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Tiglath-Pileser 15th King of the Middle Assyrian Empire I


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Father: Ashur-resh-ishi 14th King of the Middle Assyrian Empire I, b. ABT 1175 BC in Assyria   d. in or after 1116 BC

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  1. Title: Wikiwand: Ancient Near East
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ancient_Near_East;
    Note: The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran, northeastern Syria and Kuwait), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran (Elam, Media, Parthia and Persia), Anatolia/Asia Minor and Armenian Highlands (Turkey's Eastern Anatolia Region, Armenia, northwestern Iran, southern Georgia, and western Azerbaijan), the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Jordan), Cyprus and the Arabian Peninsula. The ancient Near East is studied in the fields of Near Eastern archaeology and ancient history. The history of the ancient Near East begins with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, though the date it ends varies. The term covers the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the region, until either the conquest by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, that by the Macedonian Empire in the 4th century BC, or the Muslim conquests in the 7th century AD. The ancient Near East is considered one of the cradles of civilization. It was here that intensive year-round agriculture was first practiced, leading to the rise of the first dense urban settlements and the development of many familiar institutions of civilization, such as social stratification, centralized government and empires, organized religion and organized warfare. It also saw the creation of the first writing system, the first alphabet (abjad), the first currency in history, and law codes, early advances that laid the foundations of astronomy and mathematics, and the invention of the wheel. During the period, states became increasingly large, until the region became controlled by militaristic empires that had conquered a number of different cultures. Concept of Near East Main article: Near East The phrase "ancient Near East" denotes the 19th-century distinction between Near East and Far East as global regions of interest to the British Empire. The distinction began during the Crimean War. The last major exclusive partition of the east between these two terms was current in diplomacy in the late 19th century, with the Hamidian Massacres of the Armenians and Assyrians by the Ottoman Empire in 1894–1896 and the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. The two theatres were described by the statesmen and advisors of the British Empire as "the Near East" and "the Far East". Shortly after, they were to share the stage with Middle East, which came to prevail in the 20th century and continues in modern times. As "Near East" had meant the lands of the Ottoman Empire at roughly its maximum extent, on the fall of that empire, the use of Near East in diplomacy was reduced significantly in favor of the Middle East. Meanwhile, the ancient Near East had become distinct. The Ottoman rule over the Near East ranged from Vienna (to the north) to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula (to the south), from Egypt (in the west) to the borders of Iraq (in the east). The 19th-century archaeologists added Iran to their definition, which was never under the Ottomans, but they excluded all of Europe and, generally, Egypt, which had parts in the empire. Periodization Ancient Near East periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into discrete named blocks, or eras, of the Near East. The result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on Near East periods of time with relatively stable characteristics. Copper Age Chalcolithic (4500 – 3300 BC) Early Chalcolithic 4500 – 4000 BC Ubaid period in Mesopotamia Late Chalcolithic 4000 – 3300 BC Ghassulian, Sumerian Uruk period in Mesopotamia, Gerzeh, Predynastic Egypt, Proto-Elamite Bronze Age (3300 – 1200 BC) Early Bronze Age (3300 – 2100 BC) Early Bronze Age I 3300 – 3000 BC Protodynastic to Early Dynastic Period of Egypt, settlement of Phoenicians Early Bronze Age II 3000 – 2700 BC Early Dynastic Period of Sumer Early Bronze Age III 2700 – 2200 BC Old Kingdom of Egypt, Akkadian Empire, early Assyria, Old Elamite period, Sumero-Akkadian states Early Bronze Age IV 2200 – 2100 BC First Intermediate Period of Egypt Middle Bronze Age (2100 – 1550 BC) Middle Bronze Age I 2100 – 2000 BC Third Dynasty of Ur Middle Bronze Age II A 2000 – 1750 BC Minoan civilization, early Babylonia, Egyptian Middle Kingdom Middle Bronze Age II B 1750 – 1650 BC Second Intermediate Period of Egypt Middle Bronze Age II C 1650 – 1550 BC Hittite Old Kingdom, Minoan eruption Late Bronze Age (1550 – 1200 BC) Late Bronze Age I 1550 – 1400 BC Hittite Middle Kingdom, Hayasa-Azzi, Middle Elamite period, New Kingdom of Egypt Late Bronze Age II A 1400 – 1300 BC Hittite New Kingdom, Mitanni, Hayasa-Azzi, Ugarit, Mycenaean Greece Late Bronze Age II B 1300 – 1200 BC Middle Assyrian Empire, beginning of the high point of Phoenicians Iron Age (1200 – 539 BC) Iron Age I (1200 – 1000 BC) Iron Age I A 1200 – 1150 BC Troy VII, Hekla 3 eruption, Bronze Age collapse, Sea Peoples Iron Age I B 1150 – 1000 BC Neo-Hittite states, Neo Elamite period, Aramean states Iron Age II (1000 – 539 BC) Iron Age II A 1000 – 900 BC Greek Dark Ages, traditional date of the United Monarchy of Israel Iron Age II B 900 – 700 BC Kingdom of Israel, Urartu, Phrygia, Neo-Assyrian Empire, Kingdom of Judah, first settlement of Carthage Iron Age II C 700 – 539 BC Neo-Babylonian Empire, Median Empire, fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Phoenicia, Archaic Greece, rise of Achaemenid Persia Classical antiquity (post-ANE) (539 BC – 634 AD) Achaemenid 539 – 330 BC Persian Achaemenid Empire Hellenistic & Parthian 330 – 31 BC Macedonian Empire, Seleucid Empire, Kingdom of Pergamon, Ptolemaic Kingdom, Parthian Empire Roman & Persian 31 BC – 634 AD Roman–Persian Wars, Roman Empire, Parthian Empire, Sassanid Empire, Byzantine Empire, Muslim conquests History Further information: History of the Middle East and Timeline of Middle Eastern History Prehistory Main article: ASPRO chronology . Paleolithic . Epipaleolithic and mesolithic . Kebaran culture . Natufian culture (founding of Göbekli Tepe ceremonial site) . Pre-pottery Neolithic A . Pre-pottery Neolithic B . Pre-pottery Neolithic C . Pottery Neolithic Chalcolithic Early Mesopotamia The Uruk period (c. 4000 to 3100 BC) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, following the Ubaid period. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was followed by the Sumerian civilization. The late Uruk period (34–32 centuries) saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age. Bronze Age Further information: Short chronology timeline Early Bronze Age Sumer and Akkad Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia, is the earliest known civilization in the world. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period (late 6th millennium BC) through the Uruk period (4th millennium BC) and the Dynastic periods (3rd millennium BC) until the rise of Assyria and Babylon in the late 3rd millennium BC and early 2nd millennium BC respectively. The Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon the Great, lasted from the 24th to the 21st century BC, and was regarded by many as the world's first empire. The Akkadians eventually fragmented into Assyria and Babylonia. Elam Ancient Elam lay to the east of Sumer and Akkad, in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province. In the Old Elamite period, c. 3200 BC, it consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered on Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered on Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Elam was absorbed into the Assyrian Empire in the 9th to 7th centuries BC; however, the civilization endured up until 539 BC when it was finally overrun by the Iranian Persians. The Proto-Elamite civilization existed from c. 3200 BC to 2700 BC, when Susa, the later capital of the Elamites, began to receive influence from the cultures of the Iranian plateau. In archaeological terms, this corresponds to the late Banesh period. This civilization is recognized as the oldest in Iran and was largely contemporary with its neighbour, the Sumerian civilization. The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use for the ancient Elamite language (which was a Language isolate) before the introduction of Elamite Cuneiform. The Amorites The Amorites were a nomadic Semitic people who occupied the country west of the Euphrates from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. In the earliest Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BC, the land of the Amorites ("the 'Mar.tu' land") is associated with the West, including Syria and Canaan, although their ultimate origin may have been Arabia. They ultimately settled in Mesopotamia, ruling Isin, Larsa, and later Babylon. Middle Bronze Age . Assyria, after enduring a short period of Mitanni domination, emerged as a great power from the accession of Ashur-uballit I in 1365 BC to the death of Tiglath-Pileser I in 1076 BC. Assyria rivaled Egypt during this period, and dominated much of the near east. . Babylonia, founded as a state by Amorite tribes, found itself under the rule of Kassites for 435 years. The nation stagnated during the Kassite period, and Babylonia often found itself under Assyrian or Elamite domination. . Canaan: Ugarit, Kadesh, Megiddo . The Hittite Empire was founded some time after 2000 BC, and existed as a major power, dominating Asia Minor and the Levant until 1200 BC, when it was first overrun by the Phrygians, and then appropriated by Assyria. Late Bronze Age The Hurrians lived in northern Mesopotamia and areas to the immediate east and west, beginning approximately 2500 BC. They probably originated in the Caucasus and entered from the north, but this is not certain. Their known homeland was centred on Subartu, the Khabur River valley, and later they established themselves as rulers of small kingdo..
  2. Title: Wikiwand: Hebrew language
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hebrew_language;
    Note: Hebrew (/ˈhiːbruː/; עִבְרִית‎, "Ivrit" Hebrew pronunciation: [ivˈʁit] or [ʕivˈɾit] is a Northwest Semitic language native to Israel. In 2013, Modern Hebrew was spoken by over nine million people worldwide. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, although the language was not referred to by the name "Hebrew" in the Tanakh itself. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Hebrew is the only Canaanite language still spoken, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be an everyday spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce and poetry. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, becoming the main language of the Yishuv, and subsequently of the State of Israel. According to "Ethnologue," in 1998, Hebrew was the language of five million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second-largest Hebrew-speaking population, with about 220,000 fluent speakers, mostly from Israel. Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. The Samaritan dialect is also the liturgical tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. As a foreign language, it is studied mostly by Jews and students of Judaism and Israel, and by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations, as well as by theologians in Christian seminaries. The first five books of the Torah, and most of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, around the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as "Lashon Hakodesh" (לשון הקודש), "the Holy Language," since ancient times. Etymology The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French "Ebrau," via Latin from the Greek "Ἑβραῖος" ("Hebraîos") and Aramaic "'ibrāy," all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew "Ivri" ("עברי"), one of several names for the Israelite (Jewish and Samaritan) people (Hebrews). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham's ancestor, Eber, mentioned in Genesis 10:21. The name is believed to be based on the Semitic root "ʕ-b-r" ("עבר") meaning "beyond," "other side," "across"; interpretations of the term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel/Judah, perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia, Phoenicia or the Transjordan (with the river referenced perhaps the Euphrates, Jordan or Litani; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan). Compare cognate Assyrian "ebru," of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as "Ivrit" is found in the prologue to the Book of Ben Sira, from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people. History Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. According to Avraham Ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile, when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic. Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by Late Antiquity, but it continued to be used as a literary language and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew, until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. Oldest Hebrew inscriptions Further information: Paleo-Hebrew alphabet and Ancient Hebrew writings In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "The differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear," and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon. Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans, later became the Roman script. The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Protosinaitic. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs, though the phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite, and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone, written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam Inscription, found near Jerusalem, is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include the ostraca found near Lachish, which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. Classical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew Main article: Biblical Hebrew In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between the 10th century BCE and the turn of the 4th century CE. It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. . Archaic Biblical Hebrew from the 10th to the 6th century BCE, corresponding to the Monarchic Period until the Babylonian Exile and represented by certain texts in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), notably the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5). Also called Old Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew. It was written in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. A script descended from this, the Samaritan alphabet, still is used by the Samaritans. . Standard Biblical Hebrew around the 8th to 6th centuries BCE, corresponding to the late Monarchic period and the Babylonian Exile. It is represented by the bulk of the Hebrew Bible that attains much of its present form around this time. Also called Biblical Hebrew, Early Biblical Hebrew, Classical Biblical Hebrew or Classical Hebrew (in the narrowest sense). . Late Biblical Hebrew, from the 5th to the 3rd centuries BCE, corresponding to the Persian Period and represented by certain texts in the Hebrew Bible, notably the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Basically similar to Classical Biblical Hebrew, apart from a few foreign words adopted for mainly governmental terms, and some syntactical innovations such as the use of the particle "she-" (alternative of "asher," meaning "that, which, who"). It adopted the Imperial Aramaic script (from which the modern Hebrew script descends). . Israelian Hebrew is a proposed northern dialect of biblical Hebrew, believed to have existed in all eras of the language, in some cases competing with late biblical Hebrew as an explanation for non-standard linguistic features of biblical texts. Early post-Biblical Hebrew . Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, corresponding to the Hellenistic and Roman Periods before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and represented by the Qumran Scrolls that form most (but not all) of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Commonly abbreviated as DSS Hebrew, also called Qumran Hebrew. The Imperial Aramaic script of the earlier scrolls in the 3rd century BCE evolved into the Hebrew square script of the later scrolls in the 1st century CE, also known as "ketav Ashuri" (Assyrian script), still in use today. . Mishnaic Hebrew from the 1st to the 3rd or 4th century CE, corresponding to the Roman Period after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and represented by the bulk of the Mishnah and Tosefta within the Talmud and by the Dead Sea Scrolls, notably the Bar Kokhba letters and the Copper Scroll. Also called Tannaitic Hebrew or Early Rabbinic Hebrew. Sometimes the above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as a set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century ..
  3. 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..
  4. Title: Wikiwand: Ashur (god)
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ashur_(god);
    Note: Ashur (also, Assur, Aššur; cuneiform: "𒀭𒀸𒋩," "dAš-šur") is an East Semitic god, and the head of the Assyrian pantheon in Mesopotamian religion, worshiped mainly in the northern half of Mesopotamia, and parts of north-east Syria and southeast Asia Minor that constituted old Assyria. He may have had a solar iconography. Legend Aššur was a deified form of the city of Assur, which dates from the mid 3rd millennium BC and was the capital of the Old Assyrian kingdom. As such, Ashur did not originally have a family, but as the cult came under southern Mesopotamian influence, he later came to be regarded as the Assyrian equivalent of Enlil, the chief god of Nippur, which was the most important god of the southern pantheon from the early 3rd millennium BC until Hammurabi founded an empire based in Babylon in the mid-18th century BC, after which Marduk replaced Enlil as the chief god in the south. In the north, Ashur absorbed Enlil's wife Ninlil (as the Assyrian goddess Mullissu) and his sons Ninurta and Zababa—this process began around the 14th century BC and continued down to the 7th century. During the various periods of Assyrian conquest, such as the Assyrian Empire of Shamshi-Adad I (1813–1750 BC), Middle Assyrian Empire (1391–1056 BC) and Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC), Assyrian imperial propaganda proclaimed the supremacy of Ashur and declared that the conquered peoples had been abandoned by their own gods. When Assyria conquered Babylon in the Sargonid period (8th–7th centuries BC), Assyrian scribes began to write the name of Ashur with the cuneiform signs 𒀭𒊹 AN.ŠAR2, the ideograms for "whole heaven" in Sumerian, which may have been pronounced similarly to Aššur in Akkadian, the language of Assyria and Babylonia. The intention seems to have been to put Aššur at the head of the Babylonian pantheon, where Anshar and his counterpart Kishar ("whole earth") preceded even Enlil and Ninlil. Thus in the Sargonid version of the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian national creation myth, Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, does not appear, and instead it is Ashur, as Anshar, who slays Tiamat the chaos-monster and creates the world of humankind. Representation and symbolism Some scholars have claimed that Ashur was represented as the winged sun that appears frequently in Assyrian iconography. Many Assyrian kings had names that included the name Ashur, including, above all, Ashur-uballit I, Ashurnasirpal, Esarhaddon (Ashur-aha-iddina), and Ashurbanipal. Epithets include "bêlu rabû," "great lord," "ab ilâni," "father of gods," "šadû rabû," "great mountain," and "il aššurî," "god of Ashur." The symbols of Ashur include: 1. a winged disc with horns, enclosing four circles revolving round a middle circle; rippling rays fall down from either side of the disc; 2. a circle or wheel, suspended from wings, and enclosing a warrior drawing his bow to discharge an arrow; 3. the same circle; the warrior's bow, however, is carried in his left hand, while the right hand is uplifted as if to bless his worshipers (see picture). An Assyrian standard, which probably represented the world column, has the disc mounted on a bull's head with horns. The upper part of the disc is occupied by a warrior, whose head, part of his bow, and the point of his arrow protrude from the circle. The rippling water rays are V-shaped, and two bulls, treading river-like rays, occupy the divisions thus formed. There are also two heads—a lion's and a man's—with gaping mouths, which may symbolize tempests, the destroying power of the sun, or the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates. Jastrow regards the winged disc as "the purer and more genuine symbol of Ashur as a solar deity." He calls it "a sun disc with protruding rays," and says: "To this symbol the warrior with the bow and arrow was added—a despiritualization that reflects the martial spirit of the Assyrian empire." The Assyrian Tree of Life Simo Parpola, in his paper entitled: "The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy," explores the use of the "Tree of life" motif when Ashur is depicted in reliefs. Often times Ashur is depicted in a winged disk hovering on top of a tree, for instance, in Ashurnasirpal's throne room in Calah which was inscribed with "vice-regent of Ashur." Parpola continues by drawing on parallels between the Ein Sof in the Kabbalah and the symbolism of Ashur with the Tree of life. The depiction of Ashur, the universal God, behind a solar disk, representing light as his essential nature, just as in Kabbalah, is just one instance of Parpola's comparison.
  5. Title: Wikiwand: Arameans
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Arameans;
    Note: The Arameans (Aramaic: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ‎, "ʼaramáyé," Arabic: آراميون‎), were an ancient Northwest Semitic Aramaic-speaking tribal confederation who emerged from the region known as Aram (in present-day Syria) in the Late Bronze Age (11th to 8th centuries BC). They established a patchwork of independent Aramaic kingdoms in the Levant and seized tracts of Anatolia as well as briefly conquering Babylonia. The Arameans never formed a unified state but had small independent kingdoms across parts of the Near East, (present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestinian territories, the northwestern Arabian peninsula and south-central Turkey). Their political influence was confined to a number of states such as Aram Damascus, Hamath, Palmyra, Aleppo and the partly Aramean Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire (935–605 BC) by the 9th century BC. In the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Aramaeans, Chaldeans, Suteans and indigenous Assyrians-Babylonians became largely indistinguishable, as these groups were culturally and ethnically absorbed into the native populace of Mesopotamia. By contrast, Imperial Aramaic came to be the "lingua franca" of the entire Near East and Asia Minor after King Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria (ruled 745–727 BC) made it one of two official languages of the vast Neo-Assyrian Empire (the other being Akkadian) in the mid-8th century BC, in recognition of the mostly Aramean-speaking population in areas Assyria had conquered west of the Euphrates and the large numbers of Arameans in Mesopotamia. This empire stretched from Cyprus and the East Mediterranean in the west to Persia and Elam in the east, and from Armenia and the Caucasus in the north to Egypt, Libya and Arabia in the south. The Achaemenid Empire (c. 550–330 BC) greatly spread Imperial Aramaic: north to the coast of the Black Sea and eastward to the Indus Valley. This version of Aramaic, influenced by Akkadian and later by Old Persian, later developed into the Syriac dialect of Edessa. Between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, the Arameans began to adopt Christianity in place of the polytheist Aramean religion, and the Levant became an important center of Syriac Christianity, along with the Aramean kingdom Osroene to the east from where the Syriac language and Syriac script emerged. Use of the Western Aramaic language has steadily declined in the face of Arabic since the Islamic conquest of the area in the 7th century AD, and the last vestiges of the spoken tongue in and around Maalula are in danger of extinction, although Assyrian population maintain spoken dialects of Akkadian influenced Neo-Aramaic as well as Syriac as a liturgical language. Similarly, some Jewish communities and the Mandean people also retain dialects of Aramaic. Today, an Aramean identity is mainly held by a small number of largely Arabic-speaking Syriac Christians in south-central Turkey, in Syria, and in the Aramean diaspora overseas. In 2014, Israel recognized the Aramean minority, an Arabic- and Aramaic-speaking Christian community. History Origins The toponym "A-ra-mu" appears in an inscription at the East Semitic speaking kingdom of Ebla listing geographical names, and the term "Armi," which is the Eblaite term for nearby Idlib (modern Aleppo), occurs frequently in the Ebla tablets (c. 2300 BC). One of the annals of Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2250 BC) mentions that he captured "Dubul, the ensí of 'A-ra-me'" ("Arame" is seemingly a genitive form), in the course of a campaign against Simurrum in the northern mountains. Other early references to a place or people of "Aram" have appeared at the archives of Mari (c. 1900 BC) and at Ugarit (c. 1300 BC). However, there is absolutely no historical, archaeological or linguistic evidence that the "Aramu," "Armi" or "Arame" were actually Arameans or even related to them; and the earliest "undisputed" historical attestation of Arameans as a people appears much later, in the inscriptions of Tiglath Pileser I (c. 1100 BC). Nomadic pastoralists have long played a prominent role in the history and economy of the Middle East, but their numbers seem to vary according to climatic conditions and the force of neighboring states inducing permanent settlement. The period of the Late Bronze Age seems to have coincided with increasing aridity, which weakened neighboring states and induced transhumance pastoralists to spend longer and longer periods with their flocks. Urban settlements (hitherto largely Amorite, Canaanite, Hittite, Ugarite inhabited) in The Levant diminished in size, until eventually fully nomadic pastoralist lifestyles came to dominate much of the region. These highly mobile, competitive tribesmen with their sudden raids continually threatened long-distance trade and interfered with the collection of taxes and tribute. The people who had long been the prominent population within what is today Syria (called the "Land of the Amurru" during their tenure) were the Amorites, a Canaanite speaking group of Semites who had appeared during the 25th century BC, destroying the hitherto dominant East Semitic speaking state of Ebla, founding the powerful state of Mari in the Levant, and during the 19th century BC founding Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia. However, they seem to have been displaced or wholly absorbed by the appearance of a people called the Ahlamu by the 13th century BC, disappearing from history. Ahlamû appears to be a generic term for a new wave of Semitic wanderers and nomads of varying origins who appeared during the 13th century BC across the Near East, Arabian Peninsula, Asia Minor, and Egypt. The presence of the Ahlamû is attested during the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC), which already ruled many of the lands in which the Ahlamû arose, in the Babylonian city of Nippur and even at Dilmun (modern Bahrain). Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 BC) is recorded as having defeated Shattuara, King of the Mitanni and his Hittite and Ahlamû mercenaries. In the following century, the Ahlamû cut the road from Babylon to Hattusas, and Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208 BC) conquered Mari, Hanigalbat and Rapiqum on the Euphrates and "the mountain of the Ahlamû," apparently the region of Jebel Bishri in northern Syria. The Arameans would appear to be one part of the larger generic Ahlamû group rather than synonymous with the Ahlamu. Bronze Age collapse The emergence of the Arameans occurred during the Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BC), which saw great upheavals and mass movements of peoples across the Middle East, Asia Minor, The Caucasus, East Mediterranean, North Africa, Ancient Iran, Ancient Greece and Balkans, leading to the genesis of new peoples and polities across these regions. The first certain reference to the Arameans appears in an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115–1077 BC), which refers to subjugating the "Ahlamû-Aramaeans" ("Ahlame Armaia"). Shortly after, the Ahlamû rapidly disappear from Assyrian annals, to be replaced by the Aramaeans ("Aramu," "Arimi"). This indicates that the Arameans had risen to dominance among the nomads; however, it is possible that the two peoples had nothing in common, but operated in the same area. By the late 12th century BC, the Arameans were firmly established in Syria; however, they were conquered by the Middle Assyrian Empire, as had been the Amorites and Ahlamu before them. The Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC), which had dominated the Near East and Asia Minor since the first half of the 14th century BC, began to shrink rapidly after the death of Ashur-bel-kala, its last great ruler in 1056 BC, and the Assyrian withdrawal allowed the Arameans and others to gain independence and take firm control of what was then Eber-Nari (and is today Syria) during the late 11th century BC. It is from this point that the region was called Aramea. Some of the major Aramean speaking kingdoms included: Aram-Damascus, Hamath, Bit Adini, Bit Bahiani, Bit Hadipe, Aram-Bet Rehob, Aram-Zobah, Bit-Zamani, Bit-Halupe and Aram-Ma'akah, as well as the Aramean tribal polities of the Gambulu, Litau and Puqudu. Later Biblical sources tell us that Saul, David and Solomon (late 11th to 10th centuries) fought against the small Aramean kingdoms ranged across the northern frontier of Israel: Aram-Sôvah in the Beqaa, Aram-Bêt-Rehob (Rehov) and Aram-Ma'akah around Mount Hermon, Geshur in the Hauran, and Aram-Damascus. An Aramean king's account dating at least two centuries later, the Tel Dan Stele, was discovered in northern Israel, and is famous for being perhaps the earliest non-Israelite extra-biblical historical reference to the Israelite royal dynasty, the House of David. In the early 11th century BC, much of Israel came under Aramean rule for eight years according to the Biblical Book of Judges, until Othniel defeated the forces led by Chushan-Rishathaim, the King of Aram-Naharaim. Further north, the Arameans gained possession of Neo-Hittite Hamath on the Orontes and were soon to become strong enough to dissociate with the Indo-European speaking Neo-Hittite states. During the 11th and the 10th centuries BC, the Arameans conquered Sam'al (modern Zenjirli), also known as Yaudi, the region from Arpad to Aleppo, which they renamed Bît-Agushi, and Til Barsip, which became the chief town of Bît-Adini, also known as Beth Eden. North of Sam'al was the Aramean state of Bit-Gabbari, which was sandwiched between the Syro-Hittite states of Carchemish, Gurgum, Khattina, Unqi and the Georgian state of Tabal. At the same time, Arameans moved to the east of the Euphrates, where they settled in such numbers that, for a time, the whole region became known as Aram-Naharaim or "Aram of the two rivers." Eastern Aramaean tribes spread into Babylonia and an Aramaean usurper was crowned king of Babylon under the name of Adad-apal-iddin. One of their earliest semi-independent kingdoms in southern Mesopotamia was Bît-Bahiâni (Tell Halaf). Neo-Assyrian Empire, 911–605 BC Assyrian annals from the..
  6. Title: Wikiwand: Middle Assyrian Empire
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Middle_Assyrian_Empire;
    Note: The Middle Assyrian Empire is the period in the history of Assyria between the fall of the Old Assyrian Empire in the 14th century BC and the establishment of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 10th century BC. Assyrian expansion and empire, 1392–1056 BC See also: Military history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire By the reign of Eriba-Adad I (1392–1366 BC) Mitanni influence over Assyria was on the wane. Eriba-Adad I became involved in a dynastic battle between Tushratta and his brother Artatama II and after this his son Shuttarna III, who called himself king of the Hurri while seeking support from the Assyrians. A pro-Assyria faction appeared at the royal Mitanni court. Eriba-Adad I had thus finally broken Mitanni influence over Assyria, and in turn had now made Assyria an influence over Mitanni affairs. Ashur-uballit I (1365–1330 BC) succeeded the throne of Assyria in 1365 BC, and proved to be a fierce, ambitious and powerful ruler. Assyrian pressure from the southeast and Hittite pressure from the north-west, enabled Ashur-uballit I to break Mitanni power. He met and decisively defeated Shuttarna II, the Mitanni king in battle, making Assyria once more an imperial power at the expense of not only the Mitanni themselves, but also Kassite Babylonia, the Hurrians and the Hittites; and a time came when the Kassite king in Babylon was glad to marry Muballiṭat-Šērūa, the daughter of Ashur-uballit, whose letters to Akhenaten of Egypt form part of the Amarna letters. This marriage led to disastrous results for Babylonia, as the Kassite faction at court murdered the half-Assyrian, half-Babylonian king and placed a pretender on the throne. Assur-uballit I promptly invaded Babylonia to avenge his son-in-law, entering Babylon, deposing the king and installing Kurigalzu II of the royal line king there. Ashur-uballit I then attacked and defeated Mattiwaza, the Mitanni king, despite attempts by the Hittite king Suppiluliumas, now fearful of growing Assyrian power, to help the Mitanni. The lands of the Mitanni and Hurrians were duly appropriated by Assyria, making it a large and powerful empire. Enlil-nirari (1329–1308 BC) succeeded Ashur-uballit I. He described himself as a "Great-King" ("Sharru rabû") in letters to the Hittite kings. He was immediately attacked by Kurigalzu II of Babylon who had been installed by his father, but succeeded in defeating him, repelling Babylonian attempts to invade Assyria, counterattacking and appropriating Babylonian territory in the process, thus further expanding Assyria. The successor of Enlil-nirari, Arik-den-ili (c. 1307–1296 BC), consolidated Assyrian power, and successfully campaigned in the Zagros Mountains to the east, subjugating the Lullubi and Gutians. In Syria, he defeated Semitic tribes of the so-called Ahlamu group, who were possibly predecessors of the Arameans or an Aramean tribe. He was followed by Adad-nirari I (1295–1275 BC) who made Kalhu (Biblical Calah/Nimrud) his capital, and continued expansion to the northwest, mainly at the expense of the Hittites and Hurrians, conquering Hittite territories such as Carchemish and beyond. He then moved into north eastern Asia Minor, conquering Shupria. Adad-nirari I made further gains to the south, annexing Babylonian territory and forcing the Kassite rulers of Babylon into accepting a new frontier agreement in Assyria's favor. Adad-nirari's inscriptions are more detailed than any of his predecessors. He declares that the gods of Mesopotamia called him to war, a statement used by most subsequent Assyrian kings. He referred to himself again as "Sharru Rabi" (meaning "The Great King" in the Akkadian language) and conducted extensive building projects in Ashur and the provinces. In 1274 BC, Shalmaneser I (1274–1244 BC) ascended the throne. He proved to be a great warrior king. During his reign he conquered the Hurrian kingdom of Urartu that would have encompassed most of Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus Mountains in the 9th century BC, and the fierce Gutians of the Zagros. He then attacked the Mitanni-Hurrians, defeating both King Shattuara and his Hittite and Aramaean allies, finally completely destroying the Hurri-Mitanni kingdom in the process. During the campaign against the Hittites, Shattuara cut off the Assyrian army from their supply of food and water, but the Assyrians broke free in a desperate battle, counterattacked, and conquered and annexed what remained of the Mitanni kingdom. Shalmaneser I installed an Assyrian prince, Ilu-ippada as ruler of Mitanni, with Assyrian governors such as Meli-sah, installed to rule individual cities. The Hittites, having failed to save Mitanni, allied with Babylon in an unsuccessful economic war against Assyria for many years. Assyria was now a large and powerful empire, and a major threat to Egyptian and Hittite interests in the region, and was perhaps the reason that these two powers, fearful of Assyrian might, made peace with one another. Like his father, Shalmaneser was a great builder and he further expanded the city of Kalhu at the juncture of the Tigris and Zab Rivers. Shalmaneser's son and successor, Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1207 BC), won a major victory against the Hittites and their king Tudhaliya IV at the Battle of Nihriya and took thousands of prisoners. He then conquered Babylonia, taking Kashtiliash IV as a captive and ruled there himself as king for seven years, taking on the old title "King of Sumer and Akkad" first used by Sargon of Akkad. Tukulti-Ninurta I thus became the first Akkadian speaking native Mesopotamian to rule the state of Babylonia, its founders having been foreign Amorites, succeeded by equally foreign Kassites. Tukulti-Ninurta 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 Assyrians 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 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. As relations with the priesthood in Ashur began deteriorating, Tukulti-Ninurta built a new capital city; Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. A number of historians, including Julian Jaynes, identify Tukulti-Ninurta I and his deeds - along with Gilgamesh, Sargon I, and Ur-Nammu - as the historical origin for the biblical fictional character Nimrod in the Old Testament. However, Tukulti-Ninurta's sons rebelled and besieged the ageing king in his capital. He was murdered and then succeeded by Ashur-nadin-apli (1206–1203 BC) who left the running of his empire to Assyrian regional governors such as Adad-bēl-gabbe. Another unstable period for Assyria followed, it was riven by periods of internal strife and the new king only made token and unsuccessful attempts to recapture Babylon, whose Kassite kings had taken advantage of the upheavals in Assyria and freed themselves from Assyrian rule. However, Assyria itself was not threatened by foreign powers during the reigns of Ashur-nirari III (1202–1197 BC), Enlil-kudurri-usur (1196–1193 BC) and Ninurta-apal-Ekur (1192–1180 BC), although Ninurta-apal-Ekur usurped the throne from Enlil-kudurri-usur. Ashur-Dan I (1179–1133 BC) stabilised the internal unrest in Assyria during his unusually long reign, quelling instability. During the twilight years of the Kassite dynasty in Babylonia, he records that he seized northern Babylonia, including the cities of Zaban, Irriya and Ugar-sallu during the reigns of Marduk-apla-iddina I and Zababa-shuma-iddin, plundering them and "taking their vast booty to Assyria." However, the conquest of northern Babylonia brought Assyria into direct conflict with Elam which had taken the remainder of Babylonia. The powerful Elamites, under king Shutruk-Nahhunte, fresh from sacking Babylon, entered into a protracted war with Assyria, they briefly took the Assyrian city of Arrapkha, which Ashur-Dan I then retook, eventually defeating the Elamites and forcing a treaty upon them in the process. Another very brief period of internal upheaval followed the death of Ashur-Dan I when his son and successor Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur (1133 BC) was deposed in his first year of rule by his own brother Mutakkil-Nusku and forced to flee to Babylonia. Mutakkil-Nusku himself died in the same year (1133 BC). A third brother, Ashur-resh-ishi I (1133–1116 BC) took the throne. This was to lead to a renewed period of Assyrian expansion and empire. As the Hittite empire collapsed from the onslaught of the Indo-European Phrygians (called Mushki in Assyrian annals), Babylon and Assyria began to vie for Aramaean regions (in modern Syria), formerly under firm Hittite control. When their forces encountered one another in this region, the Assyrian king Ashur-resh-ishi I met and defeated Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon on a number of occasions. Assyria then invaded and annexed Hittite-controlled lands in Asia Minor, Aram (Syria), and Gutians and Kassite regions in the Zagros, marking an upsurge in imperian expansion. Tiglath-Pileser I (1115–1077 BC), vies with Shamshi-Adad I and Ashur-uballit I among historia..
  7. Title: Wikiwand: List of Assyrian kings
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_Assyrian_kings;
    Note: The King of Assyria (Akkadian: "šar māt Aššur"), called the Governor or Viceroy of Assyria (Akkadian: "Išši’ak Aššur") in the Early and Old periods, was the ruler of the ancient Mesopotamian kingdom of Assyria, which existed from approximately the 26th century BC to the 7th century BC. All modern lists of Assyrian kings generally follow the Assyrian King List, a list kept and developed by the ancient Assyrians themselves over the course of several centuries. Though some parts of the list are probably fictional, the list accords well with Hittite, Babylonian and ancient Egyptian king lists and with the archaeological record, and is generally considered reliable for the age. The ancient Assyrians did not believe that their king was divine himself, but saw their ruler as the vicar of their principal deity, Ashur, and as his chief representative on Earth. In their worldview, Assyria represented a place of order while lands not governed by the Assyrian king (and by extension, the god Ashur) were seen as places of chaos and disorder. As such it was seen as the king's duty to expand the borders of Assyria and bring order and civilization to lands perceived as uncivilized. Originally vassals of more powerful empires, the early Assyrian kings used the title governor or viceroy ("Išši’ak"), which was retained as the ruling title after Assyria gained independence due to the title of king ("šar") being applied to the god Ashur. Later Assyrian kings, beginning with Ashur-uballit I (14th century BC) adopted the title "šar māt Aššur" as their empire expanded and later also adopted more boastful titles such as "king of Sumer and Akkad," "king of the Universe" and "king of the Four Corners of the World," often to assert their control over all of Mesopotamia. The line of Assyrian kings ended with the defeat of Assyria's final king Ashur-uballit II by the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Median Empire in 609 BC, after which Assyria disappeared as an independent political unit, never to rise again. The Assyrian people survived and remain as an ethnic, linguistic, religious (Christians since the 1st–3rd centuries AD) and cultural minority in the Assyrian homeland and elsewhere to this day. Sources Incomplete king-lists have been recovered from all three of the major ancient Assyrian capitals (Aššur, Dur-Šarukkin and Nineveh). The three lists are largely consistent with each other, all originally copies of a single original list, and are based on the yearly appointments of "limmu"-officials (the eponymous officials for each year, appointed by the king to preside over the celebration of the New Year festival). Because of the consistency between the list and the method through which it was created, modern scholars usually accept the regnal years mentioned as more or less correct. There are some differences between the copies of the list, notably in that they offer somewhat diverging regnal years before the reign of king Ashur-dan I of the Middle Assyrian Empire (reign beginning in 1178 BC). After 1178 BC, the lists are identical in their contents. The king-lists mostly accord well with Hittite, Babylonian and ancient Egyptian king lists and with the archaeological record, and are generally considered reliable for the age. It is however clear that parts of the list are fictional, as some known kings are not found on the list and other listed kings are not independently verified. Originally it was assumed that the list was first written in the time of Shamshi-Adad I circa 1800 BC but it now is considered to date from much later, probably from the time of Ashurnasirpal I (1050–1031 BC). The oldest of the surviving king-lists, List A (8th century BC) stops at Tiglath-Pileser II (c. 967–935 BC) and the youngest, List C, stops at Shalmaneser V (727–722 BC). One problem that arises with the Assyrian King List is that the creation of the list may have been more motivated by political interest than actual chronological and historical accuracy. In times of civil strife and confusion, the list still adheres to a single royal line of descent, probably ignoring rival claimants to the throne. Additionally, there are some known inconsistencies between the list and actual inscriptions by Assyrian kings, often regarding dynastic relationships. For instance, Ashur-nirari II is stated by the list to be the son of his predecessor Enlil-Nasir II, but from inscriptions it is known that he was actually the son of Ashur-rabi I and brother of Enlil-Nasir. Titles See also: Akkadian royal titulary Assyrian royal titles typically followed trends that had begun under the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334–2154 BC), the Mesopotamian civilization that preceded the later kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon. When the Mesopotamian central government under the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112–2004 BC) collapsed and polities that had once been vassals to Ur became independent, many of the new sovereign rulers refrained from taking the title of king ("šar"), instead applying that title to their principal deities (in the case of Assyria, Ashur). For this reason, most of the Assyrian kings of the Old (c. 2025–1378 BC) and Middle Assyrian period (c. 1392–934 BC) used the title Išši’ak Aššur, translating to "governor of Assyria." In contrast to the titles employed by the Babylonian kings in the south, which typically focused on the protective role and the piety of the king, Assyrian royal inscriptions tend to glorify the strength and power of the king. Assyrian titularies usually also often emphasize the royal genaeology of the king, something Babylonian titularies do not, and also drive home the king's moral and physical qualities while downplaying his role in the judicial system. Assyrian epithets about royal lineage vary in how far they stretch back, most often simply discussing lineage in terms of "son of ..." or "brother of ...". Some cases display lineage stretching back much further, Shamash-shuma-ukin (r. 667–648 BC) describes himself as a "descendant of Sargon II," his great-grandfather. More extremely, Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BC) calls himself a "descendant of the eternal seed of Bel-bani", a king who would have lived more than a thousand years before him. Assyrian royal titularies were often changed depending on where the titles were to be displayed, the titles of the same Assyrian king would have been different in their home country of Assyria and in conquered regions. Those Neo-Assyrian kings who controlled the city of Babylon used a "hybrid" titulary of sorts in the south, combining aspects of the Assyrian and Babylonian tradition, similar to how the traditional Babylonian deities were promoted in the south alongside the Assyrian main deity of Ashur. The assumption of many traditional southern titles, including the ancient "king of Sumer and Akkad" and the boastful "king of the Universe" and "king of the Four Corners of the World", by the Assyrian kings served to legitimize their rule and assert their control over Babylon and lower Mesopotamia. Epithets like "chosen by the god Marduk and the goddess Sarpanit" and "favourite of the god Ashur and the goddess Mullissu", both assumed by Esarhaddon, illustrate that he was both Assyrian (Ashur and Mullissu, the main pair of Assyrian deities) and a legitimate ruler over Babylon (Marduk and Sarpanit, the main pair of Babylonian deities). To examplify an Assyrian royal title from the time Assyria ruled all of Mesopotamia, the titulature preserved in one of Esarhaddon's inscriptions read as follows: “The great king, the mighty king, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, son of Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of Assyria, grandson of Sargon, the great king, the mighty king, king of Assyria; who under the protection of Assur, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela, the great gods, his lords, made his way from the rising to the setting sun, having no rival.” Role of the Assyrian king Ancient Assyria was an absolute monarchy, with the king believed to be appointed directly through divine right by the chief deity, Ashur. The Assyrians believed that the king was the link between the gods and the earthly realm. As such, it was the king's primary duty to discover the will of the gods and enact this, often through the construction of temples or waging war. To aid the king with this duty, there was a number of priests at the royal court trained in reading and interpreting signs from the gods. The heartland of the Assyrian realm, Assyria itself, was thought to represent a serene and perfect place of order whilst the lands governed by foreign powers were perceived as infested with disorder and chaos. The peoples of these "outer" lands were seen as uncivilized, strange and as speaking strange languages. Because the king was the earthly link to the gods, it was his duty to spread order throughout the world through the military conquest of these strange and chaotic countries. As such, imperial expansion was not just expansion for expansion's sake but was also seen as a process of bringing divine order and destroying chaos to create civilization. There exists several ancient inscriptions in which the god Ashur explicitly orders kings to extend the borders of Assyria. A text from the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. c. 1233–1197 BC) states that the king received a royal scepter and was commanded to "broaden the land of Ashur." A similar inscription from the reign of Ashurbanipal (r. 668–631 BC) commands the king to "extend the land at his feet." The king also was tasked with protecting his own people, often being referred to as a "shepherd." This protection included defending against external enemies and defending citizens from dangerous wild animals. To the Assyrians, the most dangerous animal of all was the lion, used (similarly to foreign powers) as an example of chaos and disorder due to their aggressive nature. To prove themselves worthy of rule and..
  8. Title: Wikiwand: Euphrates
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Euphrates;
    Note: The Euphrates (/juːˈfreɪtiːz/); Sumerian: "𒌓𒄒𒉣," "Buranuna"; Akkadian: "𒌓𒄒𒉣," "Purattu"; Arabic: "الفرات‎," romanized: "al-Furāt"; Syriac: ̇"ܦܪܬ‎," "Pǝrāt"; Armenian: "Եփրատ," "Yeprat"; Hebrew: "פרת,"‎ "Perat"; Turkish: "Fırat"; Kurdish: "Firat‎") is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (the "Land between the Rivers"). Originating in the Armenian Highlands (eastern Turkey), the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf. Etymology The Ancient Greek form "Euphrátēs" (Ancient Greek: "Εὐφράτης," as if from Greek "εὖ," "good" and "ϕράζω," "I announce or declare") was adapted from Old Persian "𐎢𐎳𐎼𐎠𐎬𐎢," "Ufrātu," itself from Elamite "𒌑𒅁𒊏𒌅𒅖," "ú-ip-ra-tu-iš." The Elamite name ultimately is derived from a name spelled in cuneiform as "𒌓𒄒𒉣," which read in the Sumerian language as "Buranuna," and read in Akkadian language as "Purattu"; many cuneiform signs have a Sumerian pronunciation and an Akkadian pronunciation, taken from a Sumerian word and an Akkadian word that mean the same. In Akkadian the river was called "Purattu," which has been perpetuated in Semitic languages (cf. Syriac "P(ə)rāṯ," Arabic "al-Furāt") and in other nearby languages of the time (cf. Hurrian "Puranti," Sabarian "Uruttu"). The Elamite, Akkadian, and possibly Sumerian forms are suggested to be from an unrecorded substrate language. Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav Ivanov suggest the Proto-Sumerian *burudu "copper" (Sumerian "urudu") as an origin, with an explanation that Euphrates was the river by which the copper ore was transported in rafts, since Mesopotamia was the center of copper metallurgy during the period. The earliest references to the Euphrates come from cuneiform texts found in Shuruppak and pre-Sargonic Nippur in southern Iraq and date to the mid-3rd millennium BCE. In these texts, written in Sumerian, the Euphrates is called Buranuna (logographic: UD.KIB.NUN). The name could also be written KIB.NUN.(NA) or dKIB.NUN, with the prefix "d" indicating that the river was a divinity. In Sumerian, the name of the city of Sippar in modern-day Iraq was also written UD.KIB.NUN, indicating a historically strong relationship between the city and the river. Course The Euphrates is the longest river of Western Asia. It emerges from the confluence of the Kara Su or Western Euphrates (450 kilometers (280 mi) and the Murat Su or Eastern Euphrates (650 kilometers (400 mi) 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) upstream from the town of Keban in southeastern Turkey. Daoudy and Frenken put the length of the Euphrates from the source of the Murat River to the confluence with the Tigris at 3,000 kilometers (1,900 mi), of which 1,230 kilometers (760 mi) is in Turkey, 710 kilometers (440 mi) in Syria and 1,060 kilometers (660 mi) in Iraq. The same figures are given by Isaev and Mikhailova. The length of the Shatt al-Arab, which connects the Euphrates and the Tigris with the Persian Gulf, is given by various sources as 145–195 kilometers (90–121 mi). Both the Kara Su and the Murat Su rise northwest from Lake Van at elevations of 3,290 meters (10,790 ft) and 3,520 meters (11,550 ft) amsl, respectively. At the location of the Keban Dam, the two rivers, now combined into the Euphrates, have dropped to an elevation of 693 meters (2,274 ft) amsl. From Keban to the Syrian–Turkish border, the river drops another 368 meters (1,207 ft) over a distance of less than 600 kilometers (370 mi). Once the Euphrates enters the Upper Mesopotamian plains, its grade drops significantly; within Syria the river falls 163 meters (535 ft) while over the last stretch between Hīt and the Shatt al-Arab the river drops only 55 meters (180 ft). Discharge The Euphrates receives most of its water in the form of rainfall and melting snow, resulting in peak volumes during the months April through May. Discharge in these two months accounts for 36 percent of the total annual discharge of the Euphrates, or even 60–70 percent according to one source, while low runoff occurs in summer and autumn. The average natural annual flow of the Euphrates has been determined from early- and mid-twentieth century records as 20.9 cubic kilometers (5.0 cu mi) at Keban, 36.6 cubic kilometers (8.8 cu mi) at Hīt and 21.5 cubic kilometers (5.2 cu mi) at Hindiya. However, these averages mask the high inter-annual variability in discharge; at Birecik, just north of the Syro–Turkish border, annual discharges have been measured that ranged from a low volume of 15.3 cubic kilometers (3.7 cu mi) in 1961 to a high of 42.7 cubic kilometers (10.2 cu mi) in 1963. The discharge regime of the Euphrates has changed dramatically since the construction of the first dams in the 1970s. Data on Euphrates discharge collected after 1990 show the impact of the construction of the numerous dams in the Euphrates and of the increased withdrawal of water for irrigation. Average discharge at Hīt after 1990 has dropped to 356 cubic meters (12,600 cu ft) per second (11.2 cubic kilometers (2.7 cu mi) per year). The seasonal variability has equally changed. The pre-1990 peak volume recorded at Hīt was 7,510 cubic meters (265,000 cu ft) per second, while after 1990 it is only 2,514 cubic meters (88,800 cu ft) per second. The minimum volume at Hīt remained relatively unchanged, rising from 55 cubic meters (1,900 cu ft) per second before 1990 to 58 cubic meters (2,000 cu ft) per second afterward. Tributaries In Syria, three rivers add their water to the Euphrates; the Sajur, the Balikh and the Khabur. These rivers rise in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains along the Syro–Turkish border and add comparatively little water to the Euphrates. The Sajur is the smallest of these tributaries; emerging from two streams near Gaziantep and draining the plain around Manbij before emptying into the reservoir of the Tishrin Dam. The Balikh receives most of its water from a karstic spring near 'Ayn al-'Arus and flows due south until it reaches the Euphrates at the city of Raqqa. In terms of length, drainage basin and discharge, the Khabur is the largest of these three. Its main karstic springs are located around Ra's al-'Ayn, from where the Khabur flows southeast past Al-Hasakah, where the river turns south and drains into the Euphrates near Busayrah. Once the Euphrates enters Iraq, there are no more natural tributaries to the Euphrates, although canals connecting the Euphrates basin with the Tigris basin exist. Name Length Watershed size Discharge Bank Kara Su 450 km (280 mi) 22,000 km2 (8,500 sq mi) Confluence Murat River 650 km (400 mi) 40,000 km2 (15,000 sq mi) Confluence Sajur River 108 km (67 mi) 2,042 km2 (788 sq mi) 4.1 m3/s (145 cu ft/s) Right Balikh River 100 km (62 mi) 14,400 km2 (5,600 sq mi) 6 m3/s (212 cu ft/s) Left Khabur River 486 km (302 mi) 37,081 km2 (14,317 sq mi) 45 m3/s (1,600 cu ft/s) Left Drainage basin Further information: Tigris–Euphrates river system The drainage basins of the Kara Su and the Murat River cover an area of 22,000 square kilometers (8,500 sq mi) and 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), respectively. Estimates of the area of the Euphrates drainage basin vary widely; from a low 233,000 square kilometers (90,000 sq mi) to a high 766,000 square kilometers (296,000 sq mi). Recent estimates put the basin area at 388,000 square kilometers (150,000 sq mi), 444,000 square kilometers (171,000 sq mi) and 579,314 square kilometers (223,674 sq mi). The greater part of the Euphrates basin is located in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. According to both Daoudy and Frenken, Turkey's share is 28 percent, Syria's is 17 percent and that of Iraq is 40 percent. Isaev and Mikhailova estimate the percentages of the drainage basin lying within Turkey, Syria and Iraq at 33, 20 and 47 percent respectively. Some sources estimate that approximately 15 percent of the drainage basin is located within Saudi Arabia, while a small part falls inside the borders of Kuwait. Finally, some sources also include Jordan in the drainage basin of the Euphrates; a small part of the eastern desert (220 square kilometers (85 sq mi) drains toward the east rather than to the west. Natural history See also: Mesopotamian Marshes The Euphrates flows through a number of distinct vegetation zones. Although millennia-long human occupation in most parts of the Euphrates basin has significantly degraded the landscape, patches of original vegetation remain. The steady drop in annual rainfall from the sources of the Euphrates toward the Persian Gulf is a strong determinant for the vegetation that can be supported. In its upper reaches the Euphrates flows through the mountains of Southeast Turkey and their southern foothills which support a xeric woodland. Plant species in the moister parts of this zone include various oaks, pistachio trees, and "Rosaceae" (rose/plum family). The drier parts of the xeric woodland zone supports less dense oak forest and "Rosaceae." Here can also be found the wild variants of many cereals, including einkorn wheat, emmer wheat, oat and rye. South of this zone lies a zone of mixed woodland-steppe vegetation. Between Raqqa and the Syro–Iraqi border the Euphrates flows through a steppe landscape. This steppe is characterized by white wormwood ("Artemisia herba-alba") and "Chenopodiaceae." Throughout history, this zone has been heavily overgrazed due to the practicing of sheep and goat pastoralism by its inhabitants. Southeast of the border between Syria and Iraq starts true desert. This zone supports either no vegetation at all or small pockets of "Chenopodiaceae" or "Poa sinaica." Although today nothing of it survives due to human interference, research suggests that the Euphrates Valley would have supported a riverine forest. Species characteristic of this type of forest include the Oriental plane, the Euphrates poplar, the tamarisk, ..
  9. Title: Wikiwand: Shamshi-Adad I
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Shamshi-Adad_I;
    Note: Shamshi-Adad I (Akkadian: Šamši-Adad I; Amorite: "Shamshi-Addu I"; fl. c. 1809 BC – c. 1776 BC by the middle chronology) was an Amorite who had conquered lands across much of Syria, Anatolia, and Upper Mesopotamia for the Old Assyrian Empire. Rise Shamshi-Adad I inherited the throne in Ekallatum from Ila-kabkabu (fl. c. 1836 BC – c. 1833 BC). Ila-kabkabu is mentioned as the father of Shamshi-Adad I in the "Assyrian King List" (AKL); a similar name (not necessarily the same figure) is listed in the preceding section of the AKL among the "kings whose fathers are known." However, Shamshi-Adad I did not inherit the Assyrian throne from his father, but was instead a conqueror. Ila-kabkabu had been an Amorite king not of Assur (Aššur) (in Assyria) but of Ekallatum. According to the "Mari Eponyms Chronicle," Ila-kabkabu seized Shuprum (c. 1790 BC), then Shamshi-Adad I "entered his father's house" (Shamshi-Adad I succeeded Ila-kabkabu as the king of Ekallatum, in the following year.) Šamši-Adad I had been forced to flee to Babylon (c. 1823 BC) while Narām-Sîn of Eshnunna (fl. c. 1850 BC – c. 1816 BC) had attacked Ekallatum. Shamshi-Adad I had remained in exile until the death of Naram-Sin of Eshnunna (c. 1816 BC.) The AKL records that Shamshi-Adad I "went away to Babylonia in the time of Naram-Sin." Shamshi-Adad I did not return until retaking Ekallatum, pausing for some time, and then overthrowing King Erishum II of Assur (fl. c. 1815 BC – c. 1809 BC) Shamshi-Adad I conquered Assur and emerged as the first Amorite king of Assyria (c. 1808 BC) Shamshi-Adad I attempted to legitimize his position on the Assyrian throne by claiming descent from Ushpia (an early native Assyrian king who fl. c. 2050 BC – c. 2030 BC). Although regarded as an Amorite by later Assyrian tradition, earlier archaeologists assumed that Shamshi-Adad I had indeed been a native Assyrian. Ushpia was the second last in the section "kings who lived in tents" of the AKL, however; Ushpia has not been confirmed by contemporary artifacts. Ushpia is succeeded on the AKL by his son Apiashal (fl. c. 2030 BC – c. 2027 BC). Apiashal was a monarch of the Early Period of Assyria, according to the AKL. Apiashal is listed within the section of the AKL as the last of whom "altogether seventeen kings, tent dwellers." This section shows marked similarities to the ancestors of the First Babylonian dynasty. Apiashal is also listed within a section of the AKL as the first of the ten "kings whose fathers are known". This section (which in contrast to the rest of the list) had been written in reverse order—beginning with Aminu (fl. c. 2003 BC – c. 2000 BC) and ending with Apiashal "altogether ten kings who are ancestors"—has often been interpreted as the list of ancestors of Shamshi-Adad I. In keeping with this assumption, scholars have inferred that the original form of the AKL had been written (among other things) as an "attempt to justify that Shamshi-Adad I was a legitimate ruler of the city-state Assur and to obscure his non-Assyrian antecedents by incorporating his ancestors into a native Assyrian genealogy." However, this interpretation has not been accepted universally; the "Cambridge Ancient History" rejected this interpretation and instead interpreted the section as being that of the ancestors of Sulili[6] (fl. c. 2000 BC). In the city-state Assur, Shamshi-Adad I held the title "Governor of Assur." Stone tablets with Akkadian inscriptions (formatted in three columns and a one hundred and thirty-five lines, from Shamshi-Adad I) have been found near the temple of the god Assur. Archaeology supports this claim because excavations of the temple of Assur show that many bricks and objects inside have the inscription "Shamshi-Adad I, Builder of the Temple of Assur" carved into them. In this inscription he claimed to have been "King of the Universe" and "Unifier of the Land Between Tigris and Euphrates." He asserted that the king of the Upper Land had paid tribute to him and that he had built the temple of Enlil. He outlined the market prices of that time as being one shekel of silver being worth two kor of barley, fifteen minas of wool, or two seahs of oil. Conquests Shamshi-Adad I took over the long-abandoned town of Shekhna (today known as Tell Leilan), converted it into the capital city of the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia, and then renamed it Šubat-Enlil (meaning "the residence of the god Enlil" in the Akkadian language) c. 1808 BC. During his reign, the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia competed for power in Lower Mesopotamia against: King Naram-Sin of Eshnunna (who died c. 1816 BC), Naram-Sin's successors, and Yahdun-Lim of Mari. A main target for expansion was the city of Mari, which controlled the caravan route between Anatolia and Mesopotamia. King Yahdun-Lim of Mari (fl. c. 1800 BC – c. 1700 BC) was assassinated by his own servants (possibly on Shamshi-Adad I's orders.) The heir to the throne of Mari, Zimri-Lim, was forced to flee to Yamhad. Shamshi-Adad I seized the opportunity and occupied Mari c. 1795 BC. He placed his sons (Ishme-Dagan I and Yasmah-Adad) in key geographical locations and gave them responsibility to look over those areas. Shamshi-Adad I put his eldest son (Ishme-Dagan I) on the throne of Ekallatum, while Shamshi-Adad I remained in Šubat-Enlil. Shamshi-Adad I put his second son, Yasmah-Adad, on the throne in Mari. With the annexation of Mari, Shamshi-Adad I had carved out a large empire encompassing much of Syria, Anatolia, and the whole of Upper Mesopotamia (this empire often referred to as either the "Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia" or the "Upper Mesopotamian Empire".) Shamshi-Adad I proclaimed himself as "King of All" (the title had been used by Sargon of the Akkadian Empire c. 2334 BC – c. 2279 BC). King Dadusha of Eshnunna (fl. c. 1800 BC – c. 1779 BC), made an alliance with Shamshi-Adad I to conquer the area between the two Zab rivers c. 1781 BC. This military campaign of joint forces was commemorated on a victory stele which states that Dadusha gave the lands to Shamshi-Adad I. Shamshi-Adad I later turned against Dadusha by attacking cities including Shaduppum and Nerebtum. On inscriptions Shamshi-Adad I boasts of erecting triumphal stelae on the coast of the Mediterranean, but these probably represent short expeditions rather than any attempts at conquest. His campaigns were meticulously planned, and his army knew all the classic methods of siegecraft, such as encircling ramparts and battering rams. Family See also: Ishme-Dagan I and Yasmah-Adad While Ishme-Dagan I was probably a competent ruler, his brother Yasmah-Adad appears to have been a man of weak character; something the disappointed father (Shamshi-Adad I) was not above mentioning: "Are you a child, not a man, have you no beard on your chin?" Shamshi-Adad I wrote in another letter: "While here your brother is victorious, down there you lie about among the women." Shamshi-Adad I clearly kept a firm control on the actions of his sons, as shown in his many letters to them. At one point he arranged a political marriage between Yasmah-Adad to Beltum, the princess of his ally in Qatna. Yasmah-Adad already had a leading wife and had put Beltum in a secondary position of power. Shamshi-Adad I did not approve and forced his son to keep Beltum in the palace in a leading position. Shamshi-Adad I sent a letter on a tablet to Ishi-Addu (Beltum's father, the King of Qatna) in which he discussed their alliance, the attacks of their enemies, and the successful marriage between their children. In it Shamshi-Adad I wrote: "I heard that you gladly dispatched my daughter-in-law on a safe way back to me, that you treated my servants when they stayed with you well, and that they were not hindered at all. My heart is very happy." Reign Shamshi-Adad I was a great organizer and he kept firm controls on all matters of state, from high policy down to the appointing of officials and the dispatching of provisions. Spies and propaganda were often used to win over rival cities. He allowed conquered territories to maintain some of their earlier practices. In Nineveh he used state resources to rebuild the Ishtar temple. The local rulers of the city Qattara maintained authority (but became vassals) when they were incorporated into the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia. User of these Assyrian Eponym dating system was enforced throughout the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia in cities such as: Mari, Tuttul, Terqa, and the capital city Šubat-Enlil. Fall Shamshi-Adad I continued to strengthen his kingdom throughout his life, but as he got older, the state became more vulnerable and the neighboring great powers Yamkhad and Eshnunna began attacking. The empire lacked cohesion and was in a vulnerable geographical position. Naturally, Shamshi-Adad I's rise to glory earned him the envy of neighboring kings and tribes, and throughout his reign, he and his sons faced several threats to their control. After the death of Shamshi-Adad I, Eshnunna captured cities around Assur. When the news of Shamshi-Adad I's death spread, his old rivals set out to topple his sons from the throne. Yasmah-Adad was soon expelled from Mari] by Zimri-Lim (fl. c. 1775 BC – c. 1761 BC), and the rest of the empire was eventually lost during the reigns of Išme-Dagān I and Mut-Ashkur (fl. c. 1730 BC – c. 1720 BC) to another Amorite ruler, Hammurabi of Babylon (fl. c. 1810 BC – c. 1750 BC)
  10. Title: Wikiwand: Shamshi-Adad IV
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Shamshi-Adad_IV;
    Note: Šamši-Adad IV, inscribed "šam-ši-dIM," was the king of Assyria, 1054/3–1050 BC, the 91st to be listed on the "Assyrian Kinglist." He was a son of Tukultī-apil-Ešarra I (1114–1076 BC), the third to have taken the throne, after his brothers Ašarēd-apil-Ekur and Ashur-bel-kala, and he usurped the kingship from the latter’s son, the short-reigning Erība-Adad II (1055–1054 BC). It is quite probable that he was fairly elderly when he seized the throne. Biography The Assyrian kinglist recalls that he "came up from Karduniaš (i.e. Babylonia). He ousted Erība-Adad, son of Aššur-bêl-kala, seized the throne and ruled for 4 years." The king of Babylon was Adad-apla-iddina, who had been installed more than a decade earlier by Šamši-Adad’s brother, Ashur-bel-kala. The extent to which he was instrumental in the succession is uncertain but it seems that Šamši-Adad may have earlier sought refuge in exile in the south. The "Synchronistic Kinglist" gives Ea-, presumed to be Ea-mukin-zēri (c. 1008 BC), as his Babylonian contemporary, an unlikely pairing as he was likely to have been concurrent with the latter kings of the 2nd dynasty of Isin during its dying throes. The political events of his reign are obscure and his fragmentary inscriptions are limited to commemorating renovation work carried out on the Ištar temple at Nineveh and the "bīt nāmeru," "gate-tower," at Aššur. He would be succeeded by his son, Aššur-naṣir-apli I. Inscriptions 1. ^ "Khorsabad Kinglist," tablet IM 60017 (excavation nos.: DS 828, DS 32-54), iv 1–4. 2. ^ "SDAS Kinglist," tablet IM 60484, iii 33–36. 3. ^ "Synchronistic Kinglist,: Ass 14616c (KAV 216), iii 3.
  11. Title: Wikiwand: Syria
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Syria;
    Note: Syria (Arabic: "سوريا‎," romanized: "Sūriyā"), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: "الجمهورية العربية السورية‎," romanized: "al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah"), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon to the southwest, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest. A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Syrian Arabs, Kurds, Turkemens, Assyrians, Armenians, Circassians, Mandeans and Greeks. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Isma'ilis, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Yazidis, and Jews. Arabs are the largest ethnic group, and Sunnis the largest religious group. Syria is a unitary republic consisting of 14 governorates and is the only country that politically espouses Ba'athism. It is a member of one international organization other than the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement; it was suspended from the Arab League in November 2011 and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and self-suspended from the Union for the Mediterranean. The name "Syria" historically referred to a wider region, broadly synonymous with the Levant, and known in Arabic as "al-Sham." The modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Aleppo and the capital city Damascus are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. In the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The modern Syrian state was established in the mid-20th century after centuries of Ottoman and a brief period French mandate, and represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Syrian provinces. It gained "de jure"independence as a parliamentary republic on 24 October 1945, when Republic of Syria became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which legally ended the former French Mandate – although French troops did not leave the country until April 1946. The post-independence period was tumultuous, with many military coups and coup attempts shaking the country from 1949 to 1971. In 1958, Syria entered a brief union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic, which was terminated by the 1961 Syrian coup d'état. The republic was renamed into the Arab Republic of Syria in late 1961 after December 1 constitutional referendum, and was increasingly unstable until the 1963 Ba'athist coup d'état, since which the Ba'ath Party has maintained its power. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens. Since March 2011, Syria has been embroiled in an armed conflict, with a number of countries in the region and beyond involved militarily or otherwise. As a result, a number of self-proclaimed political entities have emerged on Syrian territory, including the Syrian opposition, Rojava, Tahrir al-Sham and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Syria is ranked last on the Global Peace Index from 2016 to 2018, making it the most violent country in the world due to the war. The war has killed more than 570,000 people, caused 7.6 million internally displaced people (July 2015 UNHCR estimate) and over 5 million refugees (July 2017 registered by UNHCR), making population assessment difficult in recent years. Etymology Main article: Name of Syria Several sources indicate that the name "Syria" is derived from the 8th century BC Luwian term "Sura/i," and the derivative ancient Greek name: "Σύριοι," "Sýrioi," or "Σύροι," "Sýroi," both of which originally derived from Aššūrāyu (Assyria) in northern Mesopotamia. However, from the Seleucid Empire (323–150 BC), this term was also applied to The Levant, and from this point the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favors the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate "Ἀσσυρία," "Assyria," ultimately derived from the Akkadian "Aššur." The Greek name appears to correspond to Phoenician "šr," "Assur," ʾ"šrym," "Assyrians," recorded in the 8th century BC Çineköy inscription. The area designated by the word has changed over time. Classically, Syria lies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, between Arabia to the south and Asia Minor to the north, stretching inland to include parts of Iraq, and having an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including, from west to east, Commagene, Sophene, and Adiabene. By Pliny's time, however, this larger Syria had been divided into a number of provinces under the Roman Empire (but politically independent from each other): Judaea, later renamed Palaestina in AD 135 (the region corresponding to modern-day Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and Jordan) in the extreme southwest; Phoenice (established in 194 AD) corresponding to modern Lebanon, Damascus and Homs regions; Coele-Syria (or "Hollow Syria") south of the Eleutheris river, and Iraq. History Main article: History of Syria Ancient antiquity Since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of the centers of Neolithic culture (known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period (PPNB) is represented by rectangular houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps and burnt lime (Vaisselle blanche). Finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age. Archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. Eblaites and Amorites Main articles: Amorite; Ugarit; Ebla; Yamhad; Qatna; and Mari, Syria The earliest recorded indigenous civilization in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, northern Syria. Ebla appears to have been founded around 3500 BC, and gradually built its fortune through trade with the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Assyria, and Akkad, as well as with the Hurrian and Hattian peoples to the northwest, in Asia Minor. Gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Ebla's contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is a trading agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c. 2300 BC. Scholars believe the language of Ebla to be among the oldest known written Semitic languages after Akkadian. Recent classifications of the Eblaite language have shown that it was an East Semitic language, closely related to the Akkadian language. Ebla was weakened by a long war with Mari, and the whole of Syria became part of the Mesopotamian Akkadian Empire after Sargon of Akkad and his grandson Naram-Sin's conquests ended Eblan domination over Syria in the first half of the 23rd century BC. By the 21st century BC, Hurrians settled the northern east parts of Syria while the rest of the region was dominated by the Amorites, Syria was called the Land of the Amurru (Amorites) by their Assyro-Babylonian neighbors. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages. Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia. Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet, considered to be the world's earliest known alphabet. The Ugaritic kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC in what was known as the Late Bronze Age Collapse which saw similar kingdoms and states witness the same destruction at the hand of the Sea Peoples. Yamhad (modern Aleppo) dominated northern Syria for two centuries, although Eastern Syria was occupied in the 19th and 18th centuries BC by the Old Assyrian Empire ruled by the Amorite Dynasty of Shamshi-Adad I, and by the Babylonian Empire which was founded by Amorites. Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states and the Euphrates Valley down to the borders with Babylon. The army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam (modern Iran). Yamhad was conquered and destroyed, along with Ebla, by the Indo-European Hittites from Asia Minor circa 1600 BC. From this time, Syria became a battle ground for various foreign empires, these being the Hittite Empire, Mitanni Empire, Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire, and to a lesser degree Babylonia. The Egyptians initially occupied much of the south, while the Hittites, and the Mitanni, much of the north. However, Assyria eventually gained the upper hand, destroying the Mitanni Empire and annexing huge swathes of territory previously held by the Hittites and Babylon. Arameans and Phoenicians Main articles: Arameans, Syro-Hittite states, and Phoenicia Around the 14th century BC, various Semitic peoples appeared in the area, such as the semi-nomadic Suteans who came into an unsuccessful conflict with Babylonia to the east, and the West Semitic speaking Arameans who subsumed the earlier Amorites. They too were subjugated by Assyria and the Hittites for centuries. The Egyptians fought the Hittites for control over western Syria; the fighting reached its zenith in 1274 BC with the Battle of Kadesh. The west remained part of the Hittite empire until its destruction c. 1200 BC, while eastern Syria largely became part of the Middle Assyrian Empire, who ..
  12. Title: Wikiwand: Ashur-resh-ishi I
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ashur-resh-ishi_I;
    Note: Aššur-rēša-iši I, inscribed "aš-šur-SAG-i-ši" and meaning "Aššur has lifted my head," c. 1133–1116 BC, son of Mutakkil-Nusku, was a king of Assyria, the 86th to appear on the Assyrian King List and ruled for 18 years. The "Synchronistic King List" and its fragmentary copies give him as a contemporary of the Babylonian kings Ninurta-nādin-šumi, c. 1132–1126 BC, Nebuchadnezzar I, c. 1126–1103 BC, and Enlil-nādin-apli, c. 1103–1100 BC, although the last of these is unlikely if the current chronology favored is followed. Biography His royal titles included "merciless hero in battle, crusher of the enemies of Aššur, strong shackle binding the insubmissive, one who puts the insubordinate to flight, …murderer of the extensive army of the Ahlamȗ (and) scatterer of their forces, the one who … defeats the lands of […], the Lullubû, all the Qutu and their entire mountainous region and subdues them at his feet…" He styled himself "mutēr gimilli māt Aššur," "avenger of Assyria,” and seems to have directed his earlier campaigns to the east, as a broken chronicle records his campaign staged from Erbil into the disputed Zagros mountains where his shock troops (ḫurādu) encountered the Babylonian king Ninurta-nādin-šumi, here called Ninurta-nādin-"šumāti," whose forces characteristically "fled," a recurring motif in Assyrian accounts of their relationship with their southern neighbor. Pressures from the west, however, were to draw Aššur-rēša-iši’s attention, and that of his successors’, as the widespread ("rapšāti") hordes of Ahlamȗ nomadic tribesmen were driven by the deprivations of climate change into the Assyrian hinterland. Here he may also have encountered Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur, who like him claimed victories against the Amorite lands and the Lullubû. The "Synchronistic History" has a lengthy passage concerning his conflicts with Nebuchadnezzar I. Initially they established an amicable relationship. However the Babylonian king subsequently besieged the Assyrian fortress of Zanqi and when Aššur-rēša-iši approached with his relief force, Nebuchadnezzar I torched his siege engines ("nēpešū") to prevent their capture and withdrew. On a second campaign, he laid siege to the fortress of Idi and the arrival of the Assyrian army resulted in a pitched battle in which he "brought about his total defeat, slaughtered his troops and carried off his camp. Forty of his chariots with harness were taken away and Karaštu, Nebuchadnezzar I's field-marshal, was captured." The later king Šulmānu-ašarēdu III credited him with rebuilding the city wall of Assur in his own rededication. His own brick inscriptions from the same city identify him as builder of the temple of the gods Adad and An, Ištar of Assyria and Aššur. He built a palace in Bumariyah, ancient "Apqu ša Adad," as witnessed by a baked brick inscription. His most significant construction efforts were witnessed at his capital, Nineveh, the location of his palace, the "Egalšaḫulla" ("The Palace of Joyfulness"), where he rebuilt the tower-gates of the temple of Ishtar which had been damaged by earthquakes during the earlier reigns of Šulmānu-ašarēdu I (c. 1274–1245 BC) and Aššur-dān I (c. 1179 to 1134 BC), the latter being his grandfather. These were flanked by monumental statues of lions. His palace edict concerning men fraternizing with palace women gives the penalty of execution, with silent witnesses considered a party to the event and punished by being thrown into an oven. The sequence of limmu officials in the eponym dating system is not known, as column 2 of the only extant list is damaged at this point. He was succeeded by his son, Tukultī-apil-Ešarra I. Inscriptions 1. ^ Assyrian King List’s: Nassouhi, iv 4, 6; Khorsabad, iii 37, 39; SDAS, iii 23, 25. 2. ^ On king list: 18 MUmeš šarru-ta īpušuš. 3. ^ "Synchronistic King List," tablet excavation number Ass. 14616c (KAV 216), ii 14–16. 4. ^ "Synchronistic King List fragment," tablet VAT 11261 (KAV 10), i 5. 5. ^ "Synchronistic King List" fragment, tablet VAT 11338 (KAV 12), 3f. 6. ^ Assyrian Chronicle Fragment 3, known as the “Chronicle of Aššur-reš-iši.” 7. ^ Kudurru BM 90858, BBSt 6 grant to LAK-ti Marduk. 8. ^ "Synchronistic History," ii 1–13.
  13. 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..
  14. Title: Wikiwand: Akkadian language
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Akkadian_language;
    Note: Akkadian (/əˈkeɪdiən/ "akkadû," "𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑," "ak-ka-du-u2"; logogram: "𒌵𒆠," "URIKI") is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa and Babylonia) from the third millennium BC until its gradual replacement by Akkadian-influenced Old Aramaic among Mesopotamians by the 8th century BC. It is the earliest attested Semitic language. It used the cuneiform script, which originally was used to write the unrelated, and also extinct, Sumerian (which is a language isolate). Akkadian is named after the city of Akkad, a major center of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334–2154 BC). The mutual influence between Sumerian and Akkadian had led scholars to describe the languages as a "Sprachbund." Akkadian proper names were first attested in Sumerian texts from around the mid 3rd-millennium BC. From about the 25th or 24th century BC, texts fully written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the 10th century BC, two variant forms of the language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively. The bulk of preserved material is from this later period, corresponding to the Near Eastern Iron Age. In total, hundreds of thousands of texts and text fragments have been excavated, covering a vast textual tradition of mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, correspondence, political and military events, and many other examples. Akkadian (in its Assyrian and Babylonian varieties) was the native language of the Mesopotamian empires (Akkadian Empire, Old Assyrian Empire, Babylonia, Middle Assyrian Empire) throughout the later Bronze Age, and Akkadian became the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East by the time of the Bronze Age collapse. Its decline began duing the Iron Age, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, by about the 8th century BC (Tiglath-Pileser III), in favor of Old Aramaic. By the Hellenistic period, the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD. Mandaic and Assyrian are two (Northwest Semitic) Neo-Aramaic languages that retain some Akkadian vocabulary and grammatical features. Akkadian is a fusional language with grammatical case; and like all Semitic languages, Akkadian uses the system of consonantal roots. The Kültepe texts, which were written in Old Assyrian, include Hittite loanwords and names that constitute the oldest record of any Indo-European language.
  15. Title: Wikiwand: Tiglath-Pileser I
    Author: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Publication: Name: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Tiglath-Pileser_I;
    Note: Tiglath-Pileser I (/ˈtɪɡləθ paɪˈliːzər, -ˌlæθ, pɪ-/; from the Hebraic form of Akkadian: 𒆪𒋾𒀀𒂍𒈗𒊏, romanized: "Tukultī-apil-Ešarra," "my trust is in the son of Ešarra") was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian period (1114–1076 BC). According to Georges Roux, Tiglath-Pileser was "one of the two or three great Assyrian monarchs since the days of Shamshi-Adad I." He was known for his "wide-ranging military campaigns, his enthusiasm for building projects, and his interest in cuneiform tablet collections." Under him, Assyria became the leading power of the Ancient Near East, a position the kingdom largely maintained for the next five hundred years. He expanded Assyrian control into Anatolia and Syria, and to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. From his surviving inscriptions, he seems to have carefully cultivated a fear of himself in his subjects and in his enemies alike. The beginning of Tiglath-Pileser's I reign, laid heavy involvement in military campaigns, as suggested from translated texts from the Middle Assyrian period. The texts were believed to be "justification of war." Although little literary text is available from the time of Tiglath-Pieser I, there is evidence to show that the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I inspired the act of recording information, including that of his military campaigns. Toward the end of Tiglath-Pileser's reign literary texts took the form of “summary texts” which served as a vessel for as much information about his reign as possible, with the intent to be handed down to his successor. Campaigns The son of Ashur-resh-ishi I, he ascended to the throne in 1115 BC, and became one of the greatest of Assyrian conquerors. Tiglath-Pileser I referred to himself as "unrivalled king of the universe, king of the four quarters, king of all princes, lord of lords… whose weapons the god Assur has sharpened and whose name he has pronounced eternally for control of the four quarters… splendid flame which covers the hostile land like a rain storm" Alongside this view of himself, he emphasized the brutality of his takeover of numerous lands, and was the first Assyrian king to claim hostages, occasionally children, as a political instrument against conquered peoples. His first campaign was against the Mushku in 1112 BC, who had occupied certain Assyrian districts in the Upper Euphrates; then he overran Commagene and eastern Cappadocia, and drove the Hittites from the Assyrian province of Subartu, northeast of Malatia. In a subsequent campaign, the Assyrian forces penetrated into the mountains south of Lake Van and then turned westward to receive the submission of Malatia. In his fifth year, Tiglath-Pileser attacked Comana in Cappadocia, and placed a record of his victories engraved on copper plates in a fortress he built to secure his Cilician conquests. The Aramaeans of northern Syria were the next targets of the Assyrian king, who made his way as far as the sources of the Tigris. It is said from an Assyrian relief that he campaigned against the Arameans 28 times during his reign from 1115 to 1077 BC. The control of the high road to the Mediterranean was secured by the possession of the Hittite town of Pitru at the junction between the Euphrates and Sajur; thence he proceeded to "Gubal" (Byblos), Sidon, and finally to Arvad where he embarked onto a ship to sail the Mediterranean, on which he killed a "nahiru" or "sea-horse" (which A. Leo Oppenheim translates as a narwhal) in the sea. He was passionately fond of the chase and was also a great builder. The general view is that the restoration of the temple of the gods Ashur and Hadad at Assyrian capital of Assur was one of his initiatives. It is also believed he was one of the first Assyrian kings to commission parks and gardens with foreign trees and plants. The latter part of his reign seems to have been a period of retrenchment, as Aramaean tribesmen put pressure on his realm. He died in 1076 BC and was succeeded by his son Asharid-apal-Ekur. The later kings Ashur-bel-kala and Shamshi-Adad IV were also his sons. Annals & Texts Tiglath-Pileser's I inscriptions from his "fifth year annals" varied in form, from inscriptions on prisms to cuneiform inscriptions on tablets. A.0.87.i (or "RIMA 2") was inscribed on a multiple 8-sided prisms and included 6 military campaigns that Marco De Odorico affirms as easily identifiable given that "the subdivision of paragraphs by horizontal lines... as well as the introduction begin with 'in my succession year'." Considering that much of Tiglath-Pileser I's reign involved military campaigns, it is unsurprising that most of his literary texts would include such information as "Altogether I conquered 42 lands and their rulers from the other side of the Lower Zab in distant mountainous regions to the other side of the Euphrates, people of Hatti, and the Upper Sea in the west – from my accession year to my fifth regnal year." Tiglath-Pileser I's prism was essentially a year-by-year layout of his military campaigns, and today is considered one of the world's first- preserved annals, showing it in excellent condition. Returning From the Campaigns Tiglath-Pileser I's annals contain military campaign documentation, as well as other information such as what Tiglath-Pileser I would bring back in an early form of tribute, from the various locations he showed military strength over. Once returned from a successful war campaign Tiglath-Pileser I is said to have had statues of the various animals he had come into contact with as well as hunted. From the translated annals text, it is said that Tiglath-Pileser I had "2 nāhirū (horse of the sea) sculptures, 4 burhiš sculptures, 4 lions constructed of basalt, 2 bull colossi made of alabaster, 2 burhiš sculptures made of white limestone and had them set up at the gates in the City of Ashur." These statues were mainly used to decorate the "royal entrance," a practice that was taken up by Tiglath-Pileser I's son Aššur-bel-kala after his father's passing. In addition to erecting statues of animals his people had never seen, Tiglath-Pileser I returned from some war campaigns with the living animals themselves, including calves of wild bulls as well as elephants.
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