds, perhaps reflecting a functional separation of the parts of the site. The hill of Aqar Quf is dominated by the most visible monument at the site, a ziggurat devoted to the main god of the Babylonian pantheon, Enlil. Because of the uniformity of architectural features, the ziggurat and surrounding temple complexes appear to have been founded by the Kassite king, Kurigalzu. The ziggurat measured 69 by 67.6 meters (226 ft × 222 ft) at its base. It was approached by three main staircases leading up to the first terrace, which has been reconstructed by the Iraqi Directorate-General of Antiquities. The surrounding temple-complex has only been excavated on the south-west side of the ziggurat. The palace area of Tell al-Abyad consists of several stratigraphic architectural layers, which suggests several phases of building in this area over the entire stretch of the Kassite period, and therefore has great potential to yield an invaluable sequence of pottery and other material for the period. Associated tablets confirm that the structure was occupied throughout the Kassite period. The palace has innovative architectural features, being constructed in modules of three rooms around large courts. In addition, excavators also discovered a treasury on the east of the palace and a probable throne room or royal reception/ceremonial chamber. Ziggurat The Ziggurat of Dur-Kurigalzu was built in the 14th century BC (short chronology) by the Kassite king Kurigalzu. The core of the structure consists of sun-dried square bricks. Reed mats were placed every seven layers of brick, used for drainage and to assist in holding the bricks together by providing a continuous layer of support. The outer layers of the ziggurat are made from fired bricks. An inscription on one of the fired bricks states that it was laid during the reign of King Kurigalzu II. Today both types of brick, sun-dried and fired, are still made in Iraq in the same fashion and used in farm houses. The ziggurat at Aqar Quf has been a very visible ancient monument for centuries. For camel caravans and modern road traffic, the ziggurat has served as a signal of the near approach to Baghdad. The site has been one of the favorite places where Baghdadi families have gone to picnic on Fridays, even before it was excavated. A small museum, built in the 1960s, has served to introduce visitors to the site. The structure needs renovation, however. Because of Aqar Quf's easy accessibility and close proximity to the city of Baghdad, it has been one of Iraq's most visited and best known sites. Its ziggurat has been an outstanding monument for centuries, often confused with the Tower of Babel by Western visitors in the area from the 17th century onward. Research The site was described first by Claudius James Rich in 1811. Aqar Quf (referred to then as Akerkuf, Agger Koof, or Akar-kuf) was visited and examined in 1837 by Francis Rawdon Chesney. The name of Dur Kurigalzu was identified by Henry Rawlinson in the mid-19th century. Excavations were conducted from 1942 through 1945, by Taha Baqir and Seton Lloyd in a joint excavation by the Iraqi Directorate-General of Antiquities and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. Over 100 cuneiform tablets of the Kassite period were recovered, now in the National Museum of Iraq. The excavations included the ziggurat, three temples and part of the palace of Dur Kurigalzu II. The Iraqi Directorate-General of Antiquities has continued to do some excavation around the ziggurat as part of a restoration project under Saddam Hussein during the 1970s that had reconstructed the lowest stage of the structure.[10] The three excavated areas are the mound of Aqar Quf (including the ziggurat and large temple), a public building (approximately 100 meters (330 ft) to the west), and Tell al-Abyad where a large palace was partially uncovered (about 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) to the southwest). The erosion of the ziggurat exposed details of construction that are not readily available in any other temple tower. Thus, it has been a valuable primer for architectural historians. Nowhere else are the layers of reed mats and reed bundles that hold the structure together and offset differential settling as visible as they are here. Many of the currently known major works of art from the Kassite period were found within the palace (located at Tell al-Abyad) at Aqar Quf. Another area within Dur-Kurigalzu, Tell Abu Shijar, was excavated by Iraqi archaeologists and the results have recently been published. The area of Aqar Quf has potential for future excavations since only small areas within the enclosure wall have been excavated. Especially important is the possibility of a stratigraphic column through all of Kassite times. Current status For 16 seasons in the 1960s and 1970s the Iraqi government did conservation and restoration work at the site. Aqar Quf currently is suffering environmental damage and urban encroachment. Natural factors like rain and standing groundwater have contributed to the erosion of the ziggurat and damage to the ruins, especially along the south-west side. As a result of this damage, the ziggurat is in danger of further deterioration as well as collapse if preventive measures are not taken. The suburbs and industrial areas of Baghdad also continue developing near to the site. Currently there is encroachment of modern construction along some stretches of the enclosure wall. There is also agricultural encroachment along the enclosure wall, especially on the south-west side. Iraqi Army maneuvers, involving trenches, did some damage to the site in the 1980s. The ziggurat suffered damage as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when the site was abandoned and looted during the security breakdown and chaos that followed the U.S. military's overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Little is left of the modern administration building, museum, event stage and restaurant that once served the picnickers and students who visited the site before the war. Local government officials and the U.S. military charged with security in the area have been working to create a renovation plan. Since mid-2008, local officials have drafted plans to rebuild the historic site, but support from the Iraq Ministry of History and Ruins has not materialized.
  26. Title: Wikiwand: Tell Sheikh Hamad
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Tell_Sheikh_Hamad;
    Note: Tell Sheikh Hamad (Arabic: تل الشيخ حمد), also Dur-Katlimmu, is an archeological site in eastern Syria on the lower Khabur River, a tributary of the Euphrates. Chalcolithic occupation The site of Tell Sheikh Hamad was occupied from the Late Chalcolithic period (Late Neolithic, M4), when it was a small settlement. Assyrian city of Dur-Katlimmu In the 10th to 7th centuries BC, it was the site of the Assyrian city of Dur-Katlimmu, which may have been founded during the reign of Shalmaneser I. The name Dur-Katlimmu may refer to the limmu (an appointed royal official) Ina-Aššur-šuma-asbat son of Aššur-nadin-šume. During the fall of the Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC), sections of the Assyrian army retreated to the western corner of Assyria after the fall of Nineveh, Harran and Carchemish, and a number of Assyrian imperial records survive between 604 BC and 599 BC in and around Dur-Katlimmu, and so it is possible that remnants of the Assyrian administration and army still continued to hold out in the region for a few years. Excavations have recovered 550 cuneiform Akkadian and 40 Aramaic texts belonging to a senior guard of Ashurbanipal. After the fall of the Assyrian Empire, Dur-Katlimmu became one of the many Near- and Middle-Eastern cities called Magdalu/Magdala/Migdal/Makdala/Majdal, all of which are simply Semitic language toponyms meaning "fortified elevation, tower."
  27. Title: Wikiwand: Tukulti-Ninurta Epic
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Tukulti-Ninurta_Epic;
    Note: Tukilti-Ninurta Epic is an Assyrian epic written in Akkadian describing and glorifying the wars and conquests of the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I against the Babylonian king Kashtiliash IV during the Kassite dynasty. Though in principle successful (the Assyrians kidnapped the statue of Babylon's city's god, Marduk), due to Babylonian rebellions and the interference of Elam, Assur had to return the city to the Kassites. It can therefore be considered as a form of propaganda. Scholars such as Joseph P. Farrel, suggest this epic likely is an inventory of war "booty" upon victory of this conflict in actual human history.
  28. Title: Wikiwand: Tablet of Akaptaḫa
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Tablet_of_Akapta%E1%B8%ABa;
    Note: The tablet of Akaptaḫa, or Agaptaḫa, is an ancient Mesopotamian private commemorative inscription on stone of the donation of a 10 GUR field (about 200 acres) by Kassite King Kaštiliašu IV (ca. 1232 BC – 1225 BC) to a fugitive leatherworker from Assyrian-occupied Ḫanigalbat in grateful recognition of his services provisioning the Babylonian army with bridles (pagumu, a loanword from Hurrian or perhaps Kassite) . The tablet The Mitanni kingdom of Ḫanigalbat, here given the Babylonian pronunciation "Ḫaligalbatû," had been annexed under the preceding reign of Adad-nārārī I (1307–1275 BC) or Salmānu-ašarēdu I (1274–1245 BC) and Akaptaḫa (a Hurrian name) seems to have been one of the political refugees ("munnabittu," refugee, displaced persion, foreigner) who consequently sought asylum in the Kassite kingdom. He made his home in Padan (var. Padnu), one of the eastern provinces somewhere (Jebel Hamrin, according to Jensen) in the upper Diyala region which had been claimed by the Kassites since the time of Agum II. The object was recovered during the French excavations at Susa at the end of the 19th century, where it had been taken as war booty during one of the Elamite invasions following the overthrow of Kaštiliašu IV by Tukulti-Ninurta I, those of Kidin-Hutran III (ca. 1224 BC and 1217 BC), Shutruk-Nakhunte (ca. 1158 BC) and Kutir-Nahhunte II (1155 BC). The tablet describes itself using the same term applied generally to kudurrus as a "narû," "stele," and falls into the same tradition of entitlement monuments, excepting the absence of religious iconography and the format of the granting and cursing formulae. The text invokes "the gods of the king," presumably the Kassite deities Šuqamuna and Šumalia. The inscription uses an informal mix of monumental and cursive cuneiform, precedes the royal name with a masculine (1 or m) rather than the divine (DINGIR) or (D) determinative and spells his name with "-ti-li-" in place of the more usual "–til-," suggesting its provincial origin or perhaps its lack of authenticity. The name Akaptaḫa appears on four accounts of salaries or ration lists from Nippur as the father of Ninurta-ašarēdu, dated to the sixteenth year of an unnamed king probably Nazi-Maruttaš (1291 BC), the father of Izkur-Šuqamuna, in the twentieth year of an unnamed king, that of Arunayû the twenty-first year of Kurigalzu II and as "DUMU-Akaptaḫa" on an inventory of gardening implements from Nazi-Maruttaš’ second year but these incidents are probably for someone else as they appear too early.
  29. Title: Wikiwand: Kudurru of Kaštiliašu
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kudurru_of_Ka%C5%A1tilia%C5%A1u;
    Note: The kudurru of Kaštiliašu' is a fragment of an ancient Mesopotamian narû, or entitlement stele, recording the legal action taken by Kassite king Kaštiliašu IV (ca. 1232–1225 BC) over land originally granted by his forebear Kurigalzu II (ca. 1332–1308 BC), son of Burna-Buriaš II to Uzub-Šiḫu or -Šipak in grateful recognition of his efforts in the war against Assyria under its king, Enlil-nirari. Along with the Tablet of Akaptaḫa, these are the only extant kudurrus from this king’s short eight-year reign and were both recovered from Elamite Susa, where they had been taken in antiquity, during the French excavations under Jacques de Morgan at the end of the nineteenth century and now reside in the Musée du Louvre. The stele The surviving kudurru fragment is a crescent-shaped cross-section with convex surface inscribed with cuneiform and a concave side engraved with relief images. Where the stele tapers to the top, it carries representations of the gods Sîn (crescent moon), Šamaš (solar-disc) and Ištar (eight-pointed star) in bas-relief. Beneath these a demon with a lion’s head, human body and short tail brandishes a knife in one hand and a club or mace in the other. This is Ugallu, "Big Weather Beast," one of the eleven monsters who were to be conquered by Marduk in the later publication, Enûma Eliš, and who was to feature on apotropaic figurines of the first millennium BC. The seated dog figure of Gula is carved facing the demon. The broken text recalls that Kurigalzu had awarded an individual with the Kassite name Uzub-Šiḫu (or -Šipak, a Kassite deity) a large area of 120 GUR (around 3.75 square miles) of agricultural land for services rendered during the war against Assyria. This suggests a successful outcome in this conflict in marked contrast to the account espoused by the Synchronistic History, an Assyrian polemic chronicle inscription which boasts of Kurigalzu’s apparent defeat at the Battle of Sugagu, a view which was also contradicted in the Babylonian Chronicle P version of these events and also in Assyrian king Adad-nārārī I’s own recollections of his father, Enlil-nirari’s setbacks. The text mentions Nimgirabi-Marduk, son of Nazi-…. and Pir-Šamaš, son of Šumat-Šamaš, but their roles are uncertain. The land grant was reconfirmed by Kaštiliašu, possibly to a descendant of the original beneficiary, perhaps due to the failure to provide a sealed legal document during the earlier bequest.
  30. Title: Wikiwand: Tukulti-Ninurta I
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Tukulti-Ninurta_I;
    Note: Tukulti-Ninurta I (meaning: "my trust is in [the warrior god] Ninurta"; reigned 1243–1207 BC) was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire (1366–1050 BC). He is known as the first king to use the title "King of Kings." Biography Tukulti-Ninurta I succeeded Shalmaneser I, his father, as king and won a major victory against the Hittite Empire at the Battle of Nihriya in the first half of his reign, appropriating Hittite territory in Asia Minor and the Levant. Tukulti-Ninurta I retained Assyrian control of Urartu, and later defeated Kashtiliash IV, the Kassite king of Babylonia, and captured the rival city of Babylon to ensure full Assyrian supremacy over Mesopotamia. He set himself up as king of Babylon, thus becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there, its previous kings having all been non-native Amorites or Kassites. He took on the ancient title "King of Sumer and Akkad" first used by Sargon of Akkad. Tukulti-Ninurta had petitioned the god Shamash before beginning his counter offensive. Kashtiliash IV was captured, single-handed by Tukulti-Ninurta according to his account, who "trod with my feet upon his lordly neck as though it were a footstool" and deported him ignominiously in chains to Assyria. The victorious Assyrian demolished the walls of Babylon, massacred many of the inhabitants, pillaged and plundered his way across the city to the Esagila temple, where he made off with the statue of Marduk. After capturing Babylonia, he invaded the Arabian Peninsula, conquering the pre-Arab states of Dilmun and Meluhha. Middle Assyrian texts recovered at ancient Dūr-Katlimmu include a letter from Tukulti-Ninurta to his "sukkal rabi'u," or grand vizier, Ashur-iddin advising him of the approach of his general Shulman-mushabshu escorting the captive Kashtiliash, his wife, and his retinue which incorporated a large number of women, on his way to exile after his defeat. In the process he defeated the Elamites, who had themselves coveted Babylon. He also wrote an epic poem documenting his wars against Babylon and Elam. After a Babylonian revolt, he raided and plundered the temples in Babylon, regarded as an act of sacrilege to all Mesopotamians, including Assyrians. As relations with the priesthood in Ashur began deteriorating, Tukulti-Ninurta built a new capital city; Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. However, his sons rebelled against him and besieged him in his new city. During the siege, he was murdered. One of them, Ashur-nadin-apli, would succeed him on the throne. After his death, the Assyrian Empire fell into a brief period of stagnation. The "Tukulti-Ninurta Epic" describes the war between Tukulti-Ninurta I and Kashtiliash IV. Julian Jaynes identifies this king as the historical origin for Nimrod in the Old Testament. Sources 1. ^ J. M. Munn-Rankin (1975). "Assyrian Military Power, 1300–1200 B.C.", in I. E. S. Edwards (ed.) Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 2, Part 2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 287–288, 298. 2. ^ The Cambridge Ancient History, I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, (ed) I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, Edition 3, revised, Cambridge University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-521-08691-4, ISBN 978-0-521-08691-2, pg. 284-295 3. ^ Julian Jaynes (2000). "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." Mariner Books. p. 228. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  31. Title: Wikiwand: Esagila
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Esagila;
    Note: The Ésagila (Sumerian: 𒂍𒊕𒅍𒆷 É-SAǦ-ÍL.LA, "temple whose top is lofty") was a temple dedicated to Marduk, the protector god of Babylon. It lay south of the ziggurat Etemenanki. Description In this temple was the statue of Marduk, surrounded by cult images of the cities that had fallen under the hegemony of the Babylonian Empire from the 18th century BC; there was also a little lake that was named "Abzu" by the Babylonian priests. This "Abzu" was a representation of Marduk's father, Enki, who was god of the waters and lived in the "Abzu" that was the source of all the fresh waters. Esarhaddon, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (681 – 669 BC), claimed he built the temple from the foundation to the battlements, a claim corroborated by dedicatory inscriptions found on the stones of the temple's walls on the site.[2] The Esagila complex, completed in its final form by Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 BC) encasing earlier cores, was the center of Babylon. It comprised a large court (ca. 40×70 meters), containing a smaller court (ca. 25×40 meters), and finally the central shrine, consisting of an anteroom and the inner sanctum which contained the statues of Marduk and his consort Sarpanit. According to Herodotus, Xerxes had a statue removed from the Esagila when he flooded Babylon in 482 BC, desecrated the Esagila and sacked the city. Alexander the Great ordered restorations, and the temple continued to be maintained throughout the 2nd century BC, as one of the last strongholds of Babylonian culture, such as literacy in the cuneiform script, but as Babylon was gradually abandoned under the Parthian Empire, the temple fell into decay in the 1st century BC. Under the enormous heap of debris that lay over it, Esagila was rediscovered by Robert Koldewey in November 1900, but it did not begin to be seriously examined until 1910. The rising water table has obliterated much of the sun-dried brick and other oldest material. Most of the finds at Babylon reflect the Neo-Babylonian period and later. "This temple is square, and each side is two stadia in length. In the center is a massive tower, of one stadium in length and breadth; on this tower stands another tower, and another again upon this, and so on up to eight." — Herodotus (I, 178-182) Esagila tablet Data from the Esagila tablet, which was copied from older texts in 229 BC and describes Esagila in lines 1–15 before passing on to the ziggurat of Etemenanki, have aided in the temple's reconstruction. The tablet, described by George Smith in 1872, disappeared for some time into private hands before it resurfaced and began to be interpreted. The Esagila tablet hold Babylonian calculating methods considered to be sacred as they read in the back "let the initiate show the initiate, the non-initiate must not see this." On the front, the tablet explains the history and engineering of the 7-floor high Etemenanki temple (the equivalent of the Tower of Babel in the Bible).
  32. Title: Wikiwand: Meluhha
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Meluhha;
    Note: "Meluḫḫa" or Melukhkha ("Me-luh-ha," 𒈨𒈛𒄩𒆠) is the Sumerian name of a prominent trading partner of Sumer during the Middle Bronze Age. Its identification remains an open question, but most scholars associate it with the Indus Valley Civilization. Etymology Asko Parpola identifies Proto-Dravidians with the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and the Meluhha people mentioned in Sumerian records. According to him, the word "Meluhha" derives from the Dravidian words "mel-akam" ("highland country"). It is possible that the IVC people exported sesame oil to Mesopotamia, where it was known as "ilu" in Sumerian and "ellu" in Akkadian. One theory is that these words derive from the Dravidian name for sesame ("el" or "ellu"). However, Michael Witzel, who associates IVC with the ancestors of Munda speakers, suggests an alternative etymology from the para-Munda word for wild sesame: "jar-tila." Munda is an Austroasiatic language, and forms a substratum (including loanwords) in Dravidian languages. Asko Parpola relates Meluhha with Mleccha who were considered non-Vedic "barbarian" in Vedic Sanskrit. Trade with Sumer See also: Indus-Mesopotamia relations, Indus Valley Civilization trade, Indo-Roman trade relations, Maritime history of India, Indian Ocean trade, Silk route, and Asian diaspora Sumerian texts repeatedly refer to three important centers with which they traded: Magan, Dilmun, and Meluhha. "Magan" usually is identified with Egypt in later Assyrian texts; but the Sumerian localization of Magan was probably Oman. "Dilmun" was a Persian Gulf civilization which traded with Mesopotamian civilizations, the current scholarly consensus is that Dilmun encompassed Bahrain, Failaka Island and the adjacent coast of Eastern Arabia in the Persian Gulf. There is extensive presence of Harappan seals and cubical weight measures in Mesopotamian urban sites. Specific items of high volume trade are timber and specialty wood such as ebony, for which large ships were used. Luxury items also appear, such as lapis lazuli mined at a Harappan colony at Shortugai (modern Badakhshan in northern Afghanistan), which was transported to Lothal, a port city in Gujarat in western India, and shipped from there to Oman, Bahrain and Sumer. In the 1980s, important archaeological discoveries were made at Ras al-Jinz (Oman), located at the easternmost point of the Arabian Peninsula, demonstrating maritime Indus Valley connections with Oman, and the Middle East in general. Indian subcontinent versus Africa Writings in the Ur-III period describe Meluhha as the "land of the black mountains." Almost all scholars suggest that "Meluhha" was the Sumerian name for the Indus Valley Civilization. Finnish scholars Asko and Simo Parpola identify "Meluhha" (earlier variant "Me-lah-ha") from earlier Sumerian documents with Dravidian "mel akam," "high abode" or "high country." Many items of trade such as wood, minerals, and gemstones were indeed extracted from the hilly regions near the Indus settlements. They further claim that "Meluhha" is the origin of the Sanskrit "mleccha," meaning "barbarian, foreigner." Early texts (c. 2200 BC) seem to indicate that "Meluhha" is to the east, suggesting either the Indus valley or India. However, much later texts documenting the exploits of King Assurbanipal of Assyria (668–627 BC), long after the Indus Valley civilization had ceased to exist, seem to imply that "Meluhha" is to be found either in south India or in Africa, somewhere near Egypt. There is sufficient archaeological evidence for the trade between Mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent. Impressions of clay seals from the Indus Valley city of Harappa were evidently used to seal bundles of merchandise, as clay seal impressions with cord or sack marks on the reverse side testify. A number of these Indian seals have been found at Ur and other Mesopotamian sites.[17][18] The Persian-Gulf style of circular stamped rather than rolled seals, also known from Dilmun, that appear at Lothal in Gujarat, India, and Failaka Island (Kuwait), as well as in Mesopotamia, are convincing corroboration of the long-distance sea trade network, which G.L. Possehl has called a "Middle Asian Interaction Sphere." What the commerce consisted of is less sure: timber and precious woods, ivory, lapis lazuli, gold, and luxury goods such as carnelian and glazed stone beads, pearls from the Persian Gulf, and shell and bone inlays, were among the goods sent to Mesopotamia in exchange for silver, tin, woolen textiles, perhaps oil and grains and other foods. Copper ingots, certainly, bitumen, which occurred naturally in Mesopotamia, may have been exchanged for cotton textiles and chickens, major products of the Indus region that are not native to Mesopotamia—all these have been instanced. Later era In the Assyrian and Hellenistic eras, cuneiform texts continued to use (or revive) old place names, giving a perhaps artificial sense of continuity between contemporary events and events of the distant past. For example, Media is referred to as "the land of the Gutians," a people who had been prominent around 2000 BC. Meluhha also appears in these texts, in contexts suggesting that "Meluhha" and "Magan" were kingdoms adjacent to Egypt. Assurbanipal writes about his first march against Egypt, "In my first campaign I marched against Magan, Meluhha, Tarka, king of Egypt and Ethiopia, whom Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, the father who begot me, had defeated, and whose land he brought under his sway." In the Hellenistic period, the term is sometimes used to refer to Ptolemaic Egypt, as in its account of a festival celebrating the conclusion of the Sixth Syrian War. "Meluhha" also appears in these texts, in contexts suggesting that "Meluhha" and "Magan" were kingdoms adjacent to Egypt. Assurbanipal writes about his first march against Egypt, "In my first campaign I marched against Magan, Meluhha, Tarka, king of Egypt and Ethiopia, whom Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, the father who begot me, had defeated, and whose land he brought under his sway." In the Hellenistic period, the term is sometimes used to refer to Ptolemaic Egypt, as in its account of a festival celebrating the conclusion of the Sixth Syrian War. These references do not necessarily mean that early references to "Meluhha" also referred to Egypt. Direct contacts between Sumer and the Indus Valley had ceased even during the Mature Harappan phase when Oman and Bahrain (Magan and Dilmun) became intermediaries. After the sack of Ur by the Elamites and subsequent invasions in Sumer, its trade and contacts shifted west and Meluhha passed almost into mythological memory. The resurfacing of the name could simply reflect cultural memory of a rich and distant land, its use in records of Achaemenid and Seleucid military expeditions serving to aggrandize those kings.
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